Thought I would post some super cute pics we've taken recently. We went to the park yesterday and Alex had a blast playing. Then last night we had some smores. That's where the really yucky marshmallow mouth pic comes from.

So I finally have the laptop back and can post a few pics. Some of my favs are the last one where Alex is holding Addison and the close up of her face when she's on the uv bed.

It's been such a whirlwind since we had Addison. There was all the jaundice drama, Christmas, Grandma passing away, and then Nathan heading off to Dallas to start training. The jaundice took forever to go away and you can tell she has a little still lingering. Her face has a little yellow in it still. Her doc says that now it's breastmilk jaundice and unless you interrupt it with formula for a day it'll just take a little while to go away. She hasn't gotten any worse though so it's not a big issue anymore. She's been doing really well at night. She was getting up three times a night, then it went down to two, and now it's down to once around three or four in the morning. Not too bad! Nicole, the mother of Emily that I watch, said she had been reading that if they eat a lot during the day they should start sleeping through the night earlier. So, I just feed and feed and feed all day long. Every two hours and sometimes even less than that. She loves to eat too so it's not too hard to do that. She's pretty easy for the most part. She's usually very happy in the morning. If she gets grumpy at all I bounce her in the bouncy chair or carry her around in the sling while doing chores. She usually calms right down. At night she gets pretty grumpy right before bed and we can't do anything to console her. So, every night lately we've been laying her down and she cries herself to sleep. At first it was a little hard to deal with but it's almost like she knows the routine now. Last night it didn't take hardly any time for her to fall asleep like that.

I'm so glad Nathan is back home now! When he left I was really upset but the week flew by. I tried to keep myself really busy so I wouldn't think about it as much and time would go by faster. So, on Monday I had a friend over and we rented the women and got a pizza. Tuesday, we left early in the morning and went to Salina. We left on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday, Karen came over and hung out with me. The boys had a lot of fun playing! Friday, Nicole came over for a while in the morning and Nathan got home that night. Nathan was supposed to go to Brazil on wednesday but they ended up being able to do all their training in Dallas. So, I get a little over a week with him and then he leaves again. I'm glad to be able to have him home for a while before he's gone. We're going to spend a week in Salina when Nathan's gone so that'll be fun.

It's was fun for Nicole to come over on Friday. She brought Emily and I was shocked by how much she had changed. It was sad that I've missed all this time with her. They've also had a lot of problems with other sitters which I can't imagine because she was always such a good baby for me. She sits up all on her own now and picks up cereal all by herself. She's so much bigger and holds her own bottle! I'm really looking forward to watching her again! My first day is the fourth. Nicole's gotten her on the same sleep schedule as Alex so that'll be really nice. It'll be fun for Alex to have her to play with too!

Well, the pics totally turned out in the wrong order! I thought it would upload them in a certain order and it did it the opposite of what I thought. Nathan and I played skipbo for most of the laboring process. LOL!

We got to the hospital at eight on wednesday morning. They gave me the pitocin probably around nine. I was already dialated about 3-4 when we got there and having contractions here and there. I think that helped speed me up a lot. My doc had them break my water around ten and we sat at that for a couple hours. I asked for the epidural when the pain was just starting to get a little bad. I was pretty comfortable for probably a half hour and then it started to get really painful. I figured they had put it in a blood vessel like they did with Alex and it wasn't working. I went from 5-10 in 45 minutes and the medicine couldn't keep up with how fast I was progressing. They ended up giving me the strongest stuff they had. They said that's what they give women who are getting c-sections. After that I was completely numb and super comfortable. My doc was over at this surgery place doing procedures and wasn't ready to come over yet so she had them turn the pitocin way down since I was ready to go right then. An hour later she showed up and I pushed through two contractions and she was out. It was probably a total of around six or less pushes. It was so easy compared to Alex. Nothing tore or anything.

Addison Whitney was born at 3:07. She was 7lbs 9oz and 20 inches long.

The whole recovery process was super easy too! I was ready to leave the next morning. I was just on ibuprofen when I was on that and percocet with Alex. I was just a little bit sore. I was up and around right away and after I took my shower I felt even better. Addison did awesome! She took to nursing so well! She is the best little eater. She wouldn't sleep in the basinet at all but slept awesome in bed with me and that's how we're still doing it.

Of course, just like Alex, she has jaundice pretty bad like Alex. I expected it this time so it wasn't a big shock or as traumatic for us. She's hooked up to a billy rubin blanket like Alex was. I just want to be able to carry her around wherever I go and not be hooked to that stupid machine. At least we get to hold her though. With how good she's been eating I'm pretty hopeful that she'll be getting better soon.

