1 Month

I can't believe my baby girl is one month old already! So this is what I want to remember about my dear sweet girl at this age.

Addilyn-

You are such a sweet baby. I love watching you when you sleep. Every once in a while the sweetest smile will creep across your face or you will let out what sounds like a giggle. I love that when I change your diaper you don't cry or scream or fuss (unless you are particularly hungry), you just stare at the poke-a-dots on the sign with your name on it and make sweet cooing and grunting noises.

I love how your cheeks are getting a little chub to them now and how you have the perfect little chin. I love how your mouth drops open and your bottom lip sticks out when you sleep, just like your daddy.

I have the feeling that you are getting spoiled by being held all the time since you now have times when you fuss if you're anywhere but in our arms but your dad and I just can't help it. You are so snuggly and sweet.

Nursing has not gone as smoothly as I would have hoped but when you cooperate I love hearing the sweet satisfied cooing noises and when hold my finger while you're eating. I love how comfy you look laying on my shoulder and how you always fall asleep when I try to burp you and look like you are just so content.

I wonder what you will look like as you grow. Will those dark dark blue eyes turn to brown like your dads or will they stay a blueish-greenish-grayish like mine? Will your hair keep the little wave it has now and be curly? Will your hair ever grow or will you stay bald forever like I did when I was a baby? I wonder what you will be like too. Will you stay so sweet or is a storm of colic in my future? Are you going to be stubborn or sweet? What will make you laugh?

In a few short weeks my time with you will start to shrink as I head back to work. I hope you will never resent me for doing this. I love being your mom and maybe someday that will be my only job but for now I will leave you in the loving hands of your daddy. I know that he will take such good care of you and that you will both benefit from spending this time together.

I hope you know that we hoped, dreamed and prayed for you before you were even born. You are our dream come true and never doubt that you are loved.

Love,

Your Mommy

The Rest of the Story

39 Weeks. 5 days before Addilyn was born

So back to the story...

Thursday morning was spent timing contractions and waiting for them to get close enough to head to the hospital. However, instead of getting closer they started to get farther and farther apart... first 15 minutes, then 20, then they almost completely stopped, I was just having about one every hour. Bummer! So we called/texted the family we had let know and told them it would be a little longer than we thought. I got some paperwork done and then called my sister Mardee. She's been pregnant with baby number 6 at the same time as me and we must be body twins because every symptom I would tell her about she would say- "Yep that happens to me too!" So when I told her about my contractions and she said "Kim, I do the same thing and you could do that for another two weeks! Just call and ask to be induced!" I believed her and followed her advice.

I got a nice chuckle from the nurse when I asked if I could schedule an induction for the next day. Then the doctor got on the phone and said he could do it first thing Saturday morning. Okay, I thought, that's only one more day and it will give me time to hopefully get everything started on my own. But by midnight on Thursday we were back to contractions every 7-10 minutes and these ones hurt, BAD. There was no sleeping through these ones that night so I slept in 10 minute increments. By Friday morning I was ready to call and beg the doctor to please let me come in. However the contractions followed about the same pattern as the day before and by the afternoon had spread out but not as much as they had the day before and they were definitely more intense.

We knew that Friday night would be our last night not being parents so despite my moaning and groaning every 7-10 minutes Dustin got me out of the house for dinner with our friends Steven and Kathryn. Our great meal of thai food was interrupted occasionally by my "slow paced breathing" that we had practiced for weeks but it felt good to have something to think about other than how bad everything hurt. Friday night was another long sleepless night, spent praying that contractions would get close enough for us to head to the hospital early. No such luck!

We headed to the hospital at 7:30 on Saturday morning and were checked in by 8. I got hooked up to the IVs, asked for an epidural (Planned on waiting longer but I had been having contractions for 2 days so give me a break!) and labor was on its way! I had to wait about an hour for the anesthesiologist to get there and this is where the fun part begins.

The only picture Dustin was allowed to take of me before delivery.

Must have been after the epidural because I'm smiling.

Here's what went wrong:

1. Felt pressure as the needle hit my bone instead of the epidural space.
2. Felt a sharp zing down my right leg
3. Felt an intense head ache just on the right side of my head. It was the worse headache I have ever felt.
4. Blood pressure dropped, heart rate increased, started feeling dizzy.
5. Only felt numb on the right side of my body.
6. Had to have the epidural taken out and put in again in a different spot.

When he moved the epidural it fixed everything, except for the headache. Apparently its called a spinal headache and it's caused when too much spinal fluid leaks out where they punctured the epidural space and changes the fluid pressure around the brain. (Looked up on WebMD). The remedy was to lay flat, drink lots of caffeine, take Tylenol and wait until after I delivered the baby to have them do a blood patch- where they take blood out of my arm and put it in the spot in my back where they did the epidural to fix the change in fluid pressure. So the contraction pains were under control but I had a raging headache. Lovely.

The next couple of hours are kind of a blur. I tried to sleep, watched t.v., texted my mom who was on her way to me, and tried not to move my head too much. The headache did get alot better and after awhile I only felt it when I moved my head to quickly.

Finally the doctor came to break my water and by the next contraction I was ready to push. After about an hour of the hardest physical workout I have ever done, Addilyn arrived at 5:02 pm. Then I stared into the face of my little girl who, after 9 months of being pregnant and 2 years of wishing I was, was finally here.

Wide awake right after being born

Love at First Sight

Dustin was amazing. He kept me calm, kept me smiling, and kept me from giving up. He was able to give our little girl her first bath and immediately began snapping pictures :)

Addilyn's First Bath

Daddy Time

So now our family feels a little more complete. This past week has been the happiest and hardest week of my life. I don't know what I would have done without my mom and Dustin doing absolutely anything I needed or wanted.

Don't know what we would have done without Grammee

Her First Outfit and Blanket from Grandma Neta

Heading Home

I am loving being a mom and Addilyn is the sweetest baby. Despite all the complications I had getting her here, she never gave us a minute to worry from the moment we found out I was pregnant. Of course, now all I do is worry but I guess that's not her fault, it just comes with the territory of parenthood.

First Moments at Home

Nap Time

SHE'S HERE!

Pictures to come soon but had to let you know:

Addilyn Maxiene Allen arrived on Saturday, August 27th at 5:02 pm. She weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and was a whopping 22 inches long.

Still trying to figure out how that long body fit in my belly and now know why it felt like she was pushing on my ribs and the inside of my hip at the same time :)

Here's the story:

I finished my last day of going out to see clients for work on Wednesday. It was a very long day and I spent most of the time sitting on the floor- not the most comfortable position when you're 39 1/2 weeks pregnant. I got home at about 5 and assumed my usual position of laying on the couch and propping my feet up. Around 7 I started to feel contractions, real contractions, not Braxton-Hicks contractions, or at least I was pretty sure they were real because they hurt a lot more. They came off and on and by the time we got in bed at 12 they were pretty regular at every 10 minutes. Oh we were so excited! We were going to have a baby soon! I slept through most of the contractions and finally got up at about 6 am. Dustin texted his mom and dad to let them know that labor had started. Contractions were still about 10 minutes apart but not too painfull. Dustin ran around taking directions from me and putting everything in our hospital bag.

To be continued...