What a week!

It's hard to believe that Madeline has only been here for a little over a week. It feels like she's just always been a part of our family.
The adjustment has been much easier this time around. It is SO wonderful to not feel nauseated all of the time!
Here's a quick rundown of the week:
I was thrilled on Saturday when I went into labor on my own. I had been having light contractions for a day, but woke up from a nap around 4pm with my contractions about 5 minutes apart. We went to the hospital and had a very smooth laboring experience. It definitely wasn't fun, but nothing like my experience with Gigi. We spent Sunday and part of Monday in the hospital and then headed home. Madeline has been such a happy, calm girl. I really don't know if I have heard her cry for more than a few minutes at a time. She even seems to have her days and nights figured out. Last night she slept for 5 hours and I think would have slept longer, but I woke up and kind of panicked and woke her up and fed her.
The only problem we have had is with jaundice. We thought that she might have jaundice and the doctor agreed so we got a blood test done last Wednesday. It wasn't high enough to treat, but they wanted to follow it so they had me go in the next day. It hadn't gone down so they had me go in on Friday. Again it hadn't gone down, so they had me go in today. Hopefully it will be okay. I feel so bad for my little yellow girl.
It has been so much fun having her around. Luckily Gigi loves her too. She often wants to hug and kiss her, but is pretty gentle with her. The worst thing that she has done is accidentally squirt water in her eye while playing a game with me.


We all love taking pictures of Madeline :)

Last week Gigi was watching Snow White while I fed the baby and afterwards wanted to hold Madeline. Usually she just holds her for about 30 seconds and then says that she's done, but this time she snuggled up to me and I gave her the baby and put my arm around her to hold Madeline's head and we just stayed like that for over 30 minutes. It was such a sweet experience. I feel so blessed to have 2 precious girls.




A couple days ago David came home from studying and was exhausted, but really wanted to hold Madeline. So they took their first nap together. It has been so sweet to see David bond with this new baby.

My mom has been in town and my dad came into town on Thursday night to see the baby so we went ahead and had her blessed at home on Saturday night. We had been planning on doing it at the church, but because she was born so late I was nervous taking her to church. It ended up being a great experience though. We just had family and a few friends over. David did a great job on the blessing. It was so special to have him bless her. Afterwards we had some dinner, compliments of Candy and Tony. Thanks guys!!!!

My mom and dad left this morning and it is kind of weird having our place to ourselves again. Luckily my sister is only a phone call away. It really is great living by family.

The 4th Nomad

Thank you for all of the congratulatory comments. I'm writing this while staring into Madeline's dark, curious eyes. We've been home a few hours now, but we still haven't recovered from the surreal experience in the hospital. We have been tag-teaming sleep and selfishly enjoying our family time for the last couple of days, so please understand why we haven't called anyone.

I'm sure Bethany will post about her experience later, so I'll just tell you that it was easier for her this time but harder for me. When it was close to the actual delivery, I had to take a break and sit down for a while. Everyone thought it was funny (because it looked like I was going to faint), but I was really surprised that the stress had hit me like that. I was perfectly fine last time. Thinking about it later, I realized what had changed. During Angelique's delivery, if something bad had happened, it would have been tragic, but exactly what I would have been losing was a great unknown. I have been more excited for Madeline to come because the last two and a half years with Angelique have been more wonderful than I could have imagined. So during Bethany's labor last night, whenever it looked like something might go wrong, I was much more nervous, because this time I knew what I would be losing.


Angelique has been an awesome big sister already. There have been a couple of bumps, though. She had a hard time leaving the hospital last night without us. Also, right after we came home, Angelique acted like the witch in a Hansel and Gretal story we've read to her. She grabbed Madeline's wrist and said, "I want to see if you're fat enough for me to eat." (Why do we read these horror stories to little kids?!) Otherwise, Gigi has been fun to watch with her.



Another blessing has been that I have been able to study a lot today. Madeline's little plastic crib was the perfect width to lay open my Administrative Law textbook. I was able to study while wheeling her around hospital hallways from 2:00 to 6:00 am to let Bethany sleep. It reminded me of the MBA assignments I was always rushing to finish while in the crazy baby watching situations I often found myself in.

Some final good news is that I now have a job for this summer. I get to work for a law firm in Erie, Pennsylvania. Even though it's a small town, it should still be pretty good experience. And most importantly, I will be earning a paycheck! That way, I can afford all of the ridiculous baby outfits Bethany wants to put baby Madeline in. This was how she looked on our way home today :)

She's here!!

Madeline Aria Payne came last night right before midnight. She's 7 lbs 2 oz and 20 in. Bethany did great. Baby Madeline is very, very calm and doing great.

Monday

I went to the doctor's today and they finally scheduled for me to be induced on Monday. Only 2 1/2 days left until we will see our little one. YIPEEEE!!!

