Welcome Baby Anna Marie Smith!

The final member of the Smith pack has finally arrived - Anna Marie Smith was born on August 27, 2008 at 8:38pm. She weighed in at 6lbs 9oz and was 20 inches long. So far it's hard to tell who she looks like, but she does have a resemblance to Matthew. She's sporting the Smith chicken legs and her Dad's mouth, but may have Mom's nose. Not much hair and so far it's light brown.

She was quite anxious to come into the world, with a pretty fast labour once things got going. I was feeling off on the morning of the 27th and warned Chad before lunch that he was on high alert. By lunch time I was having contractions about 30 minutes apart. This continued through the afternoon and I called Chad to boot err home. When the contractions were at 15 minutes, she started to skip some steps and things moved very quickly. We left for the hospital sometime around 6:30 pm and by the time I walked into to be assessed I was in loads of pain and was almost 7 cm along. I promptly requested the epidural; however, very soon after I got the IV (just a few minutes later) I felt the urge to push and was told it was too late (really really not happy about this). Like her brother, Anna did not come down the birth canal in the proper position and had her head coming out sidewise until the very end, which made it very difficult and painful for her poor Mom. Though it was discouraging to seemingly make no progress for a long time, once she turned the corner the doctor barely had time to walk through the door and catch her! So after less than 2 hours in the hospital she made her entrance and we were thrilled to meet her! Pictured above and below are Mom and Dad with baby Anna shortly after the delivery.

She looks even tinier next to her Dad's big hands!

The following morning Anna slept soundly on me for almost 3 hours - she was so peaceful.

More snuggling!

Matthew was so excited to see Baby Sissy - here he is giving her a kiss on the nose. So far he is very proud to be a big brother.

First family picture (minus Riley of coarse...).

More snuggling...Anna is very cuddly so far :-)

Getting ready to go home Thursday night. She is wearing the same outfit Matthew did when we brought him home. Where we didn't know if he was a boy or girl we packed two coming home outfits for him, plus many gender neutral shirts and sleepers for the hospital stay. However, after peeing on everything in the hospital, Matthew had to come home in his girl outfit! We thought it would be fitting for Anna to come home in the same outfit :-) Below is Matthew in it...do you see any resemblance??