Petra Arden Mehrdad

Our little baby girl has finally arrived! Petra Arden Mehrdad was born September 18, 2009 at 2:03 am. She weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20 inches long.

The week before I had gone to the doctor and had made no progress, but Petra was in position as she had been flip flopping every week. At this point, I was pretty sure she was probably going to be late, but decided to try to get things moving by going on walks and trying to keep active. So every night leading up to her birth I had gone for some walks in the park. The night before, Shay and I went to see the Killers where I did my best and trying to dance.

(Side note: we met Ronnie back stage where, of course, he had a gathering of guests. One of whom was Dave Grohl. Ronnie introduced him to us and started immediately giving Shay daddy advice as Dave had just had his second daughter a few months before. It was very entertaining to hear his words of wisdom. He and Ronnie later rubbed my belly and congratulated us).

Thursday, September 17 I was too tired to do another walk, so I took it easy. I finished packing my hospital bag and I went to bed about 11. Soon after, Petra started moving around like a maniac and I sort of thought to myself, "my water's going to break." A few moments later, it did. It popped like a water balloon. We jumped up, scrambled to collect everything and off we went to the hospital.

Once we got there and checked in, the nurse checked me. I was dilated to a 3 but they couldn't feel a head, so they ordered an ultrasound to find out where she was positioned. Of course, she couldn't stay still and we discovered that this little girl was breech...which meant c-section. We weren't thrilled about it, but, oh well, we were excited to meet our new daughter. So, they started prepping us for surgery and moments later, we were in the operating room i was getting all numbed up and then Shay joined me.

A c-section is very strange compared to natural birth. I could feel the pressure of them trying to get the baby out and then, she was here! And she was gorgeous. I got to hold her for a few moments and then she went to the nursery with Shay and I went to recovery where I had to wait several hours to hold my sweet baby again. We stayed in the hospital until Monday and so far, I think I've been recovering fairly well.

She's amazing. She looks a lot like Carmen. So far, she seems like a pretty chill baby. And we just love her.

Carmen has been such a great big sister. She's always so sweet to her and wants to hold her all the time. So far, it's been pretty great and we are really enjoying the new addition.