Some pictures to tie you over...

She was actually happy in her swing...for once!

I'm sure she wasn't really reaching for the toy, but it sure looked like it to me!

All bundled up and looking cute! :-)

Will update someday...

No I haven't fallen off the earth (although there are days I feel like I have!). I just have a baby that really likes to be held, and doesn't allow me to get much done during the day! Hopefully I will update soon with more pictures, and with life in general, but we'll see what she'll allow! I miss all my blogger friends...I feel so out of it! I will be back to posting and commenting soon, I hope, though! Until then, pray for my sanity!

Too beautiful!

This is the picture we had taken at the hospital, and it was just too cute not to share!! It's also the picture on her announcements, which should be here sometime next week. I will try to get a picture of them on here...they're adorable! :-)

First Bath!

We gave Maddie her first bath Saturday night. She actually did pretty well. There weren't too many tears!!

I know I haven't been posting much, but as I'm sure you already Mommy's know...there's so much to do!!! And my mom has been here all week, so even when Maddie's sleeping, I've been spending time with her. Monday will be my first day alone with Madison, and I'm a little nervous, but I know I'll do OK. Hopefully that will open up more time for blogging during her naps, and especially catching up on blogs!! I started to read a couple today, and realized I just didn't have the time to get caught up today!! I feel like I've missed out so much on every one's lives...pathetic, I know!

Madison has been sleeping really well at night! Wednesday night she was only up once, and every other night it's only been twice. But usually the second time is between 5:30 and 6:30, so I guess you could really say she's only up once! We have found that giving her the bottle at night keeps her up, though. I've been breastfeeding and pumping so daddy could help with some of the feedings at night, but both nights we've given her the bottle she's then been up for an hour or so after; so I think, at least for now, we're going to nix the bottle at night. Maybe give it to her in the evening when we want her to stay awake!

I'm being summoned to eat, so hopefully next week I can start being better about updates, and pictures!!

Madison's Birth Story

Friday, October 3, we went into the hospital at 7:30pm to start the Cervadil for the induction the next day. My mom, brother, and Tony's mom all came to see us that night, and everyone was gone by 11pm. I wasn't in any pain yet, but was just so excited I couldn't sleep. I finally fell asleep around 1am. At 2:30am I woke up with moderate contractions. I was already having to pee every 10 minutes it seemed, and with the contractions, it was making it very hard to sleep. I finally decided to give in and ask the nurse for some pain medication so I could get some sleep since I knew Saturday was going to be a long day (if only I had known how long!). Just as I was getting ready to call her, she came in to tell me I needed to roll over because the baby had been sleeping for a while, and they just wanted to make sure she was ok...which also meant I couldn't have any medicine for at least 20 minutes while they monitored her to make sure she was ok. 25 minutes later, the nurse was back with the medicine! YEA!! She told me it would take about 2-3 minutes to take effect, and I would start to feel like I'd had a couple drinks. 2-3 minutes, yeah right! About 30 seconds after she put the IV in, I was light headed, and ready to sleep! I slept so soundly for the next 2 hours, it was heaven!

I was kind of in and out of sleep until about 8:30 am when I decided to get up and brush my teeth. The nurse came to remove the cervadil, and told me to take my shower, and then we would start the pitocin. Well finally at around 10:30 am, my doctor came in to break my water and start the pitocin. When she broke my water, she saw that Madison had had a bowel movement, and there was meconium in the amniotic fluid. She let me know that NICU would have to be present for the birth, and would take her right away to get her all suctioned out. I was a little disappointed because I figured then I wouldn't get her on my belly right away, but figured I could deal! So at 10:45 am, the induction "officially started!" By noon, I was dying from the contractions! I'm sure they weren't really THAT bad, but I. DO. NOT. DO. PAIN! so I asked when I was allowed to have my epidural. The nurse told me my doctor likes for you to get to a 4 before getting one, so at least I had something to aim for! Around 1:30 pm they checked me and I was a 3, so I started getting myself excited for the epidural...I didn't have to wait long! At 2, my nurse came in and asked "Do you want your epidural?" Uh, yeah!!! She said the anesthesiologist was getting ready to go into a c-section, so they wanted to make sure I got it before he went in...THANK YOU JESUS!! I was a little nervous for the the actual insertion because I had heard that it hurt pretty bad. I was happy to feel that it wasn't bad at all!! Within a half hour, I couldn't feel a thing, and I was back in good spirits!

