This is the story of a girl.

Despite my last pregnant post (blah, blah, blah, I'm being patient, come whenever you feel like it), I got really impatient (and worried, and anxious, and all that).  I went to see my doctor on Monday the 18th and got the standard "any day now" answer.  "All you need are a few good contractions."  Then he saw a look in my eyes and offered up the induction alternative.  "You name the day."  We named Wednesday, 10/20/2010.  Lauren's due date.

This gave us a day to get all of our ducks in a row.  Pack the boys up, spend hundreds of dollars at Costco, catch up on laundry, close our eyes for a minute or two.   It was the strangest feeling going to bed knowing that we would have a baby tomorrow.  Kevin slept, I spent the night having monstrous contractions. 

We were told to arrive at the hospital at 6:30 am.  We did.  We checked in and we waited.    For four and a half hours we watched the waddlers come in and out.  Pregnant lady after pregnant lady paraded through the lobby and up to Labor and Delivery.  Labor checks, non-stress tests.... everyone who took precedent over my need for pitocin.

Finally, 11:00 am rolled around and it was finally our turn to ride the ride!  The entire front desk staff cheered for us as we made our way upstairs. 

We made our way upstairs to wait some more.  By 6:45 that evening I was hooked up to this, that and the other thing and Lauren was on her way.  We forgot to tell our nurse that I progress very quickly.  My doc was there (not like Keith's delivery when the doctor ran in from the parking lot to catch the baby) but there was still a wave of urgency when I announced that there was pressure. 

At 7:15 pm, Lauren Elizabeth Callahan made her way into the world.  Beautiful, perfect and assertive.  6 lbs 15 oz she was bigger than her brothers. She was undoubtedly our baby, a perfect cross between Patrick and Keith in her earliest hours.  We were instantly and hopelessly in love. 

At that moment our lives shifted.  Suddenly inconsequential things became monumental.  Her lips, her squeaks, a hiccup.....  Kevin stares at her the same way he stared at the boys.  And we were only ten feet outside the when the breathing checks started.  After less than 24 hours Lauren already had her Daddy-given nickname: Baby Lou.  I'm jolted awake to our new reality every time I hear him whisper her nickname.  For a split second I think he's talking to me (Mama Lou) and then I remember and smile to myself.

She's too little for so many things (as Keith points out on the half hour: Can Baby Lauren have gum? cereal? cinnamon rolls?  Can she crawl? swing? ride a bike?).  Still too little to really know who she is to the bottom of her being.  To know her the way I know my boys.  I sense her, I sense a beautiful spirit to match her beautiful features.  But I don't presume to know her beyond who she is today: a gorgeous snugly baby who screams like a girl.

And so her story begins.