First Roadtrip

Tonight Maddox and I are headed to Minneapolis to pick up my sister at the airport. She is flying home from Washington DC to meet Mr. Maddox for the first time. I know she is excited but not as excited as we are! She is staying with us through next Wednesday so she will get to spend some major quality time with her new nephew.

Tomorrow we head to Ringsted for Maddox's baby shower. I can't wait to see everyone and I am really excited introduce Maddox as well. It should be a good weekend! I will get pictures uploaded when we get back!

Just Can't Decide

Maddox didn't want to disappoint either one of us on Sunday so rather than choosing Green Bay exclusively as his team, he decided to split himself in half.....
Gotta love split households!!!

First Halloween

Maddox didn't get out on Halloween but that didn't stop Mommy from getting him all dressed up anyway! He was the cutest pumpkin in the patch if I do say so myself.


Justin and I usually go all out on Halloween but I wasn't really feeling it this year... As you can see JR didn't pass up the opportunity to support his German heritage and went as a Lederhosen this year. Sounds like he had a lot of fun but he was home pretty early.... I think he missed me. (wink wink!)

Here is one of the Birth Announcements that I made

"Mom GET ME OUT OF HERE!"


Hangin out in my favorite chair.

Mommy is finally starting to look somewhat normal and doesn't have the crazy huge fluid filled face anymore so she had to share this photo! Also, check out the baby mohawk, I LOVE IT!

Hawkeye Family

I need to grow into my Hawkeye stuff but I feel pretty sweet rocking it out anyways

Flashing my big blues. Somebody is going to fall hard for those eyes just like Mommy did for Daddy's....

Maddox 2 Week Appointment

Today we had Maddox's 2 week appt. where we found out that he has gained almost 1 lb since birth! I am not surprised though cuz he loves to eat!!! :) He makes the funniest noises when he wants to eat- almost sounds like a little piggy with all of his snorting.

His little personality is starting to really shine through and it is so fun to see him change every day. Don't get me wrong I hate that he is growing so fast but since I know I can't freeze time I love seeing him figure out new things. Maddox is such a little cuddle bug too.... I LOVE how snuggly he is and will hate it when he doesn't want to do that anymore.

His sleeping and eating schedules are kind of all over the place which stinks. About the time I think I have something figured out he changes again. I know this is totally normal, it is just frustrating! :) Last night the little stinker fought me for about 3 hours on going to bed but then when I finally got him down (for the final time) he slept for 6 straight hours. It totally freaked me out when I woke up this morning and realized he hadn't woken up in the middle of the night. On the other hand, the 6 hours of sleep for Mom was MUCH APPRECIATED!

Complications

Sorry I haven't been updating lately, I actually haven't been doing the best health wise so I have gotten behind! Here is a quick run down of some of the crap that has been going on...

Saturday (the day after we got home from the hospital) I woke up with difficulty breathing and chest pain. We went in to Urgent Care and they sent us directly over to the hospital for a CT scan to see if I had a Pulmonary Embolism. Fortunately they determined that my shortness of breath was due to fluid on both sides of my lungs and air pressing on my diaphragm. I was told to just go home and wait for the fluid to subside. I was definitely very uncomfortable for a few days but it did get better.

Then on Wednesday I stood up and felt a warm gush. I put my hand over my side and saw that I was bleeding. My incision had opened up so we ended up back at the Dr. again later that afternoon. We had to do an ultrasound to confirm that there was fluid between my incisions by doing this so Thursday we went back for that. This was confirmed so we were yet again headed back on Friday morning. Dr. G. was going to drain the excess fluid but fortunately it had continued to drain on it's own so he didn't have to do anything. I have to keep an eye on it for awhile and hopefully it will go down on it's own.

So......... that is why I have been a little lacks in the update department. I am beginning to feel much better. (losing over 20 lbs since last Saturday has been quite amazing!!) As you can see from a lot of the early pictures I had ballooned up due to all of the fluids they were pumping into me during labor. Thankfully it is finally starting to work it's way out and I am getting back to normal!

Happy 3rd Bday Beardies!

Our oldest son celebrated his 3rd birthday yesterday. Though it was a rather low key day Bear did get a nice birthday bone and a special treat! (I am a bad mommy and didn't get a picture!)

Happy Birthday Bear, you are the best pup any family could ask for!

Such a happy dog!!

Best Friends Forever

Go Hawks Go!

Maddox was very nervous during the final minutes of the Hawks game... He is already a big fan!

He is just waiting for 2027 when he can be a REAL Hawkeye!

Homeward Bound

Friday morning we got to come home! Maddox has been enjoying his first few days at home and seems to have adjusted pretty well. Bear welcomed us all home with open arms and has been wonderful with him thus far. He loves to run up and lick him but then goes about his business. He doesn't like when Maddox is screaming though... he either wants to lick him to death or he runs away and hides.

