Our Pretty Pink Leopard

Pumpkin Patch-Suburbia Style

Muscle Baby!

Yes, and...

Botanic Gardens one week later

Dorothy is five days old here. Appropriate I thought to bring her out but the old women in the Garden Gift Shop thought I was basically bad mother and were very judgey saying, "you shouldn't be out." She survived. What was considerably more tramatic for her and I was a public diaper change and finding a quiet/private place to nurse. I THOUGHT I was bold enough to just feed her off to the side of a lobby but I'm not and the spot I chose was next to these incredibly busy and loud sliding doors. She survived.

Perfect.

Grandma Muffin and Grandpa Softie

Grandma Sally and Grandpa Ed

Dot's Grandma Sally and Grandpa Ed were such
troopers waiting for their first Grandchild to arrive. They came up to
Chicago on September 24th and had to wait almost 2 solid weeks for the big day. They made camp at the Extended Stay in Skokie (not Extended Care-inside joke). It was so wonderful to have them there when Dorothy finally showed up!

She's here.

Here she is, Dorothy Frances Mason, weighing 9 lbs. 6 oz. and measuring
21.25 inches. She was MUCH bigger that Tim or I had anticipated and
honestly we were dumbstruck when she emerged. We may have audibly
uttered, "Holy Sh*%@t!" In that cherished moment we also forgot to ask
if she was a boy or girl. So Tim says, "It's a girl right?" and I say
"It's a boy right?" And then I had to admit to Tim that for the last
few weeks I had been lying to him and telling him that I didn't have a
feeling is she was a boy or girl, but I did, I believed
she was a boy. I was wrong and Tim was right (as per the usual).
Say all you want about "modern medicine" and having drugs or anesthesia during labor, I'm not against it in the least. BUT I will say after going through labor with out any drugs or anesthesia, that I wouldn't trade the natural high I was on after Dorothy was born for anything. It was like I was hopped up on Cocaine, Red Bull,
Morphine and Cosmo's! All the exhaustion I had felt in the last few
hours of our 30+ hour labor was erased. This is one of the picture I
took of Dorothy that night. I kept playing with her and taking all her
clothes off just to look at her.