Welcome Lila Joy

Lila Joy Vander Griend entered the world at 3:05 AM on Saturday, August 22, 2009. She weighed 6 lbs 6 0z, 22 inches long, and has a head circumference of 33 cm. I experienced a slow rupture of my water bag at around 5:00 PM on Friday the 21st. Thank goodness my mom was with me because I was totally second guessing what was going on, but she knew that this was the real deal. So Don and I arrived at the hospital at around 7:00 PM and I was 3 cm dilated. They induced me at 9:45 PM with pitocin to speed up the labor process since my water bag had ruptured. I then proceeded to get one of 2 epidurals. The same thing happened with Lucy where I had to get two epidurals before it worked. The first epidural just numbed one side of my body and I ended up going to 7 cm before the second one worked. Boy was that a relief when it did. The labor went fairly smoothly except for when my blood pressure dropped really low and I experienced the worst nausea ever and thought I was going to lose my mind. But once they were able to bring my blood pressure up I felt much better. I only had to push for 35 minutes, which was actually longer than I did with Lucy. Don, my mom, sister, and dad (who had a restricted viewing position) were all in the room and it was so incredible to share the labor experience with them. We feel so blessed to have another healthy baby girl and are fortunate that the delivery went as smoothly as it did.


Don trying out the birthing ball to kill some time.

The moment I saw our new little girl.