Baby Girl

Sorry for my absence..but I promise, it was for a very good(and cute) reason. We welcomed our sweet baby girl, Miss Madelyn Grace into this world on May 22, 2010 at 4:41 pm. She weighed 8lbs, 6oz and was 20 inches long and she is absolutely wonderful in every way.

I had contractions all night, about every 20 minutes or so and decided to just kinda ride it out at home. We finally decided to go in around 7 am that morning and wouldn’t you know it, I had my last contraction in the parking lot. Once they hooked me up to the monitors, nothing. But I was 5 cm dialated!! They said they would keep me for a few hours and check me again then and told me I could get up and walk if I wished. JP and I walked the halls for awhile, he ran down to get some breakfast, and we kind of laughed about how we would probably be going home but coming back later. They hooked me back up and still no contractions and I was still the same dialation. The nurse asked me if I’d be comfortable going home and I told her that would be fine. She went and checked with the doctor on call and came back to tell us that the doctor would like to get me going on pitosin to get my contractions going because I was so far dialated & close to my due date.

Around 11 they got me into the delivery room and started the pitosin. Contractions got pretty bad pretty quick. I got my epidural around 2:00ish and by 3:15 I was 8cm dialated and my water had broken. There was meconium in the fluid once again and my heart just dropped. I really did not want another baby going up to the NICU. The nurse said NICU would be attending my delivery, but because they were aware of it there was a good chance that the baby would be absolutely fine.

By 3:45 I was pushing and the doctor finally got there. Turns out our baby girl was face up making it harder to push her out. But alas, she was born and handed off to the NICU team. They worked on her for only a few minutes before handing her over to me. She is absolutely beautiful and healthy.

She’s now 9 days old and has been home for 6 days. Gabe is adjusting to her very well and loves hugging/kissing his baby sister. Maddy is breastfeeding and it’s going really well, I couldn’t ask for anything more.

I think the initial bonding right after birth is so important and special. Since we never got that with Gabe, we made sure to do it with Maddy. She is so calm and sweet, barely ever cries. I’m so in love with her.

I will try to post more later, but for now, here’s a few pictures..