We had the amniocentesis done today and it went good. I was pretty nervous about getting this long needle shoved in my belly. The hardest part was that everything took so long. It was ridiculous! They required us to get there 30 min before to fill out paper work. It took me five min to fill it out. Then, the sono took forever because she was so squirmy that it took the tech forever to get good pics. Then, we had a break for lunch. When we came back we had to show up 15 min ahead and then everything took forever from there too. The actual amnio took only a few seconds. It didn't hurt bad at all. Just a tiny little stick and a little pressure. Afterward I felt like I was going to pass out just cause that's how I am. I do it after getting shots and getting my blood drawn too. I had a little bit of cramping but it went away fairly quickly too. The other part that drove me crazy was dropping off the amnio fluid. They told us to just go over to the hospital and drop it off at this one place. We didn't realize we'd be there for over an hour! We had to wait for forever then fill out all kinds of stuff. It didn't help that it seemed like no one knew what they were doing.

Anyway, the doc called us fairly quickly after that and said the lungs were mature! So thankful! So, we're going in at 8 in the morning for the induction. I'm way excited to meet our little girl tomorrow!

Here are the sono pics of Addison! Super cute huh!?

Thought I would post all the info on our doctor's appointment today. It was a big one! Maybe I can get Nathan to scan some pictures into the computer later to post. We had our normal visit which included the strep test and then our sonogram following. I was kind of nervous about the sonogram being after because that meant I would have to time my water drinking just right. I did what I always do. I drink my 16 oz 45 minutes ahead of time and it was just right even though the sono ended up being a little later than planned.

The first appointment went good. The doc says I'm 2 centimeters dilated and my cervix has thinned. Baby is head down and has dropped which I noticed on Sunday. I go in next week for a little check up on tuesday to see if my cervix has thinned and if I've dilated anymore. Then Wednesday I have the amniocentesis. Depending on my appointment on tuesday they'll either induce that day or the next morning. Everything looks pretty on track with the original plan so I'm very happy.

The sonogram was the fun part. They said she's definitely a girl again which we were very happy about. She's around seven pounds. So if we would've gone full term we probably would've had a nine pound baby or even bigger. They did the 3D sonogram and Nathan said it's almost like cheating cause you can really see what your baby looks like. It was way cool. It looks like she has chubby little cheeks and maybe Nathan's nose. She was sucking her thumb through most of it and at one point you could see her open her mouth and stick her tongue out. We asked if they could tell if she had hair yet and she showed us where it was. It looks like just a little bit so we might have another blondy. I guess we'll have to wait for that one. She looks healthy and everything's where it's supposed to be. I can't wait to see her on the outside!

Since there's no telling when Grandma is going to pass away Mom and Dad suggested we find a back up plan for Alex. I told Nathan mom had suggested Julie (Nathan's mom) come out and he jumped right on that idea. I don't know why I hadn't thought of that earlier. It was pretty funny when Nathan called her she was just getting on the computer to look up plane tickets. So, it's not settled yet but it looks like she'll probably come out monday and stay till friday. It would be really nice to have her be able to be here for everything too.

I have to mention what happened on Sunday. Nathan was driving back from a trip in Dallas. I started having a few little contractions here and there. It was more like cramping than anything else and nothing regular. In the hour that those started was when I noticed she had dropped. I really thought I was going to be going into labor! I talked to my mom and kind of warned her that they might get a call during the night saying we're going into the hospital. She said that her labor with Joy was 3 hours from beginning to end! Scary! Then I decided to tell Nathan cause he was thinking about stopping at a hotel for the night. Well, it ended up slowing down and stopping and I was kind of dissapointed. I feel so ready with this one! I was really hoping I could go into labor on my own. There's still time but it probably won't happen. At least we have a timeline for everything now. I'm really excited about this next week!

A whole lot of pictures!

Well, I'm finally getting some pictures posted! We've got some from last night at our friend's Jason and Nicole's house. They have a tractor that Jason's been dying to take Alex for a ride on. They are the parents of the baby I watch. Too bad Nicole's turned away in the one picture we got of her. We had a really good evening. We went over to have some desert, get a tractor ride, and finally see where they live. They had their house built and since Jason does a lot of carpentry work he did most of the work on the inside himself which apparently saved them a lot of money. Man their house is nice! We had a really good time. Jason is a mechanic at Cessna and has his private pilot's license so Nathan and him had a lot to talk about. Nicole and I can always talk for hours. She was really nice and sent us home with a bunch of onesies and says she has even more clothes she's going to give us. That'll be nice!

I got a picture of the belly in there too. It was about a week or so ago when Nathan's bro was here. It made me feel pretty good because I look skinny everywhere but the belly. I have my double chin in place now though.

Last we have a bunch of pics from when Nathan's brother was in town. Mike and Alex had a lot of fun playing together! The park was definitely one of my favorite outings! Alex had so much fun and the play equipment there was really cool. I like the one of Nathan on that weird one where you stand and hang onto those bars. It looks like some kind of excersize equipment.

Nathan and I are going on a date tonight to celebrate his big promotion. I'm excited! He's been training in the other jet all day today so I think he'll be ready to relax too.