July 26th, 9:35 PM

Hey all,

Here's a quick update on us:

We had a fun Sunday! Carrie woke me up around 7 AM and said she was pretty sure she was in labor. I, being the loving and perfect husband that I am, rolled over and went back to sleep. She, being the loving and perfect wife that she is, didn't wake me up again and let me sleep another hour.

About 8:00 I rolled out and guiltily walked into the front room where she was sitting with the huge kitchen wall clock in her lap and was timing contractions. At that point I decided I better start to play the role of good "support" person so I sat down and took over the clock duty. She would say when to start and when to stop and I timed those suckers perfectly. How could I be wrong with such a huge clock? If anyone ever needs some help doing that, just let me know... They started about 10 minutes apart and weren't too intense but after a while they were about 5 minutes apart and getting stronger.

I still hadn't packed my bag because I was still in denial that anything was ever going to happen so I hurried and threw some stuff together and we grabbed the car seat, bags, and jumped in the car. While I didn't doubt Carrie at all, everything felt so unreal and I thought for sure there was no way she was actually in labor yet. So in the back of my mind I was planning the rest of the day and thinking about how I was going to comfort her if she found out that those contractions weren't really contractions.

Well, they turned out to be real and they got stronger as the first few hours at the hospital passed. She was admitted after proving herself worthy to be there by changing (though not a ton initially). The changing then started to happen fast so it's a good thing they didn't send us home. There was a bit of a scare when the baby's heartbeat dropped because of some strong, close together, contractions (thanks to a bit of Pitocin). They had to give Carrie a shot that stopped the labor and then it was a bit of a slow process getting them started again. We got in at 11:30 in the morning and by about 7:45 Carrie made me go downstairs and grab some food for myself. They had just checked her and she wasn't really progressing much and they were actually thinking about a potential c-section if things didn't start moving before midnight or so. I ran down real quick and got back fifteen minutes later and she was feeling like the baby was ready! We called the nurse and she came in and sure enough, to everyone's surprise, the baby was right there and ready. They called up the doctor and Carrie took about 45 minutes to do what they call "rest and descend" where the mom can rest, and nature can work on the baby for a little longer before pushing. She did such an awesome job and the baby was here after not too much pushing and the rest is history!

She was born at 9:35 PM, weighs 7 pounds 1 ounce, and is 19 inches long...

After checking out the little one for a while, we decided to name her Shayla Riis Laudie. Shayla because it's a perfect name for her, and Riis, which is a family name. It is was Carrie's Grandpa Francis' middle name and after hanging up our family history pedigree chart from my Aunt Marilyn, we realized that it's a name on my side also. My Grandpa Dalton's great grandma was a Riis. I think we'll have to do some research and see if there are any connections in our family lines way back there.

We like her name a lot and most importantly it fits this little angel perfectly.

She's perfect.

Not too much else to tell except that as of last night we are home and enjoying having her with us! She's in the middle of a nap right now that is going on 4 hours. If she could only plan those during the middle of the night it'd be awesome!

Lots of Love,

Jon, Carrie, and Shayla