Ashleigh’s Baby: Eliza Jane b. 4/23/11

Congratulations to Ashleigh and Matt on the arrival of Eliza Jane on Saturday, Apr 23 at 3:09 pm.

Here is what Ashleigh writes:

I just wanted to let you know that Eliza made her appearance yesterday [Sat, Apr 23] at 3:09pm. Weighing in at 7.0 lbs and 20″ long. We’re both doing great! Happy and healthy. The birth was amazingly fast and completely natural–just as we planned. I’m going to miss yoga–6 weeks seems like such a long time! But I’ll stop by sometime soon. I don’t have many pictures yet, but here’s one from this morning.

As many of you may know, Ashleigh was a fixture at yoga during her entire pregnancy. She participated in 3 classes per week (Tues am, Thurs am, Fri am) and maintained incredible balance, strength and conditioning throughout. She even did her three classes this past week which meant that she did an intense Strength & Fitness yoga class on Thursday – complete with arm balances & inversions (!) – and a flow class on Friday, and then on Saturday she delivered. If that is not doing yoga up to the very end – I do not know what is.

We often all marveled at Ashleigh as she maneuvered into challenging poses with Eliza Jane rolling around inside. Here Ashleigh is shown doing scorpion pose on 2-5-11 when she was 6+ months pregnant. And she did this same pose just as perfectly 2 days before giving birth. Indeed, Eliza has been involved in yoga asanas long before setting eyes on this world.

Many of you have been completely supportive of Ashleigh (the pic shown here was taken 4/8/11) so I know you will be delighted to know that everything went so smoothly. This became an “event” for me as well as Ashleigh and I spent long hours on the mat prior to and during her pregnancy. In fact, we decided to capture it digitally via video, photos and audio. So that is the next project at hand – to try and bring all the material into a neat project for all to see.

Once again – our very best wishes to Ashleigh, Matt & Eliza as our new-born takes her first few breaths on this earth. Welcome, welcome Eliza!!

Update 4/25/11 at 1:42pm:

I neglected to share that on Friday, April 22, Ashleigh renewed her unlimited monthly yoga pass with me. She is the first person to renew her pass the day before giving birth!!

Here is more about Ashleigh & Eliza:

(1) Ashleigh’s Baby: Update on Eliza Jane

(2) Ashleigh’s first-hand account of giving birth.