Kyla Gabrielle is in the house

Well, after a long day of waiting for C to get on with it, she finally did at exactly 11:45 pm and 21.5 seconds on 6/12/07. I know because I took a picture of the clock while we were waiting in the room next door to the delivery room...then moments later...baby crying.

We got constant updates from several nurses and from the doctor and about 20 minutes or so afterwards we were invited by C to come in and meet everyone. As we entered the room, C was holding Kyla in her arms and greeted us with "Hi, mom and dad."

Now, that's cool.

We took some photos with all of us and Rach and I fed her her first meal - a smoothie milkshake. Yum yum. C looked like she had finished vacuuming maybe, but not like she had just delivered a baby. She looked really good and plans to go home early tomorrow. It was kind of a short/strange goodbye as we were kind of ushered out to follow the nurse as she took Kyla for her full bath and checkup. We kind of followed her out the door and wanted to give C a hug, but she was kind of be-tubed and bedded down, and wired up and it felt a little weird so we didn't. It hadn't fully dawned on us until we were exiting the room that this was goodbye (for now only we hope). We actually had a little gift for her, but weren't able to give it to her, there are legal boundaries for gifts to birthmothers and legally nothing has happened yet, so I guess we'll just mail it to her.

C actually put together a wonderful photo album of herself, her pregnancy with Kyla, and her other children. It really is a great thing that Kyla will be able to look at later in life so she knows everything about her birthmother. She was actually quite motherly at that point, giving us the album and saying "This is for your daughter, to give when she can understand it." It was all very zen and appropriate, much like wisdom given by an old chinese man atop a mountain we had just climbed.

We spent about 30 minutes hanging out in the delivery room and taking turns holding Kyla and watching the nurses check her out before we went to watch her bathing and checkup. She passed the hearing test "faster than usual". That's right, this kid has perfect pitch.

We then hung out in a private room with her about 30 more minutes, just the family :) and got better acquainted. Actually, Kyla slept thru the acquainting part quite soundly, but we were awake! We had to give her back for the night, though, she lives in the hospital for 48 hours before she comes home, but we will spend all day tomorrow with her.