WORDS!!!

Lyla Grace Hulse

For the first time since Tuesday afternoon, Kim is finally able to get some good rest. But not before she tries to feed Lyla once more and finishes off the last of the 7-layer bar that Mary brought to Kim while she was in surgery. It’s been more than 72 hours since we first arrived at the hospital and the surgeon has just put Kim on a conditional discharge. As long as her temperature doesn’t elevate above 100 at any point today, we can go home at 8:00.

The most important thing is, of course, that baby Lyla is healthy and Kim is having a strong recovery. The actual birth, however, could not have been more different than what we had expected: going from our bedside to the hospital for an epidural, and then into the operating room for a C-section. Our birthing team – daddy, Dawn (midwife) and Michelle (midwife’s assistant) upstairs; Grandma Carol and sisters Liz and Chris downstairs – gave Kim all the support she needed for the 17 plus hours she labored at home before we finally went to Tacoma General. There, Kim was given the anesthesia and dad passed out while Grandma, Dawn and Cami (nurse) worked with Kim for another 5 hours as she continued to do everything within her own power to push baby girl out into this world. At 6 the news came that there was enough concern for the baby’s health as well as mom’s that the hospital staff wanted to go into the operating room. Additionally, Lyla was in an occipitoposterior position, meaning that her head was skewed such that the impossibility of an unassisted birth was all but guaranteed. The cesarean is a much friendlier alternative to the forceps and plunger method that, fortunately, has been phased out of use in births almost entirely.

The vitals on Lyla Grace:

· 9 lbs, 10 oz

· 21 inches

· Full head of dark hair

· Dan’s eyelashes, chin and nose

· Kim’s eyes, cheekbones and hairline (Thanks, Carol, for pointing out the hairline. I never would’ve noticed that myself.)

· The sweetness and lovability of Kim and Dan combined

We want to thank all of you for your encouragement, love, prayers and support throughout this entire experience. We took to adapting a line found at the end of the Dr. Seuss book (Baby, Oh Baby, The Places You’ll Go) that we read to Lyla while she was in utero, depending on the situation. So, in this case, it reads: “And as for Lyla, well, she can’t wait to meet you.”