She's Here!

On Saturday November 27th at 7:52am Madeleine Rae made her arrival into this world. It wasn't the easiest labor but she was completely worth everything.

It all started on Thanksgiving. After a great day spent with some great friends I went to bed about 9pm to get ready for some cleaning I had planned for Friday. I fell asleep fairly quickly and woke up about 2 hours later with contractions. I layed in bed for a while and started to track them using an app I had downloaded a few days before. After about 30 minutes I decided I wanted to go lay with Jym (who had been sleeping in the guest room due to my snoring). The contractions were 8-9 minutes apart but steady.

I went back into the bedroom a little while later to let Jym get some sleep and tried to get some myself. I didn't get much as the contractions kept me up for the most part although I snoozed in between them when i could. The contractions got a little longer apart in the morning 8-12 minutes. We decided to go to Home Depot early afternoon and try to get a few things we saw. The walking seemed to get the contractions going a little stronger and closer together and around 4:30pm I called the doctor because the contractions had been about 5 minutes apart for a little over 30 minutes. The doctor told us to go into the hospital and so we arrived there around 6pm.

We got admitted a few hours later. After some walking around and the fact that i had been consistently contracting for almost 24 hours I was at the point where I was just exhausted and asked about an epidural. The epidural was put in at 11pm and at 5am the doctor broke my water and 3 hours later Madeleine made her arrival. We had been expecting her to be a decent sized baby as at my visits the doctor had said as such and had guessed around 8-8.5 pounds. When she finally arrived and was weighed she was 9lbs and 9oz. I definitely was not expecting that and I think it surprised the doctor as well.

A few hours later we were up in recovery and Diana arrived around 11am. It's been a hectic couple of days and we got to go home on Monday but we're making our way through it. It's definitely not easy but she is absolutely perfect and gorgeous. Here are a few pictures of our precious little girl.

It's November Already?

Well if we're honest it's been November for almost half the month but for some reason it came a lot quicker than I was expecting. Per my What to Expect app on my phone I have 1 week and 4 days till my due date. I am at the point where I go to the doctors every week. Things have been normal and the visits are quick. While there are quite a few people who think that she is going to come early I have a feeling that she is going to be a little late. Personally I am totally ok with this as it gives me a little additional time to get ready. If she were to come today we would technically be ready but a little extra time for her I think will do us both some good.

We went to a new parent orientation at the pediatrician's office that we are going to use. They came on a recommendation of a friend as well as the list that the OBs office gives out. I was pleased by the session and the nurse practitioner who ran it gave a lot of good advice and I think it helped that she had a 4 month old herself. The office has 10 doctors so you're not necessarily seeing the same doctor all the time but that doesn't bother me. They also have two lactation consultants on staff and your first visit at the office is spent mostly with the lactation consultant and then a bit of time with the doctor.

So now we're just at the point that we wait till she gets here. We're very excited about her arrival whenever it may be. I do know that depending on how things look this week at the doctors we'll talk about possible induction dates if I don't go into labor over the thanksgiving weekend. It should be an interesting appointment on Thursday to say the least and probably fairly informational as well.

Next weekend we'll also have some visitors as well which will be nice. Zack has a tournament in Annapolis on Sunday and so he and my dad are flying in on Saturday morning. Jym and I will go pick them up at the airport and then hang out for the day. Then Sunday morning Jym will go to work and then I'll go out to Annapolis with my dad and Zack and watch the lacrosse games and then depending on when their flight is bring them to the airport and then head home myself. Then it will be a shortened work week and Thanksgiving.

I keep thinking that it seems like just yesterday that I found out we were expecting and somehow 9 months has gone by very quickly. Not a bad thing just the whole year seems to have flown by. Maybe because there is so much excitement or maybe its something that happens as you get older but either way the year has flown by.

I do have to say that I am excited to meet my little girl sometime in the next few weeks. A little scared a little nervous but excited all the same. Hopefully I'll have a few more posts between now and then but we'll see what happens.

A Small Milestone

So as we head into our last few weeks of being just the two of us there are things that we've got on the agenda to complete. Some of them are baby related and some of them are not. Have we packed the bag for the hospital? Check. Gone on at least one date just the two of us? Check. Installed the carseat? As of today - check.

So the small milestone for today was the installation of the carseat in the Jeep. Right now we only have the one base as we need to pick up the second one but that can be done at any time. The carseat along with the stroller have been sitting upstairs in the nursery for about a month and a half. When it finally got around time to putting it all in the Jeep I was going to get the oil changed and there was a recommended fix (not quite a recall) so the car needed to go to the dealer for a least a day. I didn't want to put it all in the car and then have something happen and not have it for when we needed it so we decided to wait. Then there was a run in with a deer so the oil change and recommended fix appointment was pushed out another few weeks. Now that the appointment has happened and the Jeep is back good as new we decided it was time to install the carseat.

Jym installed it pretty quickly and then we put the carseat in the installed base to check it out and practice getting it in and out of the car. Because the Jeep is as large as it is you pretty much have to climb in (or perhaps it's just because I'm pregnant and it's hard to reach with my belly in the way) but it's pretty easy to get in and out of the base. Then we brought the seat into the house to practice buckling the baby into the carseat. We used a small stuffed animal and both practiced getting everything buckled and unbuckled. The straps might be a bit loose but not knowing exactly how big she'll be they are easy enough to adjust. See a few pictures from both of us in our successful attempts to work the carseat.

Distinguished Gentleman

Watch out ladies! Here comes Marco, wearing his tux, with his beautiful gray face. Disregard the spit on his nose.

Ol' boy (he is 7) is doin pretty good. Snagged this awesome picture of him chillin' on the deck.

Full Term

Well today I am officially 37 weeks and considered full term. What does that mean exactly? Well if I were to go into labor tonight they wouldn't try to stop it and the baby wouldn't be considered premature either. Now that being said it is unlikely I would go into labor tonight (nothing is impossible) as I just had my dr's appointment today and the doctor thinks I still have a bit of time left. Right now we're keeping the due date of the 25th but that could change based on how the next few weeks go.

I am now into the appointment every week phase and they are checking for all those delightful signs of impending labor. Right now everything looks good and is progressing how it should. The baby is head down so that's a positive thing. Should be interesting how the next few weeks go. I have a baby shower this weekend that is being thrown for me by my friends Christine and Erin. They are soo sweet and I'm looking forward to the ladies that will be there as some of them I don't get to see very often.

I am definitely looking forward to having my baby girl in my arms but at the same time I'm not rushing her out. I want her to have as much time as she needs and a bit more time would probably make me feel a little more comfortable. I have a feeling I'm not going to be ready till she's here anyways but there's still a bit of cleaning left that I want to do. But I suppose if it doesn't get done it doesn't get done.