Three Weeks and Smiling!

Wow! The last three weeks have flown by! It's been a blur of visitors, feeding, sleeping, and getting sick.

Adelyn and I aren't sleeping well. Addie has a lot of gas and has trouble sleeping before 2am. Consequently...I don't sleep much either. We both have been trying to catch up on sleep during the day. I think it's going better for her than me. We both have also gotten sick. I think we have a basic cold, but it's tough at this stage. We are nursing ourselves back to health and are hanging out in the bedroom with a humidifier. Hopefully we'll be better in a few days. Then we can focus more on getting Adelyn to sleep at a normal hour. It's hard when she's working through a cold AND gas.

Addie has really grown in these three weeks. She started at 7 pounds, 6 ounces and dropped below 7 pounds. As of Saturday, she was up to 8 pounds, 10 ounces (with her clothes on). She still fits in her newborn clothes, but she is also finally starting to fit into some of the 0-3 month clothes. She's a good eater! I never thought breastfeeding would go this well!

As for milestones...Addie can focus on an object or person, she can follow sounds, she is starting to coo more, and she smiled for the first time today!! The past few days she's been working on a crooked, half-smile, but today she smiled ear to ear when I spoke to her. She did it three times! Now, of course, she won't do it...but I'm going to count it!

I'm recuperating well aside from the cold. My c-section incision is healing well. I have almost no pain there now. That helps in the middle of the night when I'm reaching for her. Not using ab muscles was difficult. I'm so dependant on them! I'm almost down to my pre-pregnancy (or first pregnancy weigh-in) weight. I never thought it would come off so fast. I definitely have some toning to do, but can't hit the gym for another 3-5 weeks. Even then, I don't know how much time I'll have to worry about it, but I'm just glad it's coming off so well! I know it's vain, but I was concerned about it? I hope to be back to my pre-infertility drug weight at some point too. I'm about 8 pounds away from that. Not too shabby!

Welcome Adelyn Lee Muckerheide!!!

Adelyn Lee was born Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 1:28pm. She weighed 7 pounds and 6 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. She entered the world via scheduled c-section, so all went smoothly! Dr. E had to pull hard because she was stuck way up by my rib cage, but she came out kicking and pooping...right on Dr. E! :)

We stayed at the hospital until Friday afternoon. Since then we've had a ton of visitors. We've spent whatever other time we have getting into a routine.

At Addie's doctors appointment on Monday, we found out that her bilirubin was up so she was becoming jaundice. We had a bilirubin light delivered on Monday and she has been a little glow worm ever since. Her count had come down by our appointment on Tuesday, but not enough. Today we went in and her bilirubin was low enough to take her off the light. We go back tomorrow to see if her numbers are still low. If they are, we can keep her off the light for good.

Dad went back to work yesterday, so it has been a little tough on us. He's sad to not be able to see her all day, and I'm sad to not have his help. Grandma Sue has been with us this week to help us get acclimated to family life. We are also working on Addie's baptismal gown.

Today was a big day. Addie lost her umbilical cord...becoming a little less of a newborn. You know it's bad, when that is a sad day. I just see all of this just going too quickly for my taste!

Baby Face

I forgot to post this earlier. This ultrasound is from when we found out our little girl was breech on December 30, at 34 weeks, 5 days. It looks like she is going to have her dad's chubby cheeks. You just can't escape them as a Muckerheide, I guess!

Baby Muckerheide Has a Birth Date!!

Well, the little girl hasn't turned...so we are scheduled for a c-section on January 27th, at 1pm!! It is a little hard to know that I won't be able to try to give birth, but it's nice to know when she'll be coming and have a plan. Everyone knows the Muckerheide's like a plan!

So, we report to the hospital at 11am and hit the OR at 1pm. Hopefully we'll have a healthy little girl in no time. We will certainly post an update when it happens (or when we get up the energy to post after it happens). I need to post a new belly pic too...it has definitely grown.

I'm excited to meet our little girl...only six more days!!

30 Days and Counting...or Maybe Sooner?

Well, a lot has happened since my last post. I pushed to have another ultrasound and was able to get one. My intuition was right...something wasn't quite right. Our baby girl is breech. I have another appointment this Friday. If she hasn't turned we have a couple options. One is to go in this week (at 36 weeks) and try to turn her manually. Dr. English said that this is often hard with first pregnancies and the baby can always turn back. He also said it is quite painful. When he does this, he always has a room available in case we need to do an emergency c-section. The second option is to just schedule a c-section for 39 weeks. I think that might be my preference.

I didn't want to just give up, so I've been going to my friend Shirley, a chiropractor, for the Webster Technique. This is a more natural way to try to turn the baby. We shall see!

On Saturday I had my last, and largest, shower. It was a beautiful event with a ton of family and a few friends. My sister-in-law and two of my cousins (Jenny, Caroline and Kathleen) threw it for me. All I can say is this baby girl is completely SET for clothes!

I'm getting anxious to meet our little girl. I'll be 36 weeks on Thursday...so it's just a matter of a few weeks at this point! I've been nesting like crazy. After the shower I returned all of our duplicate items and started washing everything. I've finally gotten it all done and I'm feeling a little better about things. I still have to order a book shelf, because she already has quite the book collection! I've included the most updated photos of the nursery. Everything is coming together!

The Holidays Are A Good Distraction!

Life has been busy since Thanksgiving! With shopping, the spike in my real estate business, and baby related fun...it's almost Christmas!

I had my 33/34 week appointment today. Everything looks good. I’m up 26 pounds total, my belly is now measuring right on, instead of ahead. I told my doctor about my concerns about stillbirth, et cetera. My grandma, mom and one of my aunts all had full-term stillbirths…and even though the reasons/complications varied, it is enough to have me a bit concerned. After I told him my concerns, he was all over it! We are going to do ultrasounds once a week to make sure she is progressing and everything looks good. He also said he can strip my membranes at 39 weeks to get things going! It’s getting so close!! I’m sooooo excited to see her via ultrasound again. It’s been 16 weeks since our last one. My ultrasound is on the 30th.

Today I'm 33 weeks and 5 days. I had Mark take my picture on Saturday at 33 weeks and 2 days. Man, have I grown!! Now wonder I've gained some weight in the past few weeks. This little girl is getting bigger!

Thanksgiving, Showers and almost 31 Weeks!

It's been a few weeks...and we've been busy! We went to Indianapolis for Thanksgiving. It was great to see the Indy crew! We had wonderful food and a good time! Above is a belly shot post Thanksgiving. Saturday night they had a shower for us. I will never cease to be amazed by everyone's generosity. The photo of Mark and I is from that shower. No, I wasn't drinking champagne...I was just holding the toasting glass!

We were able to meet Charles Philip Young for the first time. Liz (Mark's cousin's wife) had him early just for us! Ok, not really, but the timing worked out well. Poor Charlie was having some breathing issues, so we had to visit him in the hospital. All in all, though, he looked happy and healthy!

On Sunday, Mark and I raced home to get me to the baby shower thrown by my girlfriends. I made it just in time after our 10.5 hour drive. We had a good time gabbing and eating. Drew Johnston (4 years old) and Nakia Abdel-Khaliq (3 years) were a great help in opening the gifts. Drew and Nakia were so excited that it was a mad dash to get through them. I had to take a second look to really process what I received! All the attendees are in the photo above.

On Monday, I had my 30 week appointment. As always, all looked good. I weighed in under last appointment, so I'm up a total of 21 pounds. That gestational diabetes diet must be working? Baby's heart rate was 135, nice and strong. The doctor thought all looked well so instead of returning in 2 weeks, he's having me visit in 3. My next appointment is December 22.