Tri-fecta!!

Introducing Clara Lillian born on October 14, 2009 - weighing in at 8 pounds, 1 ounce and 21 inches long!!! This little sweetheart was brought into the world with tons of joy and excitement (and very little pain :)) at 12:51 pm.

C's original due date was Oct. 18 but with the size of E (10 pounds even) and an ultrasound that was measuring her full term at 37 weeks we decided to go ahead and induce. Russ and I got the call from the hospital at 7:30 in the evening to head in to the hospital which, as you can only imagine, was not great timing as two little girls were in the tub, wanted their normal bedtime routine and were completely thrown off by mom and dad leaving for the night. But Grandma Sandy had come up for the night and stayed with the girls while we started our journey in meeting this little baby.

To our surprise, once we got checked in at the hospital the Dr. called with orders and didn't want to do much until the morning. A little disappointing to say the least but we knew whatever happened would be well worth it in the end! They started me on a low dose of pitocin that evening and then didn't do much the rest of the night. Russ and I tried to get some rest and at 6am we got the party started...things went smoothly and once they broke my water, administered an epidural and about 10 minutes of pushing resulted in the Cottle Tri-fecta!! Our third little girl was born!

By an interesting twist of fate, Grandpa L was our only family representation in Labor and Delivery!  It turns out he was in between job sites and stopped by to see how things were going. It was so special for us to have him at the hospital waiting to meet our new baby.  We've always had lots of family anxiously waiting at the hospital for the arrival of our sweet babies, but this time around the girls required some family help :)  Grandma and Poppy were at home with E, Grandma L was on a field trip to the pumpkin patch with J, the Barrett family was at school/work and the Schwab family (who were able to plan a special trip to STL around the time C was due) was in KC visiting some friends.  So....while most of the family was busy during the day, it was only a matter of hours until C had met almost her entire family. 

J and E have been fantastic big sisters and we can't wait to see what our new addition brings to the family :)