Baby Bella Day 1

We have started this blog to track the progress of our new baby girl Isabella Danielle. She was born at 6:30pm est on December 5th 2008, at UVA Medical Center in Charlottesville, VA. She was only 24 weeks along when the Lord brought the little angel into our lives. She was 1lb 11oz and 13 inches long. When the beautiful little girl came out she had something to say about it! She cried several times, which the Dr's say is a great sign of lung capacity and strength. They rushed her over to put in IVs, clean her up and check her out. They put in a breathing tube and started helping her breathe. Before they put her in the incubator they brought her over to us and presented her to us. Machel put her finger into Isabella's tiny little hand and she squeezed so tight. (At that moment my heart jumped and I was so happy to see my two girls holding on to one another.) After that they rushed her off to the NICU unit and they tended to Machel to make sure she was ok. The doctors examined her and told her she did a great job and the delivery was flawless! Then the strangest thing happened....all of the doctors and nurses were gone and we were left in the room alone and for the first time we looked at each other and realized what had happened. We held each other, comforted each other and prayed for our little baby girl. We were finally able to see her about 3 hours later in the NICU. I got to roll Machel down there in a wheel chair and we got to see our little Bella, we asked questions about every tube, every monitor and every possible thing we could think of. After being there for about 2 hours we headed back to the room and for the first time in almost 48 hours we were able to rest.