{allanmia.com}

Our first picture together on the night of Mia's birth.

This is Mia today being carried by her Lola Precy. Look at those chubby cheeks!!

We'd like to introduce our beautiful baby girl...

Mia Alani Alcantara Guray
6 pounds 11 ounces
October 19, 2005, 5:54 p.m.

We're all doing fine here in the homefront. I gave birth to her on Wednesday (I think she's going to take after me because she is so punctual! We girls are all about timing!) and we were discharged from the hospital on Friday. She's eating well and keeping us awake, but we're all happy that she's finally here with us. Allan and I love sniffing and kissing her. Aidan also loves his sister but he has to stay away from her for a while because he's coughing right now.

As for me, giving birth to Mia was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my entire life. With Aidan I had the epidural which hardly made me feel anything. But this time my contractions came on hard and fast that there was no time for that epidural. I was given Nubain which the nurse said would take the edge off, but it only made me sleepy between contractions. When one came on I still screamed and howled like banshee. Overall Mia's birth was so much easier than Aidan's. Although I still had an episiotomy, I can walk around and do things! I'm really glad about that because I can take care of both my children right away instead of having to wait for myself to recover.

Thank you to everyone for thinking about us!
(For those of you who'd like to know...Mia is Italian for "mine" and it is also thought of as a diminutive for the name Maria. Alani is a Hawaiian name meaning "the color orange, orange tree or orange fruit", but we picked it mainly as a tribute to her Daddy.)