FINALLY!!!

Well boys and girls... Madeline JANE officially joined our family last night (well, technically this morning) at 12:31 am. She's beautiful, healthy and QUIET. Good grief - I'm not used to a quiet baby. LOL She just eats, sleeps and stares at us - I have yet to hear her cry since they gave her a shot at 1 am this morning... since then she's been the most mellow baby, just cuddly and sweet and adorable.



She's much fairer than Lizzy in that she has blond eyebrows and light brown hair - but she's very pink where Liz had more splotches from being pushed out for so long.



Okay... so what happened you ask? Why didn't I update before I left the house? Well... I didn't think I was in labor. LOL I woke up yesterday at 2 am with a very hard contraction that brought tears to my eyes... I was so frustrated as we'd just gotten home from being checked out at 11 pm... I knew it wasn't the real thing just 3 hours later so I just waited... and struggled through some very hard contractions continually until lunch time. My contractions were about 7-8 minutes apart still... no suprises there, and as of the night before I hadn't dialated ANY since last Friday's induction.



I was so frustrated... finally around 3 I told Jay I had to go in... it was just hurting too bad... call me a ninny but I was in way too much pain for normal contractions - so we pack up Lizzy, drop her off at my mom's and head over to the new hospital. I didn't even bring my bag. I figured I'd beg and plead for some pain meds to help me hold off until my contractions sped up and became regular so that I could be admited. They put me into a room immediately and I had the sweetest nurse EVER. She was a doll. She checked me and then looked up at me and started laughing... she said "Girl you are not going home, you are having this baby - probably in just a couple hours!" You're 6 centimeters and 90%.



Say wha?! Clearly my goal of laboring at home as long as possible had been reached. I just didn't know it. They checked me in immediately and warned that if I dialated too quick I might miss my window for an epidural... uhhhhh, then let's hurry this up shall we? She was such a sweetie - she got 2 liters of IV fluid in me in RECORD time. It was literally pouring into me... it skipped the sensor and went straight from the bag into my arm - in fact, she needed to go call in my antibiotics to the pharmacy and told me to page her as soon as the the IV reached number 8 (it only goes to 9) I looked up and watched a baby commercial... looked back and the bag was empty! CRAP. I paged her and she ran in and shut the IV off with about 2 1/2 feet of fluid left in the cord - otherwise I'd have been getting straight air in my veins. Nice. LOL So when she got back I asked her to check me again - it'd only been 20 minutes but the sporadic contractions were now about 3 minutes apart and were most undoubtedly the worst pain I'd ever been in... she checked me and went "WOAH girl! Slow down! You're 8 centimeters already!" So I was up to 8 centimeters with no epidural or IV drugs... no wonder it was the worst pain I'd ever felt! I had an epi with Liz at 4 centimeters! Anyway, the anisthesiologist came in shortly thereafter and in less than 5 minutes I had my epidural. Bliss I tell you, Pure Bliss. I have to say I'm definately over my fear of needles, I didn't flinch at the IV and barely winced at the Epidural (while my husband stood in front of me staring at the needle - his face was white when he saw how long it was) ;) I was proud of myself - I used to nearly black out at the thought of an IV - now I've had 3 of them in the last 3 weeks, so I'm pretty much over that.



ANYWAYS! The epidural doctor was awesome and I felt very little of the whole process - after having those strong contractions for so long a little epidural felt like mosquito bite. (Okay for the record I typed the above yesterday at the hospital then lost my connection and had a thousand visitors so I'm picking back up today now that we're home. LOL)

Moving on... The epidural kicked in and slowed my labor - which was a good thing as I need my 4 hours of antibiotics... not that it happened - but they tried. lol At 8:30 my water broke on it's own, and I was ready to start pushing at 10 - but they kept telling me to hold off... hold off... let's try to wait until midnight so you can finish up your antibiotics... so I ignored the pressure and urge to push - and finally around 11:55 the nurse said "give me one push just to see how long this is going to take..." She decided I was ready to start pushing but figured I'd take awhile since Liz took so long and got a little stuck... fast forward 15 minutes and she said "STOP! I have to get the doctor in here! Do Not Push or she's going to come out before he makes it!" Dr. Martin was working with another patient so it took him 10 minutes to get there - in which Madeline patiently waited just mere inches from arriving... doctor walks in - sits down and she's out in 3 pushes. Head. Shoulders. Body. lol Cord was wrapped around her neck twice but it was no biggie... same thing happened to Liz... Madeline was officially born on February 29th, 2008 at 12:31 am. She was the very first leap year baby at the hospital. She weighed 7 lbs 13 oz - 20 1/2 inches long. The laid her on the warmer and then cleaned up the delivery area and she just rolled on her side and watched us... no tears - no crying, just opened her beautiful blue eyes and stared at us while the doctor was finishing up. The nurse kept commenting that she hadn't found her voice... but as it turns out - 2 days later, she's just a very quiet natured baby. (Who in the world does she get this from?! Not me!)

I had no tearing, no episiotomy, nothing. I was so happy about that... and still am - it's made healing SO much easier. Other than feeling swollen I was on my feet 2 hours later and walked around.

We had to share a room that first night as they were slammed. We didn't realize that and had asked the nursery to keep Madeline until 8 am (this was at 3:30 - I had to stay in the delivery room until the epi wore off) but the other couple in the room had their baby with them and when we walked in she was screaming... eventually she did go to sleep but between the nurses checking my vitals every hour, and the other mom's vitals every hour, the other baby's vitals every hour- and none of these at the same time - our room had the lights on all night and I got NO sleep whatsoever. Jay however laid down and knocked out for 3 hours- the other girls husband was snoring too, while she and I were just laying there... I almost had them bring Maddy back in but figured it would probably get worse as the babies would just play off each other and holler every time the other one woke up.

Madeline arrived in our room at 8 am and the nurse said she'd been the sweetest baby all night long - just laying there watching the nurses, she'd catnap and then wake up and look around - they didn't feed her until 5:30 am (I'd nursed her at 1:30) and only fed her then because it was "time" not because she was crying or showing any signs of being hungry! And that has continued on until now... this baby is SO mellow! About every 2 1/2 hours she'll start rooting - but she doesn't cry, so I've been holding her off and feeding her every 3 - 3 1/2 hours instead to start getting her on a schedule - this also helps as she'll stay awake for each feeding and get a whole feeding in, instead of nodding off as soon as she get's a little in her tummy.

We were discharged this morning and both Madeline and I received a clean bill of health! All in all I got the birth experience I could only hope for... it was so smooth and the doctors and nurses were So sweet. I'm thrilled that we switched hospitals - Trident was fantastic and I really truly loved being there. I'm on the mend and have very little swelling now - enough to keep me from running around, but you'd never know it by how I walk or anything. I still look about 4-5 months pregnant - yuck. But I'll lose it eventually...

On to her name... we named her Madeline Jane as Jane was the middle name of my grandmother (daddy's mom) - my induction date two Fridays ago was my grandma's birthday (she passed away a few years ago) and we had decided then to switch the name in honor of my grandma... well even though she didn't make it on that day - we liked the idea of Maddy having a family tribute name like Liz, so we decided to stick with Jane. My grandma was a very special woman so this will be a great reminder of her.

For now, my peanut is sitting her all snuggled next to me, I'm going to try and start a new dropshots page soon so I can upload all her pics... for now - here's a couple of Madeline Jane.