No news yet...

So my due date has come and gone and still no baby. I know many women have faced this dilemma before, but because Gigi came a few days early I just wasn't expecting it. We have had everything ready for at least a week, but because she still hasn't arrived I'm afraid I have to get things re-ready. It's amazing how fast a home becomes dirty and how fast the groceries that you stockpiled disappear.
I went to my OB appointment on Friday (my due date) and was very depressed to find out that I am "maybe" 1 cm dilated and that they won't even think about inducing me until I am 41 1/2 weeks pregnant. So the waiting continues.


Because of the many requests, here is a picture of me looking VERY pregnant indeed. This picture was taken on my due date 2/13/09.

Final Preparations:
A week ago David and I went to Ikea and purchased a new bed for Gigi so that the baby can have her bed. She loved helping David set it up. David did a great job not only with putting her bed together, but also my mom's and the baby crib.


Gigi was really into watching me make the baby's quilt so I decided to make Gigi a big girl quilt to hopefully help with the transition. This quilting project was a bit more frustrating than the first because I didn't have a pattern. My friend Megan helped me figure out how make the quilt that was in my head and David even helped with the process. Gigi was pretty sad to lose her new bed, but she loves her new bed and quilt.

The small black object is a toy I didn't see when I took the picture...it is NOT a bug.


My mom came into town late Tuesday night to help out with the baby. It has been so much fun having her here and although it is frustrating that the baby isn't here it has been extra helpful to have her emotional support during these last few VERY long days of waiting.
Last night in an effort to get the baby to come I went to our workout room and walked. On my way back to our apartment I tripped over the curb and fell (not a huge surprise for those of you who know how coordinated I am). Of course it didn't put me into labor, but I did manage to bang up my knee and somehow hurt some ligament making it very painful to walk and very humerous to watch me walk. Oh well, all of this will be funny in a few weeks right?
I can't wait to post again with exciting news about the birth of our new little girl! I just hope it will be sooner rather than later :)

Life

So I can't seem to stay on top of the blogging thing lately. I love reading blogs, but getting around to posting one doesn't seem to happen. I thought I would give a little run down of what has been going on for the last month.

Basically our life has revolved around a little potty chair. The last week of David's break we decided to potty train Angelique together. I say together, but he pretty much did all of the hard work. It took her about 3 days to figure it out and since then she has been having accidents consistently, but she is getting better. It has been such an emotional thing for me. I think it's because it's the first time that I have to just support Angelique in doing something. Up to this point I have done what needed to be done for her, but this is not something I can't do. I honestly have had moments where I wished I had an ultrasound machine so I could detect whether or not her bladder was really full, but luckily we have passed that moment of insanity. It is pretty rediculous how much of our attention has been spent on this though. David and I have both had dreams about Gigi and the potty and every day we have at least one conversation about Gigi and the potty.


Here is David and Gigi on the carousel. We have tried giving her little rewards when she stays dry for a day or two.

In other news I have become extremely impatient with this little baby inside of me. I still have 2 1/2 weeks to go, but I want her out. We are so excited for her that the waiting game has become quite a burden. Also I forgot how hard this last month is. Besides continuining to feel totally neauseated all the time I just feel huge!!! I had an ultrasound last week and they estimated that the baby is already 6 lbs 6 oz. The exact size that Gigi was when she was born and I still have 3 weeks left! At least I guess it means that the baby will be healthy :)

Other than those two difficult things going on right now life is going great. Gigi is continuing to be a joy in our life. She loves to play pretend games. It's pretty cute. Since Christmas time one of her most loved games is to pretend to be Mary and her duck (her most prized possesion) is baby Jesus. She then wants us to look for the star and find baby Jesus. She could literally do this for hours. She also likes to pretend that I am the big bad wolf and that she needs to hide from me. Another favorite is anything to do with the Wizard of OZ. She has only seen this movie twice, but loves to be Dorothy and has us play one of her friends or occasionally the wicked witch. And of course she loves playing the big sister to her duck. She's too much fun.

2008 Christmas Video

Every year we make a Christmas video. Our first year, we thought we could do this as our Christmas card, but it only took one year before that became too expensive (we gave it to people on DVD). We have continued the tradition to try to capture some part of that year's memories in the video as a kind of time capsule. Since we were going to New York to see the Christmas sites this year, we decided to make our video on the trip. We came up with a storyline, but we were in New York on the Saturday before Christmas (= a lot of people!) with a seven-months-pregnant woman and a two-year-old toddler. We gave up on the storyline after five minutes, and I was lucky to grab the little bits of footage I did! The jumpiness is mostly because I had no time to edit, but it kind of captures what a quirky experience Christmastime in NY actually was.