Donna and I just got back from 2 days of an emotional roller coaster ride with our family.

I'll share the details Monday on the radio show but the bottom line was that we were very scared for quite some time. Very long labor, small mother, large child lots of ripping and hemorrhaging from lots of places very quickly and Rhea lost over half of her blood very quickly. Nine nurses and doctors became one machine in one room to save my daughter's life.

Our family friend Gwen gave us as much of a natural birth experience as was possible for over 30 hours until modern medicine was needed (Thank you Gwen).

The doctors and nurses were very supportive of this but asserted themselves when needed. Both Tim and Rhea were very receptive to information and made sound decisions. Donna (Rhea's mother) and Tim's mother Sandy were in the birthing room the whole time while Sierra and I waited. We could hear and see from peaking through a partially open door that the baby was born at 1:43pm Friday the 30th of March 2012 (the young adults in our family often tag their text messages "143" - 1 = I, 4 = Love {4 letters} & 3 = You {3 letters} --- 143 = "I Love You".

But it would be 40 minutes before the mothers could get on the other side of the activity to tell us what was happening. After the initial stopping of the bleeding it began again (or never stopped) and gushed. Sierra was very scared by the appearance of her colorless sister and now all of our family has a much greater appreciation of each other and the fragility of life. Over 11 pints of blood later Rhea was fine and was finally reunited with her perfect daughter this evening.

The baby went to ICU as a precaution for infection due to the long birth process of over a day without the protection of the birth sack (her water broke the day before and the baby's white blood cell count was high).

I've been around lots of baby's, but this 8lb 7oz baby is tracking voices,eating a lot and holding her head up more than most month old babies I've experienced... and very very pretty. Elin Sierra Gustafson... welcome to our family.

Your family will remember your arrival vividly.

Rhea, Tim & Elin will remain in the hospital until at least Tuesday but all is well now.

Peace & LOV3 from the Hancocks and Gustafsons