Abigail Joanna Harmon joined our family at 7:31 a.m. on Thursday, March 26, 2009. She weighed 7 lbs 5 ozs, and was 19 inches long. She had apgar scores of 8 and 9, and was a perfectly healthy, beautiful baby girl. 

My best friend, Amy, came to Tennessee to be with me for my baby’s birth, and she and I got to the hospital at five a.m. We started the process of getting ready for surgery. I put on the humongous, terribly attractive hospital gown, got hooked up to some monitors, got an i.v. in, and was started on fluids and antibiotics. The antibiotics were because I tested positive for group B strep this time. Christopher showed up around about that point, and he generally acted like a twelve year old. I love him dearly, but I would have kicked him had I not been impeded by tubes and wires. With Amy playing the role of support person, Chris felt free to be his usual sarcastic, troublemaking self. 

I got insanely scared about the time the anesthesiologist came to put my epidural in, and started shaking uncontrollably. I held on to Amy for dear life, and she prayed for me while they stuck enormous needles in my spine. She’s going to make an excellent chaplain some day. Chris generally doesn’t like such things, and he looked kind of happy to have Amy deal with me. He cut out the nonsense at that point, because I was so obviously scared. After the epidural, they put in the catheter.  The anasthesiologist started poking me all over with a needle to see what I could feel and where I could feel it. He decided I was sufficiently numb, and ready to go. My mom and dad got there with little time to spare, and brought my kids in. Kyra gave me a kiss, Owen gave me a strange look, and Elijah stayed on the other side of the room.  Amy gave me a hug, a kiss on the forehead, and promised to pray. This was all to make up for how her and Chris didn’t hug me the last time they were wheeling me off to surgery a year ago until the anasthesiologist prompted them to. (You did good, Amy Jo.)

They whisked me out of the room, and wheeled me to the operating room. I was illogically scared out of my mind. I was shaking uncontrollably. They piled lots of warm blankets on my chest and arms to try to calm my shaking a bit, but it didn’t help much.  After they got me all prepped, they let Chris in the room. He sat behind me, and tried to calm me. He had dropped all of the silly stuff, and had switched into the supportive husband role.  He had his hand on my arm, and I asked him to hold my arm down. My arms were shaking so bad they were starting to hurt from the effort of trying to keep them down on the table. My teeth were chattering so bad I bit my tongue several times. I was very scared and nervous.  Dr. Cadigan came in about that point, and they started doing things on the other side of the curtain. I wasn’t real sure when they started the surgery because they didn’t tell me. Chris leaned close to me, and prayed in my ear. It was very calming, and my shaking finally started to ease a bit. He’s going to be a good chaplain, too.

After a few minutes more than I thought it would take, due to scar tissue from my previous c-sections, I heard someone say, “Baby’s out.” and then Dr. Cadigan announced “It’s a girl.” I heard a totally ticked off cry, as Abigail Joanna made her arrival known. 

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur as I watched them clean her off, weigh and measure her, and diaper her and wrap her up. Chris got to go over and get a closer look. I just watched from a few feet away. I directed Chris to take this picture and that picture, including some of me and a couple of me and him. Even while being stapled back together, I was concerned about having good pictures. Chris got to hold her next to me while they finished taking care of me, and then they wheeled me back to my room. I didn’t have to make a stop in a recovery room, but got to go straight to my regular room.

Once in my room, I finally got to hold my little girl. She was absolutely perfect and beautiful. She had a headfull of dark, nearly black hair with a few blond highlights, and the chubbiest cheeks you could possibly imagine. She was perfect. My wonderful nurse consented to letting all of my visitors come in right away,  and in a minute my room was nearly full. Pastor Tim and Jill, Mom and Dad, all my kiddos, Chris’ mom, and Amy Jo were all there to meet Abby Jo. Kyra was ecstatic, Owen was impressed, and Elijah was barely interested. The grandparents were all over the moon happy about their newest grandbaby. Amy Jo won major best friend points for smiling in the general direction of the baby, and coming straight to my side and sitting on my bed holding my hand. After a few minutes of oohing and ahhing, Pastor Tim held my hand and prayed for me. I was incredibly moved by this. I just love my pastor. Jill, his wife, was crying when he finished praying, and I loved her so much in that moment. She gave me a big hug, and they left. I let everyone hold Abigail, and then I nursed her for the first time. It was just what I had hoped for. I was very, very happy.

Amy Jo stayed with me the entire time I was in the hospital, and took excellent care of me. Chris went home at night, and then came to hang out during the day. With the death of my grandmother, my mom wasn’t able to keep the kids like we originally planned, but Velvet kept them at our house the first night and Chris was home with them at night as well. I had lots of visitors, nearly all of them were people from church. I was so happy when all of my Bible study girls came to visit me during my hospital stay. I felt very, very loved by all the visits, phone calls, and especially by all the prayers I knew my church family and other friends were praying for me.

Abby has been the perfect baby from the very beginning. She doesn’t cry much at all. She’s perfectly content. I am spoiling her like crazy. I hold her all the time. I have yet to try to put her to bed on her own. She has slept on my chest every night since she was born. Knowing for sure that she is my last baby makes me want to savor every moment and every experience. The constant holding is the reason for not blogging before now. It’s hard to type when you’re constantly holding and caressing the most beautiful baby in the world. I’m going to end this post for now, but I intend to blog more about her first days and I will post more pictures and links to my Facebook photos tomorrow. If you aren’t my Facebook friend, you should be.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers, emails, comments, and all the love you’ve sent my way. I love you all…and that’s not just the Percocet talking.