Abigail Laura Hrach

ITS A GIRL! 

Who would have ever thought? As I was pushing on Valentine's Day, the nurses, doctors and students in the room were taking bets on boy or girl since we are in the 5% of people (not sure of the real stat here) who didn't find out during an ultrasound.  Everyone guessed girl except for Brian and me.  We were both convinced it was a boy.  Well, its a girl and we are so in love!

Abigail Laura Hrach was born at 5:18 pm on Valentine's Day!  What an incredible Valentine.  She weighed 8 lbs and was 19.75 inches long (very similar to Evan's birth stats - he was 8 lbs, 1 oz and 19.5 inches long). 

I'd like to point out is that the Hrachs specialize in holiday deliveries.  Evan was a Thanksgiving Turkey and now Abby is our Sweet Valentine.  We are so blessed.

This birth was nothing like Evan's.  It was way easier and the labor process was much shorter.  Looking back, contractions started around 3:30 am on Valentine's Day.  I actually got up and drove out to work, sat in two meetings and at 10:30 am thought...wow, I should probably start timing these.  Just the fact that I said that to myself, I decided it was time to go home.  Brian met me at home.  At that point the contractions were already 5 minutes apart.  We headed to the hospital at 12:30 pm.  When we arrived, I was already 7 cms!  So the race was on to get fluids in me and get the epidural before I had to start pushing. I'm glad to say that I did and it was well worth it.  Abigail arrived very quickly (let's just say I only spent about 10% of the time pushing with her as I did with Evan). 

As I woke up on Valentine's Day morning, I knew that my mom was coming that afternoon.  Well, when we checked in the hospital and called my mom, we realized that I had the date wrong and she wasn't coming until the following day.  A big shout out to her for changing her plans and getting on a plane to Texas ASAP that afternoon.  And a huge thanks to Ms. Irene for keeping Evan late that evening and feeding him dinner.  And a big thanks to Ruth Ann, our sweet friend from church, for coming over to spend the night with Evan so Daddy could be with Mommy and Abby.  We are lucky to have such wonderful parents.  We are also very thankful to have such wonderful people in our lives who love Evan so much. 

We were able to leave the hospital just about 24 hours after her arrival.  Here are some pictures from the hospital.

Evan's first glimpse.   He was quite scared of Abby at first.  He's still pretty hesitant around her, but getting better everyday.  We think he'll be a great big brother.

Auntie Jo thinks these pictures are classic...so I had to include them.  Bolting away from the baby...

Grandma Candi's first hold.