Welcome to the world, Madison!

Madison Grace Evans was born on June 17, 2008 at 6:03pm. She weighed 8 lbs, 11 oz, and was 18.5 inches long. After a short, and what started off to be grueling labor, Madison's delivery was what most moms could only dream of!

Ashley and Justin arrived at Scripps Encinitas yesterday at 7am. She started getting induced at 9:30. For several hours she had steady but weak contractions (on a scale of 1-10 she said they were a 4). We thought it was still a waiting game.

At 2:30, just as her doctor arrived, her water broke on its own. That's when it hit her like a ton of bricks. She now says, "Those contractions before weren't a 4. They were a 0...then they became a 12." She immediately asked for Epidural. The anesthesiologist arrived right away, and we all (myself, my parents, and Justin's parents) left the room thinking we'd be right back in. Over an hour later we still had no news of what was going on. Apparently the anesthesiologist had a hard time getting the epidural into her back, and the FIFTH time was a charm. Meanwhile, between tries to get the needle in, she was having extremely painful contractions. She was pretty much ready to go without the medication. But finally, it worked, she became numbed, and as she told me later, "Remember... Epidural = GOOD!" Once she was numb it was the extreme opposite. The contractions got stronger, but she couldn't even feel them!

After only 3 hours she was already dilated to 9 cm. She was off the inducing drug, too (Pitocin). Around 5:30 the nurse asked us to leave and was going to check her again to see if she was close to fully dilated yet. We went to the waiting room, and after a half hour we thought we'd check in to see what was going on. The nurse walked down the hall and said, "It's all done." "Good, all done checking." we thought. "The baby is beautiful." the nurse said. "WHAT?! She's had the baby? It's only been half an hour!"

As Ashley and Justin later explained it, when the nurse was checking the last time how dilated she was, she told Ash, "Wow, her head is RIGHT here. Why don't you try pushing for practice." So she did. "WAIT...STOP...let's wait for the doctor. She's coming!" Doc arrived within 5 minutes, she gave a few good pushes, and the doctor was able to pull her out the rest of the way. And voila, you have the most beautiful baby EVER! (Sorry to those of you who have babies, but seriously, look at her!)

And that, my friends, is the greatest baby delivery of all time. Total ACTUAL delivery time was about 15 minutes. Actual labor since her water broke: 3-1/2 hours. Mom, Dad, and Maddie are doing great!

Tidbits of info from Auntie Jayma:
* Maddie will be growing fast...wow can that girl eat! Her first feeding was over an hour. She took to breastfeeding very easily.
* Her feet are already huge! She's definitely her mother's child :)
* She definitely knows her daddy's voice. When she starts crying, Justin sings to her and she calms down. He sang to her in the womb every night.
* She likes to stick her knuckle of her index finger in her mouth. She started doing it right away. She must have been doing it in the womb.
* She liked the warm water from her first bath on her head, but she didn't like the rest of her body being cleaned.
* She's already very curious and opens her eyes and looks around a lot. She likes being swaddled, but she also enjoys it when she's free...she moves her arms and everything all around!
* She's the most amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, perfect little person I've ever seen! I can't wait to spoil her!!!!
* You thought I talked about Oslo a lot...just wait...you haven't seen anything yet! ;)