In Which We Find A Blessing-UPDATED with PHOTOS

At 1:33 this afternoon, my beautiful little niece Victoria Grace (who will be called Tori in the future, but not just yet.. she's still new) came into the world at an impressive 21 inches and 7lbs 14 ozs. She has blondish-redish hair and dark eyes and is the most adorable little thing ever. I am truly and madly in love with her already. My sister in law and her husband are sooooooooo very happy and relieved that she is finally here safe in their arms. The past 9 months have been both joyous and stress filled for them and this day couldn't get here soon enough. I know that I paced trails in the floor of our classroom this morning so I can't begin to imagine how they were feeling. Needless to say it was a bittersweet blessing and there is some sadness all around as we still mourn the loss of my nephew, but this little angel's arrival will bring a little more healing to us all. I have more pictures but they are all huge files and I haven't re-sized them yet.. and I'm not sure how my SIL and her husband would feel about me plastering them up on my blog (they don't know about it anyhow) so I think I'll upload just a few more and we'll call it done. I just wanted to share my good news as I know my faithful-longtime readers were all blessing us with their continued prayers. We thank you all very much.


10:45 pm UPDATE: Here's those photos I promised.
Is she not the cutest darn thing ever?? She was snuggled in mom's arms in this photo. Her hair is a blondish/redish color that kind of looks like Ms. Thang's current color (her's was black like mine at birth) and she has a TON of it. Ash was 21" and 7lbs 9.5 ozs so they were both born roughly the same size which I think is cool. Max was 10 lbs so I was shocked at how TINY she is. We were in the room when they checked her vitals and she cried and hollered when they got her naked and I just smiled. I remember those days. She slept a lot during our visit but she was awake when we first got there and has beautiful dark eyes. Who knows if they will stay that way.. but she's just lovely. I think she looks like her daddy, and in that photo of her and I, she looks just like her grandpa on daddy's side. So cute!!

This is the happy family. It was a very emotional day for them and in all that joy and sadness their love for each other just shone through. I was so glad we were able to go and share in that with them. We left Corey at home as he hasn't felt well the past few days and when we were on our way back home from picking everyone up mid-day.. I got into the car and he told me he had a sore throat. I told him he is lucky we picked me up last, as I'd have left him at school.. because he wasn't coming to the hospital with us. My SIL was sad he wasn't there but then grateful we left him at home.

Ms. Thang meets her cousin for the first time. She was so excited to be there. The crew finally left with daddy to get some food and me, Ash, Jen (friend) and Grammie (on daddy's side) stayed behind. Lucky for us because my SIL was finally ready to share the baby when we went back in the room after they checked her incision and even though I carried her over.. Ash was the first one to get to hold her other then mommy and daddy. (although I think the grandparents got too before we all got into the room to visit but that's ok). Can you tell she was in seventh heaven? She didn't stop grinning the whole time. It was so cute. She's so happy to have a cousin after all these years of being the youngest in the family.

The Boy wanted to hold the baby before we left and here he is with his baby sister. They were so cute. He was gushing over here and H was rubbing her head (she loves that, it calms her right down!) and I snapped this picture. My MIL commented about how she remembered a similar scene in the same hospital in another room 11.5 years ago and it made her a little teary. Aren't they cute together? H was at the hospital ALL day long, and she got to know the name and meet the baby long before the rest of us by a bit of luck. She was so proud and happy to have a new baby niece.. it was all over her face. There was sooooo many people at the hospital by this time, and they were getting ready to check my SIL again, and do the babies vitals and then have a feeding, so shortly after we took off to come home. His brother held the baby after he did, and then I had a turn again (hence the first photo) and then we said our goodbyes and headed out. I remember what it's like to have visitors at the hospital when you are exhausted and overwhelmed at it all.
A said she wasn't minding it a bit and wanted us all to stay.. but we had a long ride home anyhow so it was OK with us, although with much less people involved I could've stayed there all night long. This looks like a sweet photo of the two men gushing over their little baby niece, but in all actuality.. she was having her first poop and they were amused as all hell about it because she was farting on The Boy's arm at the time. They had posed for the "serious" shots before this, and I caught this one thinking.. awwwwww look how cute they are.. and then I got the scoop. Should've known better. Ok... that's all I have to share for now. :)