I thought I would just post a few pictures of the big day. Wednesday, November 15, 2006 was an exciting, emotion filled day for us. It is the day of course, that our darling little girl, Clara Rose Manning entered the world. Steph, Laurel, and I arrived at Fair Oaks Hosptial at 7:30 am. Steph was given pitocin around 8:10 am. Her contractions started not long afterwards. Around 10:30, the doctor broke her water. Things progressed quickly after this and Steph was a champ. She stayed on her feet and moved around as best she could while being attached to the monitors, taking those contractions without an epidural until about 1:30 pm. The epidural took effect about twenty minutes later and she was able to relax. Soon after, a nurse examined her progress and Steph had made it almost the whole way; she was 8 1/2 cm dialated! I was really proud of her. She was so worried about how she would tolerate the pain, but wanted to hold out on the epidural as long as possible in order to move around and help the process along. She manged to go almost the whole way!
Suddenly, there were a whole bunch of people in the room setting stuff up for the arrival of our baby girl. I got very excited and thought it was almost time. I was wrong -- it wouldn't be time to meet Clara for several more hours yet. Steph pushed for almost 3 hours and Clara just wasn't coming out on her own. After a couple of hours of pushing Clara's heart rate dropped several times and they would put Steph on oxygen to make sure that the baby was getting enough. Doctor Meinig decided it was time to get the baby out. He spoke with Steph and told her that he could do a forcepts trial and if it appeared that it wouldn't work, he would have to perform a C-Section. Well, about 15 minutes after he started with the forcepts, our darling Clara came into the world. I can't even describe the emotions of seeing that sweet baby enter the world. Let's just say that I was a mess!
Unfortunately, Clara was what they termed as "floppy" when she was first born, meaning she was less than responsive. She also needed help breathing. The stress of the labor wore her out and she had to go to the NICU to recover for a while. Her vitals were good except for her blood pressure, but after receiveing IV fluids she leveled out. However, they kept her in the NICU for three days to let her rest (she was extremely tired -- more so than most newborns we were told because of the stressful birth) and to monitor her.
Thankfully, she is now fine and is thriving. The following pictures are from the big day and the following days in the NICU.
Steph (and Clara) and her Mom, Laurel, the night before the big day. 
Three of Clara's grandparents giving Steph a pep-talk and anxiously awaiting the arrival of their latest granddaughter. The third grandchild for Laurel and number eleven for my parents. Granpa Mennen arrived later -- his first granchild!
Delivery Team 1: Doc Hodges and our wonderful nurse Lara. Miss Clara wasn't quite ready to make her entrance before Doc Hodges left for the day (man, they work long hours!). Our trusty nurse Lara was there throughout, however. (She likes the name Clara, by the way, because it includes her name in the spelling).
To the shagrin of Doc Hodges, Doc Meinig took the glory of delivering our little sweetie after Doc Hodges worked the whole day on coaxing her to come out. In all seriousness, both of these doctors are outstanding. This picture was from a couple of days later, in the NICU. (Man, I need to work off that pregnancy weight! :-) )
"Would you leave me alone already, it's been a pretty stressful day! I mean, I just learned what light is and it's cold out here!"
"Hey Doc, that thing is cold!"
Clara's thinking, "Geez, what a day! I'm so tired from that big move, now everyone is poking and prodding me...and dim the lights already!"
There's our little peanut on the scale. She's not quite as big as they thought she'd be, but pretty darn cute.
Momma's first kiss to Baby Clara. This picture melts my heart.
Me and my beautiful girls. As was said in the Grinch, my heart grew three times that day.
The family waiting room during the delivery. Or, as I like to say it, the Modern American Gothic, Manning-style.
After spending a night on an open warming table in the NICU, Clara progressed to this "isolette." I learned to change her diapers through the port holes there. It's not as bad as it looks.
We could still take her out of the isolette and hold her. What a little peanut!
The proud grandparents visit the NICU. Grammy (my mom) is holding her. Granddaddy (my dad) and Nana (Steph's Mom, a.k.a LaLa) look on.
Grandpa Mennen isn't too happy, is he? He's threatening to get a bumper sticker that reads, "Ask me about my grandchild."
