Pictures

Here are some pictures of my beautiful 2 1/2 week old baby girl :-)

This picture was taken right before our first family outing to the mall. It was a lot of fun until Michael forgot about the bags that were under the stroller and left them in the parking lot. Thank goodness that all I had bought was two pairs of pants (buy one, get one free) so it wasn't that big of a loss. He went back for the bags, but it turns out someone stole them! We went back the next day to buy my pants again! LOL...I love my husband!!

We are slowing finding a sense of normal living around our house again. Last night Addi woke up every 3 hours (when she has been sleeping for 4 hours every other night). She has been really fussy in the evenings...around 5 or 6, but I'm happy that she is pretty much sleeping at night. Some times it takes her longer to go back to sleep after a feeding, but for the most part we are REALLY lucky! She was never much of a night owl when I was pregnant with her...she never woke me up at night. However, she was crazy active around 7:30-8:30 pm. Funny how that works!

Michael goes back to work on Monday (yes he has been off since the beginning of the year and it has been wonderful!!!) I am nervous about him going back for a couple reasons; 1) I won't have the extra pair of hands any more, 2) No more grown up conversations with someone that is sitting right next to me, 3) I have gotten so used to having him with me all of the time and I have really enjoyed this time getting to know him as a daddy, 4) nighttime will be difficult because I am going to have to take over some feedings by myself so Michael can be rested for work, and 5) I will be in charge of this precious little person all by myself during the day. I'm sure that once I get a some what routine set for us it will be much easier, but as of now, I'm not looking forward to Monday. Maybe time will stand still between now and then.

Addi is sleeping peacefully in her swing and Michael is working on making some chili for dinner for his parents tonight. I'm going to use this time to get myself ready. Bye for now!

New Life

So it has been two weeks and two days since Addison has been in our lives and things have been turned completely upside down in our lives (in a good way of course). My mom has been a huge help to us! She has done all of our laundry, cooked, cleaned, pretty much everything that I have not been able to do. I am not really aloud to do house work for 4 weeks (because of the c-section), so she took that over for me. She would watch the baby for Michael and me after a really long night so we could get some sleep. She was truly wonderful and made the transition a whole lot easier for us.

Now that she left, Michael and I need to establish a routine and some sense of "normal" to our lives again. Addi a really good baby. She can have her moments, but they usually don't last long. (I really hope I'm not jinxing things). She is pretty good at night as well...we can get three to four hours of sleep out of her, but some nights it's really hard to get her to fall asleep after a feeding (even though she falls asleep ALL OF THE TIME while feeding). Michael has been a huge help to me! He will sleep while I'm feeding her, change her diaper in the middle to wake her up, go back to sleep, then wake back up to rock her to sleep so I can sleep. He has helped keep me sane in the middle of the night...actually all of the time! He is my rock and I am so thankful for him!

Addi is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen in my life. She makes me feel so many things at one time...scared, happy, love, clueless, and so much more that I can't even think of the words for. I love her more every day. I love when she smiles, even though she doesn't really smile because of us yet (I am counting down the days until she does). It still melts my heart! But it also breaks my heart when she cries and I can't tell why. I have started to learn the difference between hungry crying and tired crying, but we still have a lot to learn about each other. And, I'm looking forward to every minute of it!

Addison Lee's arrival!

This is going to be a long post...FYI

Michael, Mom, and I had been sitting around the house since January 2nd waiting on my beautiful Addison to make her appearance into the world and it was getting really old! We were all so ready to get the show on the road, but Addi had a different plan for us! I had a TERRIBLE headache on Saturday that lasted all day long. I knew something was wrong when the extra strength Tylenol did not help at all, but Michael's mom suggested that we should get a blood pressure cuff and check my pressure. My blood pressure was scary high (155/94) so we put in a call to my doctor's office. Dr. Owens (Dr. Fliedner was not on call) had me go over to the hospital to have some tests done and then decide what to do from there. My blood pressure was extremely high and I had protein in my urine, which meant that I was dangerously close to having seizures. I was admitted into the hospital right away and started on a magnesium drip (which is a serious muscle relaxer...not good for labor). I was still not dilated at all, but we didn't have time to ripen my cervix, so the doctor just decided to induce me at 10:00 pm.

