Lucy Catherine Avery is here!

Well, our much anticipated baby is finally here! Michaela began having regular contractions late Wednesday night, right as we were about to head to bed at 11pm or so. This was really encouraging to us, because it was just a couple days before we were scheduled to induce. They were growing stronger and more frequent, so we headed into the hospital around 1:30am (early Thursday morning, April 1). After what seemed like an eternity to both of us (Michaela struggling through contractions and Pete doing all he could to stay awake), Michaela gave birth naturally to Lucy Catherine.

Lucy was immediately active, alert, and happily calm. She's a beautiful and healthy baby, and while she has definitely interrupted our ability to catch up on sleep after our all-nighter, she's such an incredible joy to have with us that it's definitely worth the loss of sleep :). We'll most likely be heading home Saturday morning.

Here are a couple teaser pictures. More will come later after we get home!