I love looking at Reese’s hands while she nurses. She has the most delicate and finely shaped finger nails at the end of long fingers. In addition to the soft skin, she definately has a future as a hand model. Step aside, Alice, Reese is going to dethrone you in the hand department.

Well, Reese has now had the chance to meet every member of her immediate family, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins! Here are a few images from the introductions.

Brian’s Dad (Bill) and Mom (Kathy).

Meg’s Mom (Janet) and Janet’s husband, Kevin.

Grandma and the Aunts. Brian’s sister Cori, affectionately known as Coco, holds Reese while Brian’s other siter Tracy looks on.

Aunt Tracy introduces Joshua (recently dethroned from his status as baby of the family) to Reese.

Uncle Brent, Meg’s brother.

Aunt Courtney, Reese’s future stylist.

So Reese has developed a lovely set of lungs, and she’s putting them to good use by producing a cry which I can only imagine has not been heard on this earth since the late cretaceous period. As a result, we’ve taken to calling her “little pterodactyl” whenever she makes the noise.

It’s a pretty big day for Reese, she gets to meet all of her cousins today! The whole family is coming over because we have something of an event cluster around the holidays, to which Reese has now added her birthday. In addition to Reese, thouh, we have Cori’s birthday on the 19th, our Anniversary on the 21st, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Joshua’s birthday on the 29th, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and my Dad’s birthday on January 6th. Whew! That’s a lot of stuff!

Anyway, there’s a big party today, and Reese will get to meet everybody for the first time.

I’m very happy to write that we are home at last. Leslie, our midwife, asked that we stay for 48 hours rather than the standard 24 due to the amount of blood loss that Meg sustained during labor, but we ended up staying for closer to 60 hours, which really tested our patience and sanity. But we’re home now, and Reese has been sound asleep since the moment we put her in her car seat. Incidentally, so has Meg .

Reese Apgar Lyman was born on December 27, 2006 at 4:43 AM. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20.25 inches long. At birth and at five minutes, her Apgar score was 9 (Reese is the great-great-niece of Dr. Virginia Apgar).

Meg went into labor at 10:30 PM on the night of the 26th, and labored at home until 1:30 AM. We arrived at the hospital, labored some more, and after about 45 minutes of pushing, baby Reese arrived with a lusty cry. Both mom and baby are healthy, and will be discharged from the hospital on the morning of the 29th.

Can I say what a culturally appropriate child we’re having? She’s arriving just a little early. Look at that countdown clock! 0 days!

The time is now 12:55 AM eastern time, and Meg has been in labor since 10:30 PM. She began feeling regular contractions about five minutes apart at that time, and her water broke around 11:00 PM. We’ve been laboring here at home since then, enjoying long walks around the pool table and hot showers, all the while listening to KT Tunstall on the iPod stereo. Meg is still feeling excited and chipper, so as good Bradley students, we’re sticking it out here at home. We’ll probably head to the hospital sometime in the next hour or so, and then the next blog posts should have some very beautiful pictures included.

And yes, we’ll tell you her name.

Well, we wondered if our little girl might be a Christmas baby, but she’d have to come really soon to make the cut.

We celebrated with my family on Saturday morning, and then my sisters’ families went off to celebrate with their respective in-laws. One of the perks of late-term pregnancy is that no one expects you to do any traveling, so Meg’s family has come to visit us.

We enjoyed a slow start this morning, had a lovely Christmas lunch while listening to The Nutcracker, and then exchanged gifts. After that, we watched the Patrick Stewart rendition of A Christmas Carol, played some games, and now we’re fixing dinner.

In the midst of it all, I find myself really wishing that baby girl had come today. I know that sharing one’s birthday with Christmas can be unfortunate in many respects, but I think it might also be really special in others.

Every time we allow ourselves to think “maybe today’s the day,” and it turns out not to be, it becomes that much harder to believe that she’s ever going to come. But there’s precious little time remaining on that countdown clock, so I know she’ll be here soon enough.

Is my baby girl! Meg’s been experiencing a number of pre-labor signs, but the process doesn’t seem to be ramping up at all.

The whole Lyman family has now gathered for Christmas, and Meg’s brother is here as well. Her mom & Kevin will arrive on Christmas eve, thanks to the delays caused by the blizzard in Denver. Anyway, everyone is eagerly awaiting baby girl’s arrival, but no one more so than us!

My family wants to start a pool for guessing the day of her birth. Post your guess in the comments and maybe the winner will give you a cut!