baby

I just sent an e-mail out on Janelle's e-mail with the following text, which more or less fills you in on what's up with us. Words cannot express how tired we are. It's a little daunting being at the very beginning of this long journey and being so worn out. Anyway, to the e-mail:

Janelle went into labor Tuesday night, she was induced around 10:30ish, and Belle Elizabeth Alana Perdue was born at 3:20am on Weds October 4th. Janelle did awesome and assured her place atop the throne of "toughest one in this marriage" with the labor. She's amazing. Belle appears to be totally healthy, not to mention ridiculously adorable. We have a followup appt on Saturday where they will check her a bit for jaundice, they said she looks a bit jaundiced but that's pretty common so we're not too worried about it. Other than that she's healthy and doing well.

It was been an incredibly exhausting couple of days. Janelle is getting the hang of feeding Belle, Belle is getting the hang of eating, and we are trying to find time to sleep inbetween everything. Janelle has probably had less than five hours of sleep since Belle was born. I've had a bit more but am still running on fumes myself, I don't know how Janelle keeps going.

Apart from the occasional family member coming by we're not really ready for any visitors yet. We are completely wiped out and Belle isn't on any sort of schedule yet. We're hoping that all that gets worked out soon...and we hope to show her off real soon to everyone in person. We're just not ready for that quite yet. Once we're ready to have visitors and all that we'll send out another e-mail letting you know about it. Until then we appreciate your prayers (it's a little overwhelming how much there is to be done and how there are no breaks...Belle is a relentless eating/pooping/crying/attention-needing machine).

Thanks for all your love and well-wishes and all that good stuff...we hope to send along a picture when we get the chance.

Jackson and Janelle (and Belle)