Authored by Justin:

Yesterday was the big day. After trying for 24 hours to get things going naturally we made the decision to go with the doctors thoughts and do a C Section. Stacia had just eaten an apple so we had to wait 6 hours before we could do the surgery. It also gave me plenty of time to whoop Stacia and her mom in cribbage.

As most everyone knows the procedure went great and Grady was delivered at 8:23PM (pacific time). Before I forget again, his full name is Grady Harper Allen. Grady came out sounding like an angry cat, not quite hissing, but that sound they make when they're about to give five claws to the face. Although, his weight was enough to not make him go automatically up to NICU (he was 4.88 pounds, under 4.8 is the minimum) the noise we were hearing in his lungs was an indication he was having some trouble breathing. I have to admit that it was terribly frightening to watch his breathing and see his stomach heave and his rib cage exposed on every breath. They rolled in the x-ray machine quickly, in just that short time his breathing had improved and the test results came back as normal. The respirator was avoided and within the hour he was off oxygen and breathing room air. The explanation they gave was just a lot of fluid in his lungs. All in all it was a frightening few minutes but he fought thru it well and improved rapidly enough to turn my attention back to Stacia.

Stacia was in recovery and really feeling a lot of pain. They were about to give her some medicine so I ran back up to see the baby after being reassured that she was fine and the procedure was normal. I came back to her room 30 minutes later to find her on dancing on the moon and just about as high as Joaquin Phoenix on David Letterman. There's a picture of her below and I don't think you'll have trouble spotting it.

As of today Grady and Stacia are both doing great. We're having fun teaching him to breast feed and hoping he picks it up quick because it's one of the three things he needs to do before he can leave the hospital. One of the others was his lungs which are doing great. The last is his body temperature which needs to hold steady without the help of the incubator. That test is going on right now so hopefully he holds up. He doesn't have a lot of baby fat so he can't be burning energy he doesn't have just to stay warm.

Thank you to everyone for the support, thoughts, and prayers over the last two weeks. It's been a wild ride but definitely worth it.

More to come...enjoy the pictures.