Madalyn's First Bath

Well the day finally came... when Madalyn was 10 days old her umbilical cord stump fell off. This means no more sponge baths... and she is ready for her tub! I had absolutely no idea how to go about bathing her... so of course I had to call Mom and ask her for advice. I was a little worried since she HATED her sponge baths and would scream and cry the entire time. I assumed she would hate the baby bath tub as well.

Taking Mom's advice, I ran the water for her tub. Thinking I had it set so it would be filling for awhile and would overflow into the sink, I went to take Madalyn out of her clothes and wrap her in a towel. While I was doing this the tub tipped in the sink and spilled water over the edge and onto the floor. (Luckily we have tile!) I wrapped her in a towel and put her in her swing while I set up the tub. Once I had that on the counter I went and got her from the swing, only to find she had peed all over her clean towel! Luckily I had planned ahead and had several already laid out. : )

I expected screams from her when I put her in the tub... but she surprised me and LOVED her bath! Madalyn played and splashed her hands against the water (she is only 11 days old!) and never even so much as wimpered. She didnt even cry when I washed her hair, or when I washed her face and she got some water in her eyes. I was shocked at how much she seemed to love bathtime! She actually started crying when I took her OUT of the tub because she loved it so much!

Let me say something though... being a Mom is hard work! I now have an entire load of towels and wet clothes to wash because of her bath! :) But its worth it because she smells so clean and "baby soft."

I am recovering quite well from my C section... and each day I feel even better and find I can do more. I think starting tomorrow Madalyn and I are going to take some afternoon walks....

Madalyn's first week

This week was certainly a busy one for Madalyn! She got to come home from the hospital Tuesday and we tried to settle into a routine around here. She sleeps very well (about 3 hour blocks during the night!) and is an eating champ! Its amazing to see how much more "awake time" she has each day.

She got visits from her Nana and Papa Swanson, Gigi and Papa Hill, her Aunt and Uncle Jenna and Brad and Savannah and Brad's parents and his cousing Kenna after the Orange and Blue game. She also met Uncle Ben and Aunt Amber... not to mention Auntie Kristina and Auntie Megan who came to see her in the hospital. She got lots of presents as well this week, including a Vermont Teddy Bear with her name on it from Papa Hill.

My mom stayed this week with us.... and thank Goodness for that! She was able to help me recover from my C Section as well as help take care of the baby. She went home last night, so Shawn and I had our first night alone with Madalyn... and lucky for us she was only up twice so we were able to get some rest!

Madalyn is an absolute doll and we are both so in love with her! She loves to snuggle and when we can get her to open her eyes they are the most beautiful color of dark blue/green. Its hard to tell which one of us she looks like more... I have a baby picture of me at 48 hours old that you would swear was her. But then sometimes she looks more like Shawn... so we will see...

Baby's first pictures

Here are some of Madalyn's first pictures, taken at the hospital after she was born.

Madalyn Jean Swanson

She's finally here and is so beautiful!

It was a rough couple of days... starting with going in at midnight on April 7th to start my induction. I was given Cervadil to prep my cervix for delivery and I almost immediately started having contractions. At about 10 the next morning they started me on Pitocin and we expected a fairly quick delivery. Madalyn on the other hand had other plans. I got as far as 8cm and felt like I needed to push, but she wasnt low enough. That went on for about 5 or 6 hours and just before midnight on Easter Sunday my doctor decided to do a C section because I had started running a fever and her heartrate had started going up above 200 bpm, a sign of a possible infection. She was born at 1:04 am and weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20 1/4 inches. It sounds like a big baby but she is actually quite the little peanut! She was the first baby born on Easter and got a special little Easter basket from the volunteer staff at North Florida.

They immediately took Madalyn to the Special Needs nursery for evaluation, and it wasnt until 4 am that I knew if she was okay or not. It was a horrible feeling, not knowing if she was okay... especially after they whisked her away so quickly. When I finally could go see her she had an IV and a cardiac monitor hooked up to her... scary for a new mom! Because her heartrate had been so high and she had been a little pale at birth they had kept her under the oxygen hood and were treating her for a possible infection. But the Nurse Practitioner told me that if she could nurse and keep food down they could take out the IV and she could stay with us in our room. So Madalyn and I got a crash course in breastfeeding (she is a champ at that!) and later that afternoon she was able to come into our room.

All of her bloodwork came back great and she actually was able to be discharged from North Florida before I was. My doctor let me go home yesterday because my mom was here to take care of me, so we made it home earlier than anticipated. We have been home since noon yesterday and have been settling in... I have been exhausted trying to recover from both a day of labor AND a C Section... so I havent felt up to doing much. I apologize for not returning phone calls and promise I will be calling shortly as baby and I settle into our routine.

Right now we are the luckiest people in the world. Our daughter is absolutely gorgeous and healthy and has the greatest temperment we could have asked for. All of our friends and family have been so supportive and have been taking wonderful care of us.

We will be posting more pictures as the days go on I promise!

Officially Homeowners

Well, as of about 1 this afternoon we are officially homeowners. The final signitures certainly didnt reflect as much stress went into the deal.... but its done and the house we wanted is ours. We had already been doing some work on it so we were holding our breath until the official closing... and now its done. What a big day! And Shawn has already put so much work into the place... it needs a lot more, but you can see some improvement. And its nice to have a place of our own to call home.... and something that we can benefit from.

