Ariya Shah Vanderploeg!

Since many of my friends and family read this blog, I thought I would use this post to tell everyone that my beautiful brother, Jeff, and his equally {okay, MORE!} beautiful wife, Purvi, had their first baby last night!

Ariya Shah Vanderploeg weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs. 3 oz. and 20.5 inches long. This is significant since my sister-in-law is a size 2 on a bad day! She might be my new hero. She pushed Ariya for 3 hours without drugs and finally had to get an epidural because she just had no energy left. After the epidural, she still had to push for another 2 hours. She's a better woman than I! I was screaming for drugs at a 6!

These are the times that I wish more than ever that we lived closer than 1,000 miles apart. But, I'm planning to fly to Connecticut in the next couple of weeks with Gretchen and Seth so that they can meet their new cousin and I can meet my new niece!

Congratulations Jeff and Purvi! We love you guys and we're so glad Ariya is healthy and beautiful. What a blessing! We're also pretty confident Ariya will be the most well-adjusted child on this planet since you're both Ph.D. level Psychologists!

~Jodi