Happy Birthday Happy New Year

What a whirlwind day this turned out to be capped by the birth of my daughter.

Paisley Kate Slatton was born at 5:25 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2013. She weighed 7 pounds and 3 ounces and measured 19 inches. She seems perfect and my wife is doing great.

But what a day it was leading us to this point.

I went to work as normal this morning before our 9:30 a.m. appointment with our doctor. At that appointment, they said the cervix was still closed and the baby had not dropped. Somewhat concerned, they ordered another ultrasound. To our surprise, baby Paisley had flipped. She was now once again breech.

Our doctor gave us our options. We could try to turn her. My wife wanted no part of that and the doctor really didn't seem to think that was the best option. The other option was to schedule a C-section. This is where the day really started to twist.

They asked her if she had eaten this morning. If not, they would do the C-section at noon. But she stopped and got a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit. So that was out. We first scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 2, at Noon. Then that wasn't available so we switched it to 6 a.m. On the way out of the office, my wife joked that we missed out on that 2013 tax deduction.

We left. My wife took the kids shopping. I went back to work and then to my exercise class at 12:15. When I got out of class at 12:45 I had a missed call from my wife. I called her back and she told me we were going in at 2 p.m. It was Go Time.

How? My wife posted that story to Facebook and her nurse Lori saw it and showed it to the doctor. The doctor said we would go ahead and do it. Lori called my wife and asked her if she had eaten lunch yet? Nope. We were on.

We walked up to Labor and Delivery about 2 p.m. and checked in. But when they started questioning her about what she had ate today, she admitted to have had a small piece of a cookie from the mall. Concerned, they pushed back the C-section to make sure her stomach was clear.

That really made the nerves set in. We were all a bit nervous. All of us except our 13-year-old. She decided she'd rather go to a New Year's Eve party than stay for the birth of her sister. I guess that's a teen-ager for you. Her 7-year-old sister wouldn't have missed it for the world.

They took my wife back to prepare at 5 p.m.and left me in the room. I got dressed in my scrubs and waited. It was only about 20 minutes but it seemed like hours.When I got back there, they were making the first incision. About five minutes later Paisley was born.

What a day.

They cleaned her up, weighed her, did her footprints and all the stuff they do to babies. Meanwhile, I took about 500 pictures and videos. Then they let me hold her. She was so tiny, almost two pounds less than Maddie was when she was born 13 years ago.

We took her to the nursery where they gave her some shots. That made me cry. That's when my Anna Kate got to see her sister for the first time. She had a smile a mile wide as she peered through the window.

When they brought Paisley to the room, we all took turns holding her. When she started to cry, Anna Kate started talking to her. Her eyes opened and her head turned toward Anna Kate. And she stopped crying. That was pretty awesome to see. Anna Kate has been talking to her sister every day for months.

She's back in the nursery now. And we'll spend a memorable night watching the ball drop on TV.

Happy Birthday Happy New Year indeed.