The Story...in it's unedited, non-Reader's Digest version!

On December 10th we posed as a family of 5 for the last time. This is a tradition of ours and the pictures have been fun to look back each time we welcomed a new addition to the family. Can you tell how excited the kids were to meet their brother?

Another tradition of ours is taking the final pregnancy picture by the crib just before departing for the hospital. This shot was taken at 4:30 am on December 11th, which explains why I was having a difficult time coming up with a genuine smile!

This smile was all real though because by 5:45 am I was all hooked up and awaiting the anesthesiologist. The epidural was interesting this time for sure. Although it was a relatively easy insertion, the first epidural only numbed from my toes to the top of my thighs. Totally counter intuitive I know, but the doctor said that it happens sometimes. To try and fix the situation they first gave me a second dose of anesthetic through the epidural. This suceeded in furthering numbing my toes and climbed only a little higher to the bottom of my pelivs which was definitely not high enough for surgery! In the end, they had to take the epidural out and replace it with a new one ,in a higher position. That time it worked like a charm and we were off to the OR.

At 7:44am Chase arrived into this world with a healthy set of lungs. Jason was even able to video tape his entrance, which was very exciting as we'd been told that by friends that they no longer allowed the videotaping of deliveries. Emmett weighed in at exactly my predicted weight of 7lbs 6oz and handily winning the bet to Jason's predicted weight of 8lb 12oz and the OB's guess of 7lb 12oz.

Here we are in our first family photo, blissfully happy together! So far Drew has proven to be neither like Jason or myself but seems to take after Mary Poppins -as he's practically perfect in every way! He took to nursing like a champion, is sleeping 4 hours at a stretch and has even declared his love for the binky!

We think that he has continued with the Hansen tradition of looking exactly like his siblings too. Sometimes I see more of one child or the other but you can easily tell which family he belongs to.

Jackson and Kate did amazingly well at school toughing out the long day until they could finally meet their little brother. Chase is one super lucky boy to have so many people that already love him.

Ava did great with our friend, Angela, today. She slept tuntil 8:30 am, helped stamp Angela's Christmas cards and was spoiled with a "hot lunch" at our favorite lunch spot, The Grove. Even with all of her fun times, she was beyond excited to meet her brother, Quinn.

Here we are, now as a family of 6. Mom is looking a lot more tired/drugged but is unequivocally ecstatic!