Fearfully and Wonderfully Made!!!

This afternoon at 12:30, the Lord blessed us with a truly amazing gift...our daughter Joelle Lea was brought into this world!!!

a

So here's the story: We came in at midnight last night, checked into our room and went to sleep. The nurse came in at 5 and administered the first capsule to induce labor. It definitely began to work because I started feeling labor pains, contractions, etc.
a

At 9 the doctor came and checked to see how the labor was progressing. I had not dilated any at this point, so he administered another capsule.
a

He came back around 11:30 and I had only dilated to 2 centimeters. He said this was slow, but not rare, especially for first time mothers. He asked if I had felt the baby move a lot, to which I said "no". So he pulled out the heart rate machine to check her heart rate. He discovered that when I wasn't having a contraction, Joelle's heart rate was between 140 and 160 BPM, but during a contraction it dipped all the way down to 60 BPM. He said this was way too low, that she was in distress and we needed to get her out NOW!!!

a

So, as you can imagine, I start freaking out. But, praise the Lord it only took about 15 minutes for the whole thing (spinal block, surgery and delivery) to be completed. Then Scott and I were able to hold our sweet little girl.

a

This has been an incredible (and incredibly challenging) season in our lives, from frustrations due to infertility, to pregnancy in a foreign country, to a rather stressful delivery. But we thank all of you for your prayers, encouragement and support!!! We are now super excited to be beginning another more wonderful phase in our lives!! To God be the glory!