Ellie Hope has arrived!!!

Monday morning as we headed to the hospital to have Ellie!

I am so sorry that it's taken so long to get this post up! We have officially been parents for over three days and we are LOVING every minute of it! Yes, even the minutes of no sleep during the night. It's all so wonderful and we couldn't be more in awe of our beautiful baby girl. She truly is a miracle. We just keep looking at her and pinching ourselves. It's so hard to believe the gift that she is... God has been so good to us.

*

Here are the stats: Ellie Hope Johnson was born at 4:12pm on Monday, July 14th. She weighed 7 lbs. 12 oz. and was 20 1/4 inches long! She has a head full of DARK hair! And she is perfect in every way...

*

There were a few bumps in the road on her birthday, but God was so gracious to bring her to us safe and sound. We are very thankful to have had such a wonderful Doctor who was quick to act when needed. Here is a little of her birth story.

*

We headed to the hospital at 7am on Monday morning to be induced (though I had started to go into labor on my own during the night on Sunday! yay!)... We got admitted and started on pitocin at 7:30am to get the contractions coming stronger... Not long after, the doctor broke my water to help speed things up. Throughout the day, Ellie's heartrate kept dropping and so I was taken off of the pitocin to allow the contractions to progress more naturally. I labored "naturally" until 3pm and then the pain got pretty intense, so I went with the epidural! (I would highly recommend this!)... I was like a new person and was actually able to converse with people again... But then 30 minutes later, Ellie's heartrate dropped from 140 down to the 80's and after that, everything happened really fast! My doctor came quickly into our room and said that something was definitely causing Ellie to be in distress and we needed to do an emergency C-section to get her out. So, at 4:12pm, Ellie Hope Johnson made her entrance into the world. She had her cord wrapped around her neck and she was also having trouble fitting through my pelvis...so the doctor said I could have labored for another 6-7 hours and would have ended up with same C-section result. Ellie had also had her first bowel movement in-utero since she was 6 days overdue, so this caused concern...but thankfully her lungs were fine!

*

God answered so many prayers!!! We are so thankful that our little girl is here safe and sound and we have been enjoying adjusting to life as a family of three. Thank you for all your prayers and love throughout our pregnancy and now as Ellie has entered the world!!!