Aspen Marie!

This by far was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I've never had the opportunity to be at one of my sisters births, except for my Sister in law Natalie's, which was also amazing, but no one else because they have always lived to far away for me to make it. So since Charity now lives in Las Vegas I told her that no matter what that I would be there for this one! I don't think she thought I was as serious as I was. Lucky for me she had a scheduled induction on Monday morning March 21st at 7:30am! Unlucky for her that she was already 5 days late when she had her.
So Becky and I decided to head down Sunday night to be there for her bright and early Monday morning! We got there and though she was excited to see us wasn't in the best of spirits as you might imagine. She needed to return something to Target for the baby right away...so we headed straight to Target. To my surprise she was running in Target and leaping and being all crazy! I couldn't believe she could still move like that. Very different than with me, I remember dreaming at the end of my pregnancies about what it felt like to wear regular jeans and how it felt to run, funny huh. So this is a picture I took at Target on my phone to send to Spencer and labeled it "About to Pop". She quickly started to cheer up and we were loud and obnoxious like usual. We came home and Becky gave Charity a pedi and I blew out her hair and flat ironed it for her. As you can see in the picture below that we just laughed and laughed and really had a good time!


So Monday morning came quick and we got ready and went to the hospital. This is Charity before changing into her gown.

Already to go...

...and the waiting began....

This is Charity getting mad becuase she thought she looked horrible and didn't want me to take pictures of her. So this is what she gets...on the blog! I think she looks cute!

She was in labor for 8.5 hours...and the nurse kept checking her and checking her and she was barely progressing with the patocin. Then several hours into it the DR. came and broke her water and then things started to speed up a bit.

In the mean time we waited...

and waited...

....and texted...


...and then we got the news that she was at a 10 finally!!!

We got super excited and hyper again after a long day. I got my camera out and Matt and Becky got ready to hold both her legs!! Becky was a little anxious and we all were soooo excited!! She literally pushed for 2 minutes and I think through only one contraction and BAM pops out a perfect beautiful baby girl! It happened so fast and we were all in a little shock and I remember standing there front and center with my mouth dropped open at the miracle of life, and then a few seconds after she came out remembered my duty as the photographer and shot this picture! We all cried and were overwhelmed by the experience! I wasn't grossed out by anything...I thought it was amazing and so did Becky! She weighed 6lbs and 9oz and was 20 inches long. A small baby especially for 5 days late!! What a blessing to have everything go perfectly and to have both mom and baby be healthy and happy!

Then Matt's mom and the kids came...Charity was emotional by seeing her kids with the knew baby and realizing that now she had three kids!!



Jared and Melissa and fam came shortly after the birth.



After the swelling went down a little on Aspen, you could really see her features and I thought that she looked a lot like Jolee! She was perfect and a very beautiful baby girl! Thanks so much to Matt and Charity for sharing that profound experience with me and Becky! We will never forget it!