Hello, Sofia!

Sofia Gladman Artal made her way into the world just after midnight on Friday, May 30th. Mother and baby are both doing well, while Daddy is desperately trying to figure out how to edit hundreds of baby photos while changing diapers, burping the new baby, and going home twice a day to feed and medicate the cat. I have managed to get a few uploaded to Facebook, though, and you can take a look at them there.

In the end, Sofia arrived as a cesarean, since she was already more than a week overdue and there were some signs that waiting any longer might be dangerous, according to the non-stress tests and fetal monitors. We had gone to the doctor for the second checkup of the day, when he looked at the monitor printout and said "we're going to the hospital." After a couple more hours of more detailed monitoring, it became clear that although the contractions were progressing, she wasn't showing any signs of engaging, so a cesarean was the only reasonable option. An hour's worth of prep later and we were in the delivering room, where they handed her to us, apparently safe and sound. The only problem so far seems to be that she has her schedule reversed, so she tries to sleep all day and stay up all night, making for some seriously sleep-deprived parents. Over the next few days we should be able to change that, though, and everything else seems to be going well. With any luck she'll make the trip home sometime tomorrow afternoon, and a whole new adventure will begin.