Welcome Miss Anderson Regen

With less than a week to go before Baby Fultz arrived, JC and I were in full on baby prep mode.  The nursery had been finished for a few weeks now.  We were just waiting to add the final decorative touches once we found out if Baby Fultz was a boy or a girl.  We had been advised by our Doctor to stay in town as he thought Baby Fultz would likely arrive in the next few days.  With his advice fresh in our minds we went on our last baby-free dinner date.

That Sunday, my parents came to visit and help us clean our house in preparation for bringing home baby.  We had just started cleaning when low and behold my water broke.  Since this was my first baby I wasn't sure if it was actually my water breaking.  I wanted to be sure.  I did not want to be one of the frequent visitors on the OB floor. 

I went upstairs and asked my mom "what does it feels like when your water breaks?"  She, in turn, asked me if I thought my water broke.  I said yes, and told her what was going on.  She thought it was time for baby based on her experience.  My Mom was surprisingly calm, and not overly excited or emotional like I expected her to be.  She had told me earlier in the week that she thought the baby would be here that weekend. 

Last picture of our family of three!

Since my Mom and I thought it was actually baby time I went downstairs to tell JC the news.  He had a look of shock on his face, but was also very calm.  My Dad overheard me telling JC, and was all smiles when I walked down the hallway to inform him as well.

After about an hour, our bags were packed, pictures were taken and makeup was on (I wanted to make sure I looked halfway decent for pictures). 

When we arrived at the hospital, it was confirmed that I was in fact, in labor.  About twelve hours later the Doctor on call (who wasn't our Doctor) arrived and told JC to tell me if our baby was a girl or boy once she finally entered the world. 

The whole experience was so calm and pretty stress-free.  We were extremely lucky that everything was great with Anderson and myself.  I tried very hard to follow the words of advice of our child birth teacher by keeping calm through the experience. 

Looking back over the last year during the process of bringing Anderson into the world, I've come to appreciate and love my family even more.  When we found out that we would be becoming a family of three we were on vacation with my family -- and it was such a challenge to keep the news quiet from them for a few weeks until they somehow got the news out of me during a moment of weakness.  For the grand finale, Anderson's arrival, my parents were here helping JC and I clean our house in preparation for baby when my water broke and also when we brought her home for the first time.  All of these extremely important moments in our lives were made that much more special because we were able to share them with some of the most important people in our lives along with many other family members and friends.