Grace Elizabeth Fuller 🥰 🏥Labor and delivery: Honestly a million times easier than I expected it would be. I was induced at 38.5 weeks, but when I came in I was already at 3cm and 70% effaced, so what was predicted to be a 2-3 day process happened less than 24 hours after check in. My body responded so well to the meds, and the nurses were able to keep good management of my diabetes 🙏🏼. We had an amazing team of people cheering us on and helping us through it all. At 5cm I got the epidural which was a life saver — I got more sleep and had better naps with it than I did my entire pregnancy. It was so needed and by the time I progressed to a 9, I was alert and energized and ready to go. I pushed, broke my water, then they brought the OB in and 10 minutes and 8 pushes later, she was here. The moment was so perfect, I felt like I was able to be so present and with no signs of issues in the hospital, we were able to come home less than 24 hours after her birth 😅Postpartum: a million times harder than expected lol. I feel like more attention should be brought to this part than the hype around labor and delivery (from my experience, I know sometimes l&d is the hardest part for others). I wasn’t expecting the contractions to follow, the pain with breastfeeding, then mastitis, and the hormonal changes affecting my blood sugar so dramatically. We’re figuring it all out though! I’m SO glad my parents have been here to help out. On day 5, I was in bed going through some of the worst pain (mostly because of mastitis) in tears when her pediatrician called me and said we needed to take her into the er ASAP. I felt so helpless and exhausted, my dad and Johnny ended up taking her in. We already had two other appointments that day and everything hurt from walking around too. ✨Grace now: after lots of sunshine, and tonsss of feeding and prayers, her jaundice/bilirubin levels dropped from a 20 to a 17 and now are 13 and still moving down on their own without any additional needed hospital visits or treatment. She has the cutest dimples, and hardly cries & stops as soon as her needs are met 💛thank you for all your advice and love and support as we navigate this new chapter