Justin and I are settling into our new rolls as well. JR has been really hands on and loves his little boy. He has been a Godsend to me because I am not as mobile as I would like. My incision is pretty painful and finding a position that works for me has been kind rough. My mom was amazing help also and stayed with us last night so we could both get some sleep. She took care of Maddox and us. We had 2 great home cooked meals, clean laundry, fresh cookies, and lots of love so that was an amazing help. Let's just say we are all very happy to be home!

Long Labor and Delivery Story

Well, here it is, the long awaited labor and delivery story.....

Let me just say that it is definitely not all that it is cracked up to be! Ha ha.... As I had written earlier we ended up going in to the hospital on Sunday, October 18th around 6:00 pm. They started Cervadil (a hormone to help my cervix to dilate) and I had that in till 5:00 am Monday morning. When we went in I was about 1 cm dilated and unfortunately the Cervadil didn't do its job and get me moving and I pretty much maintained at 1 cm.

Getting an IV was awesome too. My veins roll so it took them 3 times (and DIGGING) to get one finally started, that was totally awesome!

At 6:00 am we started Pitocin and my contractions began at 7:00 am. Obviously they started out "pretty easy" but quickly they began to kick my a$$! They were upping the anti every 20 minutes so just about the time I was getting the hang of it they were increasing by the minute.

My goal going in was was to try and do labor as naturally as possible... My hope was that I could work through it and be just fine. Around 1:00 I got to the point where breathing through them wasn't working so I gave in and took some Nubain which did help a ton! I was still feeling the contractions but they definitely weren't as painful. Justin said I was rather loopy with this but that hour and forty five minutes was AMAZING! When it started to wear off I decided to take another dose since I still wasn't really progressing. I was only to about 3 cm and had been at the whole contracting thing for about 8 hours. Unfortunately the second dose worked for only about 30 minutes so it was rather worthless....

I got up and did some walking, rocking, moving.... whatever I could to try and relieve some pain. The birthing ball wasn't really something that helped me but I kept trying it just to see if it would do something. The contractions were coming every 2 minutes lasting a minute and a half so I was getting about 30 seconds to re-coop. Finally, after I had crawled up the bed rails about 30-40 times and couldn't stop bawling uncontrollably, I opted for the epidural. I think Justin was really happy about this cuz he couldn't do anything right at that point. Bless his heart he was super awesome and very supportive but I couldn't really express what I wanted/needed through my clenched teeth and heavy breathing.

They brought in the Epidural and got it placed. I was surprised at how much it didn't hurt so that was pretty positive experience. From about 4:00-6:00 pm I didn't feel much pain but around 6:30 I began to feel contractions though they weren't overly painful. I had always been able pretty much everything below my waist. Around 7:00 I finally hit 5 cm and it was decided that I could continue to labor instead of being taken for a c-section at that point. (I SO did not want one of those!)

So we continued on..... After 7:45 pm there was nothing left to the Epidural and I was on my own. Around 1:00 am I could finally start pushing! We pushed for 3 HOURS and Maddox wasn't really budging. We found out later that he was wedged pretty far down in my pelvis but he wasn't going anywhere. (Apparently Maddox was so wedged in my pelvis they actually had to push from the bottom and pull from the top to get him out. He wasn't going ANYWHERE so thankfully we opted for the c-section.) At this point it is about 4:00 am and Justin and I had been up for almost 24 hour so we were beat. The Dr's decided to go ahead and do a c-section and I couldn't have been happier. We were SO tired that we could hardly focus. They called in all the necessary people and things finally got rolling.

I was rolled into the OR at 4:54 am and they started trying to get me medicated. They tried to use my Epidural line for the spinal block but it wasn't working. As it turns out the Epidural had not been in right, or had come out too far, so the medicine was actually leaking out the entire time... Awesome! I was getting some of the medicine but not enough. The Anesthesiologist tried 5 times to get the medicine in and it never really worked. The OB Dr. pinched me and I swore he had cut already so when they asked me if I could feel it and I made sure they knew I could! I kept moving my legs JUST IN CASE I fell asleep from exhaustion so they knew not to cut. Finally they decided to just put me out and I was completely fine with that. The only bad thing was that Justin couldn't be in there with me so he wasn't there when Maddox was born.

At 5:31 am Maddox was born and you've heard the rest. Thankfully Justin and my sister were there so there is video and pictures of everything in the nursery and Justin's reaction to meeting Maddox. Labor and delivery was the hardest but most rewarding thing that I have ever done. It was definitely the longest 19 hours of labor, 3 hours of pushing and 34 hours of no sleep, Justin and I wouldn't trade our son for anything. :) He is our miracle and we couldn't be happier to finally have him with us!