Elliora Violet was born at 11:20 November 29th! Six pounds, 6 ounces, 19 inches and healthy! Three hours of labor without an epidural and Bethany is doing fine!

It couldn’t be a better day to be born!

I wanted to organize the office today but Bethany had other ideas. Apparently Bethany doesn’t nest. She paints. She was very adamant about painting and well, you know me, I’ll never turn down a trip to a pottery studio. I love to paint! So paint we did. We painted for four hours while Grandma Debbie (Bethany’s mom) watched Bug and Annalie. It was delightful. I worked on some dottery (which I cannot show you because Bethany took her camera with her to the hospital and I didn’t have a chance to download the pictures but who cares! We have a baby!) and Bethany painted some ornaments, including one very special one for the baby. Now that I think about it, I wonder if Bethany knew on some instinctual level that this was probably her last chance to paint for a while. We talked about it jokingly but then we’ve been thinking every day was going to be the day.

We came home, cooked up some delicious tamale pie and then Bethany laid down on the couch complaining of some “annoying” braxton hicks that she assured us were just the usual. Grandma Debbie and I shuffled the girls off to bed thinking it was just another night like all the rest. When I came upstairs after Bug was asleep, Bethany and Troy were packing her hospital bag and heading to the hospital because her water had broken. Three hours later we got a text from Troy that Elliora was born! Three hours and no epidural!

Then Bethany called and asked me to quickly blog it so she could make her midnight deadline of posting every day this month. She wasn’t participating in Nablopomo but it was just a personal challenge for herself. Silly Bethany, how I love you so. I’ll blog it today and tomorrow! I hope you don’t mind the typos!