My contractions were not too bad, but I really did not want to get an epidural yet because I didn't want it to slow down my labor...especially since I was on the magnesium drip. They started to get really intense (1 minute apart) at 3:00 am so I decided to try a really strong pain medicine. It helped me relax for a while, but my water broke at 4:30 and I really couldn't handle them any more. So I got an epidural and I was in HEAVEN! I could feel the contractions, but there was no pain :-) I thought that my labor was progressing nicely because my water had broken, however when the nurse checked me I was only 1 cm and Addi's head was still really high (they couldn't even feel her head). After about 30 minutes Dr. Owens informed the nurse that we should move ahead with the c-section. My blood pressure wouldn't be able to handle 12+ more hours of labor so my c-section was scheduled for about 30 minutes later.

I really started to freak out because this is not how I saw Addi's birth in my head. The thought of having a c-section was really scary...that's major surgery!! Before I knew what was happening, the anesthesiologist was in my room pushing a ton of medication into the epidural. I was so numb that I couldn’t swallow the right way and it felt like I wasn’t breathing. That was scary! Michael had to wait in the hallway as I was prepped for surgery…it felt like hours before I got to see him again.

I was on so many drugs that I really didn’t know what was going on during the surgery. It took about 10 minutes to get Addi out of my tummy. The doctors showed her to me over the curtain for literally 1 second before they took her away. Michael stayed by my side until Addi was out and taken to the assessment table. I started to cry because all I wanted to do was see her! The NICU nurse came over to me and told me that they were going to take her for a couple of hours to make sure that the magnesium drip didn’t hurt her, which made me cry even more. Before they took her away, they brought her over to me so I could see her but I couldn’t touch or kiss her at that time.

Michael went with Addi to the NICU while they finish the surgery on me. I was crying the entire time…I was scared, alone, and my baby girl was some where without me for the first time. It was very emotional. After the surgery, I was wheeled back into my room. The room was empty because my mom when to find Addi and Michael. I spent the next few hours in bed waiting for Addison to come to my room. All I wanted was to be with her. Finally, she was brought to our room at 2:00 pm (keep in mind she was born at 8:13 am).

Over all, it was a terrible experience. I hated every minute that I had to be away from my daughter. Everything would have been fine if they would have let me be with her. The NICU gave her 2 formula bottles; one in the morning when she got there because she was going to be there for a few hours, and then one right before they brought her to me (which was extremely stupid because I could have fed her myself). I pretty much spend that first part of that first day crying, but everything was much better when I finally got to see my baby.

Overall, the c-section experience was horrible. The ONLY good thing to come out of that is Addi! I would rather forget the entire thing and just remember holding Addi in my arms for the first time.

The hospital stay was wonderful! All of the nurses were really nice and helpful. It felt more like being in a hotel rather than a hospital. I’m nervous now about beginning our new life on our own. I worried that I won’t be able to sooth my baby when she cries or read her and know what she wants. I know we will work through all of this, but it is a really scary thing!

Well…I’m pretty tired (go figure). Bye for now J

Update

Hi!

Last week Michael and I went to the doctor and I was not dilated at all. I also found out that my blood pressure was pretty high (140/90, which is very high for me!) and he gave me 4 options that we would discuss at the appointment this week:

1) Go into labor on my own this past week

2) Go into the hospital on Tuesday (tomorrow) to be induced if I was at all dilated

3) Go into the hospital on Monday (tonight) to be ripened and get induced on Tuesday morning

4) Schedule a c-section

Well, we just got back from the doctor and I am still not dilated! Addi is just not ready to join the world yet, which is OK because it is safe for both of us. My blood pressure was still high, 140/90, so Dr. Fliedner had me lay on my left side for 10 minutes before we checked it again. My blood pressure was 124/72...which is pretty normal for me. So...we decided to wait for one more week, but he told me this is her last chance to come out on her own. Next week we are either going to induce labor or schedule a c-section.

Her actual due date is January 8th, so hopeful she will come by then! We'll see what happens and I will keep you all updated :-)