Madison is a month old. I find that so baffling. Where did the month go?
Madison had her first real bath. She was a fan:
We went to a family dinner at my Grandma’s. Madison was adored by all:
Ben came up and spent some time bonding with the baby. He brought Cafe Rio with him. He’s welcome anytime!
Madison is usually an okay sleeper but occasionally in the evenings she’ll really fight going to sleep. This has happened the past two nights so naturally I’m worried this will happen every night here on out for the rest of our lives, and I get really exhausted thinking about that. Let’s all hope tonight is a good night.
Brooke got hold of the camera one day while I was showering. Apparently Madison became unhappy:
But she fixed the problem:
She also got a shot of Spencer’s mouth:
Brooke was off-track during March so we didn’t have to worry about school which was so nice as I was recovering from giving birth. One day the girls were bored so I pulled out some Perler Beads that I bought several weeks ago. This kept them busy for days:
Caroline made a circle design and Brooke created what else? A unicorn:
Brooke being off track and me just having a baby meant there were a lot of days where everyone stayed in their pajamas:
Brooke spent the last couple of days looking like this:
Her left eye got scratched and became all red and swollen. Luckily it has started healing and she’s almost back to normal.
Ready for a birth story? These are always fun, right?
Let’s start with a 39-week-pregnant picture:
On this particular day I went grocery shopping and a grown woman asked if I was having twins. The nerve.
My doctor said he could induce me a week early. I tend to be against inductions when there isn’t a medical reason for it, but it turns out I’m more against being pregnant for an extra week once I have it in my head that I can deliver early…so…induction it was.
On Friday, the 28th, my mom came over to our house bright and early to report for babysitting duty, and Dallas and I headed off to the hospital.
By 8:00 AM we had checked in and gotten settled in a room. By 10:00 I was on pitocin feeling regular contractions. By 10:30, the doctor had broken my water. By noon I was getting an epidural (after having to wait for the lady in the next room get hers. We could hear her screaming in pain so I’m glad she got hers first.).
At 1:00 I was offered a smoothie. After having not eaten anything other than a light breakfast, I was ready for something. I gladly accepted. I texted my sister and told her I was about to have a smoothie. Her response, “They’re letting you eat?! Don’t do it! You’re going to puke. Save it for recovery!”
By 1:20 I had finished the delicious smoothie.
By 2:30 I felt the unmistakeable urge…to vomit up my smoothie. Should have listened to my sister. Luckily my nurse was there and quickly gave me some anti-nausea medicine so crisis averted.
By 3:10 I was finally feeling the urge to push.
At 3:22 Madison made her appearance into the world. 7 lbs 4 oz and 20 inches long.
Madison screamed and screamed and screamed. And screamed and screamed. And screamed. For the next two hours. The only times she stopped were when she found her fingers to suck on.
Adorable.
She surprised me and Dallas by not looking like the other kids when she was born though I think she’s looking more like them now.
Labor and delivery went pretty smoothly and all was well until I got up to go to the bathroom. I had some chest pain which I ignored.
The next time I went to the bathroom, I again had chest pain…and it was a little more intense.
The third time I went to the bathroom I felt like I was being stabbed through the heart repeatedly.
Apparently chest pain after delivering a baby is not a symptom that doctors and nurses are happy to hear about and I promptly had all sorts of heart tests ordered for me. After an EKG, an ultrasound of my heart, blood tests, and wearing a heart monitor for 24 hours it was determined that my heart was fine and they couldn’t find anything wrong. Luckily, my chest pains subsided and I’ve (mostly) felt fine since.
Madison wasn’t a fan of the car seat:
The kids have reacted to Madison pretty much how we expected. Brooke has only wanted to hold her once or twice:
But she usually has some stuffed animal or another perched near Madison showing her some love:
Caroline was eager to hold Madison in the hospital…for a second. Then she got uncomfortable and said, “Umm, please get this thing off me.”
Since then she’s wanted to hold Madison a million times a day:
Apparently I don’t have any pictures of Spencer with Madison. We had to laugh when he visited in the hospital. The girls carefully crept up to me and the baby and laughed and smiled at Madison. Spencer inched toward me and carefully inspected the hospital bed trying to figure it all out. He will usually coo at her once or twice a day, but he continues to really be interested in her swing or car seat or bouncer or wipe container. Silly brother.
I really don’t feel like writing a lengthy blog post that could take days to finally finish with all the pictures we have. Instead, I’m going to fall prey to others’ desire of just seeing the pictures of Madison and I’m going to post the pictures I’ve taken so far and let Rebecca give you the summary later.
Well, there wasn’t much time to give you many updates from our boring sitting around stage to the finale. Rebecca rocked the baby delivery and 10 minutes later Madison was born. Here’s a little teaser for ya. I haven’t had a chance to take many pictures yet because I wanted to let the nurses do their job and now she is in for some special time with Mom. More pictures will follow. Oh yeah, she weighs 7 lbs. 4 oz. and is 20 in. long. She has lots of Golden hair.
