Ben and Erica Jacob Family: Meet Stella!

Our baby girl, Stella Grace, was born on January 25th, 2013 after 286 weeks of pregnancy. Here I was at that point -

Yes, that is a sleeper. It is my favorite Christmas gift from Ben, and Nathan's favorite I think too because without a doubt his absolute favorite thing to wear is his "suit" and now when I wear mine, we match.

You can see the boys themselves were enjoying the pregnancy to the fullest. Love that face, Buster! And love those thumbs, Nate. His right one is all ready for when he sucks his left one completely off.

Anyway, back to Stella. The doctor's warned me to be prepared to rush to the hospital because this was my fourth baby and they expect each delivery to be faster than the previous, and Nathan took all of 10 minutes.....but no. Stella was quite content to stay. And stay and stay and stay. I often wonder how long she really would have stayed had we not coaxed her out. 45 weeks? 50? That she was a girl was a surprise to me, but Ben had a certain feeling all along that this time it would be a girl. She was 9 pounds, 21 inches, perfect and beautiful and to our delight, she came with inch-long dark brown hair. Here are a few from the day she was born when Mom brought the boys up to the hospital to see us -

Check out the boys' eyes.

Here are Peter and Nathan trying to make her smile on day one.

Of all the knitted hats we've received from the hospitals when we've had a baby, this one on Stella takes the cake. It looked like a huge pink mushroom on her head and we adored her in it.