October 11, 2007

Happy Birthday, Anna. I love you so much and miss you tremendously. Right now it is 4:00 am on Friday and I can no longer sleep. We are at the hospital and I feel like your bed is too far away from mine. I have pulled up a rocking chair next to your bed so I can just look at your tiny body and talk to you and cry for you. I don't want to have to say goodbye to you. I know that if I fall asleep, that morning will come too soon and I am not ready to say goodbye. I love your sweet body, just the way it is, and I love looking at your tiny nose and your skinny little bird legs - just like Clark's! You have a lot of dark curly hair and the sweetest hands and feet - so tiny!

Your delivery was quick - a lot faster than anyone anticipated. Dad and I came to the hospital at 8:00 and I was given medicine to get my body ready to be induced. They told me they would check on me in 12 hours to see if I was ready for the induction. This was so hard for us! We just sat around and watched movies and TV for hours and hours. I was hoping you'd come today, but it looked like we were going to have to expect things to take a lot longer.

At 4:30 Grandma Heiselt, Grandma Cookies, and Clark came to visit us. Clark had a hard time seeing me hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed, but soon he warmed up and just wanted to cuddle with me. He made me cry a lot because I kept thinking about how much I love him and how much I love you.

A little after 5:00, my contractions started. They were pretty mild but were fairly regular. I believed it was pre-labor and knew it was not doing much. They got a lot worse (as contractions do) and at 8:00 the nurse gave me some morphine to help relax my body. It worked for a half hour, but then I felt like it was no longer helping and I was in a lot of pain. At 8:45 or so I suddenly felt you coming! I was so surprised and I made dad run to go get some nurses (I think he was pretty shocked as well)! Our doctor had left for the night (he didn't expect me to progress very fast) so the resident physician helped me deliver you. It was a very easy delivery without a single complication or tear, and you arrived at 8:59 exactly.

And then I cried. A lot. Not from the pain of delivery, but from the pain of having lost you and knowing that I would have to say goodbye. You have a very special, fragile body. The nurses let me hold you for a couple of hours, but we couldn't touch you very much because your skin is very thin. But I can't stop looking at you, and my arms ache when I'm not holding you. The only time I was able to sleep was when I was holding you in my bed with me.

Dad is sad, too. He cried a little as we said a prayer thanking Heavenly Father for your spirit and your precious body. He loves you very much.