Lilly's Story - A Great Start

Lillian Kate Claus was born on Friday, May 7th at 3:25 in the afternoon. The doctors and midwife in the delivery were really great and everything went quickly and smoothly.

To me, Lilly does not look like her brother, Cooper. She has a different chin and nose. She has more hair than Cooper did and it is a medium to dark brown. Although Cooper lost all of his hair, so we'll see what Lilly's hair does. She came out with long fingernails and I promised her that we would both get a manicure as soon as possible. She has long, skinny fingers and toes. She was the same length as Cooper at 53 cm, so she will likely be tall as well. However, unlike her brother, this girl came out with some meat on her bones! She weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs. 12 oz (4010g), a full pound heavier than her brother's birth weight.

I had known throughout the pregnancy that we were having a girl, but Peter wanted a surprise. So, I did my absolute best to keep it a secret all the while collecting little pink things and hiding them. When Lilly came out, the doctor took a quick glance and proclaimed that we had ourselves a baby BOY! I was shocked until the midwife corrected him and confirmed that we had a perfect little girl.

From the start, she proved to be a pro at sucking and did very well nursing immediately. Being in a small hospital in the country, Peter and I had a lot of quiet time to hold and bond with our special girl in a family room where Peter had a bed to sleep and stay the nights with us. We got visits from Peter's parents, Peter's sister (Christina), and Cooper. I was shocked when Cooper walked into my hospital room for the first time. After holding and looking at a tiny little Lilly, I was astonished at how big my "little" boy suddenly had become to me. He looks so tall and grown up to me now. Cooper took little interest in Lilly, but was very sweet at one point wanting to put the tiny pink pacifier in her mouth. Other than that, he was more interested in jumping up and down on the bed, sticking his banana in a little cubby cut out of the wall, climbing on mommy and pressing the nurse call button, which he did several times when we weren't paying close enough attention!

Here are some pictures of our first day with Lilly. Stay tuned for more posts on the big adventures of our little girl.