They kept coming in to check me every 2 hours or so, and I was making pretty good progress. But then 9 pm came...I was still the 6 I was at 7 pm. And at 11 pm, I was still a 6. The nurse had my doctor come in to check me, just to make sure, and she reluctantly told me that I was only a 7, and that I had stalled. I had been at the same measurement for four hours, and that it wasn't looking good for a vaginal delivery. She told me that she could let me go one more hour, turn the pitocin up, and check me again, or we could just go ahead with the c-section. She said she'd give us a couple minutes to talk it over, and then she'd be back to see what we'd decided. I held it together pretty well until she was out of the room, but then I lost it. A c-section was something I really didn't want. I just really wanted to deliver her, and have her on my belly and see her right away. Everything I've been dreaming about since I got pregnant. Tony was my rock through it all, and let me know that it was fine either way. If I wanted to have the c-section, at least she would be here soon, and I wouldn't have to wait anymore. But if I wanted to wait, he was fine with that too. I couldn't make a decision to save my life, so he just decided we were going to wait. His feeling was, "What's one more hour?" How happy I am that he made me wait that extra hour! The nurse came back after an hour, and said I was a 6-7, which wasn't a lot of progress, but it was more progress than I had made the last 4 hours!! She went to call the doctor, and I told her whatever the doctor said, that's what I wanted to do...no matter what. When she came back in, she said we were going to continue the Pitocin, and see if we could get this baby the way I wanted! I continued to progress, and at around 6:00 Sunday morning, I was finally a 10. I finally started pushing at 6:30 am. At 7, my nurse from the day before was back on, so she came in to help with the delivery. My next contraction, the doctor told me we were going to have a baby! No such luck...but she knew with the next one she would be here. She let me know that once the head was out, I needed to push even harder so they could get her shoulders out. So when the next contraction came, I pushed as hard as I could, and when I felt the head come out, I started pushing harder; only my doctor was saying "Slow down! Slow down!" I wasn't sure if she meant stop pushing completely, or just don't push as hard. It didn't matter because about 2 seconds later, she said "Never mind!" And I heard my mom say "Oh, Madison!" So I knew she was here. Apparently it was a good thing my doctor was ready, because Madison just kinda came "shooting" out! At 7:16am, Sunday October 5, 2008, my beautiful daughter was placed on my tummy, and I have never seen such a beautiful baby in my life! After I got to hold her for about a minute, the NICU whisked her away to suction out her mouth, nose, and lungs. I could handle the sound of them suctioning her mouth and nose, but the sound of the tube being down her throat while her lungs were being suctioned was almost more than I could handle. Luckily my doctor recognized this, and tried to keep my attention and just talked to me.

I finally got to hold her again about 15 minutes after she was born. It's such an amazing feeling holding your child. It sounds cliche, but it's so true that you never understand a mother's love until you are one. Tony described the love perfectly when he said it's a "pure love." I can't believe the amount of love I felt for her as soon as she was born, and it just continues to grow every time I lay eyes on her!

Introducing Madison Nicole!

Madison Nicole was born Sunday, October 5 at 7:16am weighing 6lbs, 6oz, and was 20 inches long. It was a long 36 hours for Mommy, but it was all worth it! I will post the birth story later, but wanted to get some pictures up here!! Enjoy!

The fun has begun!!

