29 hours of labour. But wow, what a reward.

Little Julia may have decided to come 3 days early, but she did not come quickly. The photo below was taken minutes after her birth @ 4:12am on Wednesday May 27th.

Now rewind about 15 hours. Here's a pic of us on the couch, Mark is keeping track of my contactions and it is becoming clear that we must soon head in to the hospital. Can you find Tiger Cat in the picture?

For the most part, things were pretty jolly and upbeat in labour & delivery. Here we are playing around with the disposable "La Senza" underware.

Of course, things got a little more intense as my contractions intensified. Here I am taking in as much nitrous oxide as I can possibly suck while I wait for the epidural. Thank GOODNESS for the epidural. It enabled me to be a coherent human and actually enjoy the birthing experience. There was a period of a few hours when it wore off and I got a taste of life sans-epidural. It was grueling.

Grandma Margaret and Julia meeting each other for the first time:

Auntie Meghan was instrumental in making the labour & delivery as cool as it was. She was excellent at documenting everything.

And of course we have Mark who is above and beyond a "natural daddy." I don't think Julia yet knows that she won the jackpot in landing him as her father. The photo below shows father and daughter dancing around the living room. Julia is 2 days old in the picture.