On Friday, September 21st, at 10:07pm, little Allison Dawn poked her head out into the world.

I don't think I have time to go through the whole "birth story", but the short version is that on Thursday night (during Survivor!), Diana started feeling contractions that felt different. Not painful, but different. We actually started timing them, and wondering "is this really how it's supposed to be? This isn't anything like the movies!"

Apparently during the night, Diana had some more painful contractions, but slept through them. The next morning, however, starting around 6am, things definitely started picking up. Her water never broke, but her contractions were often and strong enough that we called the hospital and came in.

The rest of the day was long and intense, and I won't go into detail here. The end result was the birth of little Allie after a full day of labor and about two hours of pushing.

We spent the night, next day, and next night in the hospital, and received really superb care. A+, 5 stars, however you want to put it. Everyone from start to finish was just great.

Yesterday we drove home, and have been in sort of survival mode ever since. Diana is still a little slow moving around, but managing well. Allie loves to eat and sleep during the day and cry at night. We've found that it's pretty easy to get her to stop crying by holding her and shushing loudly. It's what to do after that that was challenging. But we made it through with no real problems.

Emotionally, I'm on top of the world, in spite of being tired and still a little shell-shocked. Newborns are snotty and poopy and spit up; I never doubted my friends' affections with theirs, but wondered if I'd feel the same way with my own, and I do. Every little bit of her is perfect to me.

We have our first doctors appointment today! That will be exciting.

More later. Thank you all for your kind words and well wishes.