The New Schmidt Bundle of Joy

On January 23, we were over at Grandpa Schmidt's house for small get-together. Andrea was playing ping-pong and enjoying the night. She had a few noticeable contractions, but nothing really all that serious.

However, that same night she was awoken by increasingly painful contractions around midnight. She stirred Josh at around 1:30am. We started timing contractions and found that they were in the 3-7 minute range and getting stronger. We quickly called Grandma (Josh's mom), who was on standby for several days now, at 3am. By 4am, we were out the door speeding to St. Joseph's Hospital in downtown Denver. We were going to have a baby!

By the time we reached the hospital, Andrea was laboring fairly intensely. The last time we went through this, at Caleb's birth, Andrea arrived at the hospital only 4cm dilated. This time we were shocked to find that she was 8cm dilated! Almost there!! The next 2.5 were intense and comical at the same time. Andrea's contractions were stronger and definitely more painful; however, between peaks, she was chatty and positive about things. She hovered at 8cm for awhile, so the doctor decided to break Andrea's water. It still took some time for her to become fully dilated, but, sure enough, she got there.

When it came time to push, Andrea was in severe pain. She heroically fought through 10 hard minutes of pushing and then our baby was born! Now, we had deliberately chosen to wait to find out what the sex of our baby was. The doctors had talked to Josh prior if he wanted to announce the sex of the baby. He was excited too! Much to our great joy, we found that Andrea had delivered a baby girl! We named her Haley Joy Schmidt. Several years prior to her birth, and even Caleb's, we had thrown out this name for a girl, and it stuck!

Haley was born at 6:45 am on Sunday, January 24, 2010. She weighed a petit 6 lbs 8 oz, and measured 19 inches long. Here she is!