Happy New Year!

Samantha Morgan Estes was born on December 31st, 2009 at 7:32AM. She weighed 7lbs 3oz and was 20 inches long.

Kristi had to have a c section (due to a previous surgery where they had to put screws in her back / tailbone) so we had to be at the hospital bright and early. Overall, everything went well, except for a minor stay that Samantha had to have in the "transitional" nursery. The nurses were afraid that she had a little bit of fluid in her lungs (quite common in c section births) and so they wanted to monitor her for a few hours to make sure that she was ok. Kristi also had to spend a few extra hours in the OR recovery room. In the end, after a few hours...we finally got to go to our room and be one happy family.

Some say that we are biased, but Samantha has to be one of the most beautiful babies. We had a lot of favoritism at hospital as all of the nurses loved to take and hold Samantha. At night, they would give us the option to have Samantha go and stay in the nursery so we could get some sleep. The nurses would really work us hard to convince us to let her stay all night in the nursery so they could hold her. We felt a little bad for the other babies, but it was really nice to get extra, special treatment. Our hospital stay was awesome. The nurses at Northside Hospital in Atlanta are very well trained and were so pleasant, caring and compassionate during our 4 day / 3 night stay.

Like most babies, Samantha enjoys eating and sleeping. Kristi is breastfeeding, but while we were waiting for her milk to come in, we would supplement the breast milk with formula. Sam loves to drink milk. Every time she would feed, we would spend about 30-45 minutes working on breastfeeding and then finish with a bottle. Formula is awesome...it would put her in a coma for hours...I hope the breast milk will do the same.

The funny thing about Samantha is that after you feed her, she usually just stares around for 30 - 60 minutes before falling asleep.

Samantha really is a sweetheart and she definitely has a lot of her mother in her (both good looks and some other traits that I won't go in to detail on). We were looking at pictures of Kristi when she was first born and the resemblance is almost identical.

After 4 days and 3 nights in the hospital and many visitors, we were ready to come home. We packed up Samantha and put her in her car seat for the first time. Her outfit was a little big. She looked like the Ralphie from "A Christmas Carol".

Click on this link to go to a bunch of pictures that I took during our time at the hospital and our car ride home (link to pictures)

It is amazing how you can fall in love with someone so quickly, but Kristi and I absolutely adore Samantha. It breaks my heart to hear her cry and get upset sometimes when she is hungry, but it melts my heart when i can pick her up and have her stare up at me and know that everything is going to be alright.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts, prayers and warm wishes. It is so comforting to have so much support from family and friends. More posts to come...

Love...Nick & Kristi