Madison Marie

SHE'S HERE!!!!

This was two nights before I had the baby- stick a fork in me, I'M DONE!!
I had an appointment on Thursday and the Dr. said I could have her the next day if I wanted. He called the hospital and set the appointment and I had about 2 hours to go home and get my stuff and get over there. We packed our stuff and even grabbed some dinner at Olive Garden before heading over.

Ready or not, here she comes!

Ready to pop!



I got to the hospital and they started me on some drugs just to get my body prepped. The nurses were amazing and I was super nervous but they were great at calming me down and keeping me well-informed. They got the drugs started and the plan was to start me on pitocin the next morning/afternoon. I sent Kallen home to take care of the dog and get some good rest since he didn't fit on the too-short hospital bed.

Well, I started having contractions that night so they took me off the drugs and let me just progress throughout the night. It was pretty much the most awful night of my life. Besides all the uncomfortable monitors, the I.V., etc., I was having contractions and some major back labor. I am not a fan, for the record. I labored all night and my nurse came in with the best news around 5am- that I could have my epidural now! This was about 5 hours sooner than expected, so Kallen raced back to the hospital and we assumed we were on our way to having a baby. I continued to progress, but not as fast as they would like. They couldn't start me on pitocin though because the baby wasn't responding how they would like so they didn't want to make my contractions stronger than they already were. They tried putting me on oxygen, breaking my water, etc. and nothing seemed to help. Around 11:30 the nurse came in and said there was really no way around it and in order to have the baby born healthy, we needed to do a c-section now. It was a scary moment, but Kallen talked to the Dr. and got more details and we decided it was the best thing to do.

Getting wheeled in to the operating room...

What a strange experience the c-section was. I had my epidural, so I couldn't feel much other than pressure, lots of tugging, etc. The prep didn't take long and they were on their way. Kallen got to watch the whole thing and take pictures (I'll spare the graphic ones, but I think it is pretty cool) The docs were good about explaining to him what they were doing. I didn't get to watch, but I could somewhat see in a reflection on one of the light fixtures on the ceiling. It was very surreal and cool and gross all at the same time.

Kallen got to cut the cord.

She was born at 12:17pm on July 3rd. The whole process took about 20 minutes. Too bad I had to labor all night, because otherwise the whole baby in less than 30 minutes thing was pretty cool. I was a little disappointed that she had a cone head because normal c-section babies haven't been stuck in the birth canal all night long and have round heads. She's just a stubborn little soul I guess and had to come into the world on her terms.

So this is Madison.....she was nameless until Saturday night-sorry little girl! One of our cute nurses made us write our top picks on the white board in our room and slowly cross them off. We tried different names on her to see what we thought would fit. We took polls as nurses and friends came in. I think it fits her well.

She was 7 lbs. 11 oz. and 20 inches long. She is in perfect health and I don't think we could love her any more. She was worth every moment of anguish and pain and we are so excited and proud to be blessed with this perfect angel.