Here she is...

Yes, I was about ready to pop.
First look at baby girl - she was not happy.
Harper meets mama.
Big brother gets his first look.

Harper Nell Patrick, born April 12th, 2001 at 1:03 p.m. She weighed 7 lbs. and 8 oz. and was 20 1/4 inches long.

In April, we had our surprise baby - Harper Nell Patrick. Harper, because we like the name, and Nell after my Granny, Nellie Pearl. We were quite surprised to find out we were pregnant after being diagnosed with infertility and getting pregnant with Judah after infertility treatments. In fact, the day I found out I was pregnant we were sending off the paperwork to begin the process of adoption. So this pregnancy truly was a surprise!
The pregnancy was fairly routine until we had our twenty-week ultrasound. Not only did we find out that we were having a girl, the tech discovered that she had an echogenic cardiac foci. It is a spot on the heart that can be an indicator for Down's Syndrome. However, she did not have any of the other normal indicators. The doctors assured us that the likelihood of her having down's with only this one marker were extremely low and that the spots normally disappear later in the pregnancy. We had ultrasound after ultrasound but the spot did not go away. We had opted out of genetic testing, so we were just waiting to see at delivery if indeed everything was o.k.
My doctor did not want me to go long after my due date because I had a c-section with Judah and she was worried about my scar. We talked about it and decided that if I had made any progress at my appointment on the 12th of April (my due date was the 11th), she would let me try to labor. If I had not, she felt safer doing another c-section.
When I got to my appointment on the 12th, I had not eaten anything in case she was going to do the surgery. The doctor said I had not progressed at all so they sent me directly to the hospital. This experience was so different than with Judah. I was very calm and was able to experience everything that was going on (I was kind of out of it after laboring for 24 hours before my c-section with Judah). They were also able to manage my pain and nausea (unlike with Judah).
When I got into the operating room, they were playing "Macarena" on the radio. I asked the dr. if I was really going to have my baby with this on. After a couple more cheesy songs, she got them to cut the radio off. It seemed to take forever for them to get Harper out since the umbilical cord was wrapped around her a few times--so very grateful that I did not try to labor! I was so glad when I heard her crying. After they showed her to me and took her to clean her up, it ended up taking a lot of time for them to finish my surgery. I even asked if there was a problem at one point because it was taking so long. The doctor said that I had a ton of scar tissue that looked like I had multiple c-sections instead of just one and that the scar tissue had pushed my bladder out of its normal position. Finally, they sent me on to recovery and I finally got to hold Harper.