And in about 20 minutes we are off to the hospital.... I am going to be induced and Madalyn Jean should be here sometime before Sunday we are hoping! (I am hoping for early tomorrow morning, but thats just cause I have to push her out and I want the pain over with!) So homeowners and parents in the same 24 hour period... how exciting! We are truly blessed....

38 Weeks, 4 Days

Well today I had my doctors appointment. It was certainly an experience. My doctor was actually out because he had hurt his back and I was told that I was going to see the office RN and she would check me and then I would see him next week. I told the LPN that we had said that we were going to talk about induction this week, especially since my blood pressure has been high. She said she would call the nurse midwife to come and check me and she would talk to me about induction.

Well the midwife came up and she was very nice. However, she is a midwife and a big proponent of natural childbirth (meaning no inductions and C sections unless emergencies.) She told me that there is a much higher risk of C sections with inductions and that is because sometimes the cervix isnt favorable for induction. I told her that I had been checked last week and was told I am very favorable for an induction, and we were to evaluate that today based on my blood pressure. She checked me and I was actually between 2 and 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced.... VERY favorable for induction. She said she could feel the baby's head and my bag of waters and she wouldnt be surprised if she came soon on her own because of how low her head is.

She then told me she would talk to the on call doctor about sending me to the hospital today for an induction. She called her and they talked... and the doctor said since there is a note on my chart that Dr. Muskus will be delivering me she wouldnt make that decision without talking to him. So the midwife came back and said to make another appointment (which I couldnt get until Tuesday of next week!) and to spend as much time lying on my side as possible over the next week.

I was so upset... mostly cause Im overtired from not sleeping and over emotional right now... but I was frustrated as well about this whole BP issue and them saying I need to rest and not do anything. There is so much going on that I want to help with... as well as feeling like laundry and dishes are piling up and I am suppossed to stay in bed all day! Plus if my doctor had been there, then I would have gone in for an induction. Or if I had been seeing the other doctor she would have sent me in... but they wanted him to make that decision but were going to wait until he comes back to work.

When we got home Shawn called his Aunt Michelle, our doctors wife and filled her in on what happened. Long story short.... we ended up talking to my doctor at home and he said he would call and have me put on the schedule for induction on Saturday, his next day on call. So unless she decides to come before then, we will end up going in Friday night at midnight to have Cervadil and will start Pitocin some time early Saturday morning. Looks like Madalyn will be an Easter Baby after all!

Better than a walk through!

Well yesterday was the BIG day... when we would see if the people were actually out of the house or not. I felt like we stalked them all day with drive-bys and "stretching our legs" by walking down to the corner. There was very limited activity at the house all day, so I was getting VERY worried because there was a HUGE pile of junk outside the house!

Well around 5 I had Shawn call the sellers to set up a time for our walk through today. They said they were going out of town this morning and wouldnt be back until late Tuesday.... BUT we could have the keys last night as soon as the people turned them over and could get into the house to start working. Much better than a walk through! So around 7, after my parents had gotten into town, they came by with the keys and dropped them off and were so excited for us. They said we could get started doing stuff around the house since they knew the baby was coming SOON... and that we can do the closing via mail as soon as we are ready.

The bad part of having the keys is that the people didnt clean... and that kind of falls onto us. Which we would have done anyways... but I hadnt planned on cleaning up shampoo bottles and toothbrushes and taking down the girls' stuff in their room. According to the sellers the couple split up this past month and the guy took off... and he knew he needed to have his stuff out by yesterday and never came back to get it. They have until we officially sign papers to come get their stuff... anything after that becomes ours. Which for the most part is a bunch of junk we wouldnt want.... BUT the guy apparantly is a drywaller and had a bunch of tools that he now has about 2 days to come claim or Shawn is a very lucky man! They also left a TV there, but we told the sellers if the Mom wants the TV Shawn will load it in her car for her because Im guessing the reason she didnt move it was because she couldnt lift it.

So today was a long day... woke up and had breakfast with my parents and went to Lowes... we bought a bunch of stuff for the house (Thanks Mom and Dad!) and a Sawsall for Shawn (his favorite tool so he was in heaven.) Then back to the house where Shawn got to work on the yardwork... mowing and pruning cutting down tree limbs. Then he used his new carpet knife to cut out the carpet in the baby's room and office and then he had to tear out the terrazo floors underneath which was a project in and of itself. I had to come home and resume bedrest after awhile because I was exhausted, but he worked super hard. When I went back over there later the house looked much improved.

We also picked out all of the colors of our paint and they look amazing together... cant wait to see them on our walls!

Tomorrow we have a doctors appointment in the afternoon and HOPEFULLY will be scheduling Madalyn's birthday... it would be nice to not be pregnant so I didnt feel so useless while working on the house!

I am going to put together a slide show (pregnant ladies make great photographers if nothing else) of the house BEFORE... we are planing to document the whole experience so we can look back and see how much we have accomplished. Right now it seems, at least to me, like a very overwhelming project... but it is something Shawn loves to do and he says he can do a lot of things to the house... and I trust him when he says it will be great when we are finished.