We have arrived at the hospital, and I'm all hooked up to the monitors. The cervadil has not been place yet, and I'm not sure when that is happening, but I'm pretty sure that they said they would leave it in for 12 hours, then remove it, check me, and start the pitocin. I'm feeling a little calmer now that we're actually here. I was kind of freaking out early this evening. It's just so weird that we left the house as a couple, and we'll be coming home as a family of three! I will try to post pictures as soon as I can, but the internet here is pretty slow, so I'm not sure how much Blogger will cooperate!! Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement throughout this whole pregnancy, and I can't wait to show off my daughter to you all! :-)

Guess who's back...but not so better than ever

I got a nice surprise when Tony called me Monday afternoon to tell me he was on his way to Best Buy to pick up our computer!! I only had to go 2 days basically...and surprisingly, I survived! :-)

Monday began my maternity leave, and I got a lot accomplished! I had to go to Target to return something, and exchange a couple other things. Then I headed over to Kohl's to see if I could find some pants for my daughter. Do you know how hard it is to find pants smaller than 6 months?! There are some for 3-6 months, but almost nothing for 0-3 months. You can find packages and racks full of onesies, but some pants to go with them? Nah, just let your child hang out in a onesie. Which I'm fine with (I guess) at home, but I don't want to be stuck at home all the time because I have no pants for my child! If any of you already mommies out there have any suggestions on where to find 0-3 month pants...PLEASE SHARE!!

Tony called me while I was at Kohl's to see if I wanted to meet him for lunch, so I headed over to the mall after I was finished there, and had lunch at TGIFridays with him. (We only had to spend $2! Yea for gift cards!) I then had to return something at Children's Place, and picked up a cardigan and some corduroy pants (0-3 months...can you believe it! but it was the only style I could find in 0-3) for the girl who needs more clothes like she needs a sixth toe! Then headed to Babies R Us to find a picture for her room : I headed home then for some much needed rest, and just chilled out the rest of the evening until the Monday Night Football game (which was great!).

Yesterday, I ordered all of my belly pics to put in "The Belly Book" and some for her scrapbooks and baby book. (which I'm doing today), then to the bank, and then to Wal-Mart. I ended up spending way more than I intended to at Wal-Mart, but once I got there I realized that I needed food for lunches...and Tony's off starting tomorrow until next Thursday, so we definitely needed more food than we usually have! I don't think I've ever seen our fridge, freezer, pantry, and cabinet look so full (and they still really aren't that full...) I guess it's something I will have to get used to!

Ok, I know the title of this post is "...but not so better..." and all I've talked about has been fairly good stuff. Well last night was not so great. I turned off my bedside lamp at about 11pm, and woke up at midnight with some mild cramping and having to pee...so I went pee, and went to lay back down. I woke up at 1am, 2am, 3am, and so on until I finally got out of bed at 8. I never really had any regular contractions during that time, but still felt crampy when I got out of bed. i had wanted to organize Madison's closet today, but I decided maybe I should just take it easy today. So I had some breakfast, drank some water, and just laid back down on the couch. I started to feel a little better, so I took a shower, and am drinking as much water as I can. I feel better now. I was so sure I would make it to the induction, and I realize its still a good possibility I will, but I'm not quite as confident as I was! I don't go to the doctor until tomorrow at 2, so I'm hoping everything stays under control until then. If I didn't start feeling better today, I was going to call. I didn't really want to because I figured they'd just send me back to Labor and Delivery, and I really didn't want to have to go back there again unless they were going to let me have this baby! :-) I think I was just dehydrated. Its really hard for me to remember to drink water while I'm at home. When I'm at work, my water bottle is never empty, but for some reason, it's not as easy when I'm at home. I was trying to think back to how much I had drank yesterday...and I don't think it was more than 3 glasses! At work, I had 3 bottles of water by 10 most days! So just trying to keep myself more hydrated today. I will leave you with the 40 week belly pic...which could possibly be the last one!