Violet Grace Hancock

The newest member of our family is here!  Violet was born on Friday, March 6th at 7:33 AM.  She weighed 9 lbs 2 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long.

I started having contractions the morning of March 5th and timed them all day.  They came and went...sometimes they were closer together, sometimes further apart.  I wasn't sure if I was really in labor or if it was a false alarm, but I let my mom know, and she decided to go ahead and come spend the night at our house so that she would be here if we needed to go in to the hospital that night.

By 10:00 that evening, my contractions weren't really consistent, but were fairly frequent, so we had to decide if we would go to bed or go to the hospital.  We decided to go to bed :)  The contractions slowed down while we were sleeping, but still came every now and then.  Then around 4:00 the next morning they really started to pick up.  

This is right before we went to bed.  Just ignore the mess in the playroom :)

We got up and headed to the hospital around 5:00.  When we got there I was already almost fully dilated.  I was hoping to wait for Dr. Shelley to deliver the baby, but the doctor who was on call told me that she was going to be in late that morning, so after waiting for a little while we decided to let the on-call doctor break my water.  Violet was born within 15 minutes!

The delivery went smoothly, but Violet had to go to the nursery soon after because they needed to monitor her breathing.  After watching her for an hour or so they said that everything was fine, so she was able to join us in our room again.

She was a good eater from the start, and was very awake and aware on her first day of life.  Henry and Cora came with my parents to meet Violet soon after she came back to our room.

Henry was excited and loved her right away.  It took Cora a little while to warm up and figure out what was going on, but once she did (especially by the second day), she was very excited about her new baby sister.

We came back home Saturday afternoon.  We have all enjoyed having everyone at home together.  We are still (Cora especially) figuring out the transition to having another member of the family, but we are so grateful for this sweet new little life that the Lord has added to us!

Welcome to our family, Violet Grace!  We are so glad you're here!