Sleep

I know that all mom's can sympathize with me on this one that the moment your baby arrives in this world you take on new sleep patterns. I however forgot what it was like to have a newborn already and have a 14 week old that has reminded me everyday this week what it was like! It has been a week now since Addie has decided that she wants to get up in the middle of the night...by middle of the night I mean 3 or 4 am. Now I am sure this isn't bad to most of you, but since she has been sleeping 10-12 hrs since she was 6 weeks old and I am back to work, this is so hard! Last night she was up at 12am, 3am and 6am...

So my question is, did any of you moms experience this with your kids and what did you do? We are going to try supplementing formula (a suggestion for the Dr.) or I thought about starting rice cereal just once at night...but I need advice and a good nights sleep again!

Bottle and Baby

I can use any advice at this point and I feel like we have tried everything. Addison HATES the bottle. And by HATE I mean she screams bloody murder and won't take it. The girl is stubborn, I am not sure who she got that from.

After trying out 13 different brands, we think that we found one that is manageable. Who knew that there were even 13 different brands of bottle. Leave it to my daughter to like the most expensive one. We have been trying to give her a bottle a least once a day so that she would get used to it. She likes it from the grandmas, but it still takes her at least an hour and she cries during most of it.

I could use any help or advice!

The Year of Firsts

Well Friends and Family - I promise to be better on this thing, if not for all of you, but so that Addie will have something to look back on and read.

Let's go backwards a bit...

Oct.10th - Addison's due date...come and gone!
Oct. 17th - Scheduled induction, finally got into the hospital at 8pm Friday night
Oct. 18th - A very very long day of waiting for anything to happen
Time line for the day:
8:00am - Wake up get more pitocin
9:00am - First doctor tries to break my water
10:00am - Second doctor actually achieves success and breaks my water
12:00pm - Walk around maternity floor - hear all sorts of babies being born...nothing yet
1:00pm - Still nothing - up pitocin level
3:00pm - Getting discouraged, napped, watched a lot of TV and got more pitocin
5:00pm - Doctor thinks that I should get an epidural and see if that will relax my body, stop receiving pitocin.
7:00pm - Get epidural, take a nap...still nothing
9:00pm - Started going backwards, talk to doctor about options, decide a C-section is in order
9:05pm - Call our parents
9:45pm - Baby Addison is welcomed into this world

She weighed in at 7lbs 6 ounces and was 19.5 inches long

October 21st - We finally went home from the hospital. Let me tell you though, it was the greatest to be there so long, because we got so much help.

November 26th -Welcomed Finn to the family.

November 27th - First Thanksgiving - It was a wonderful time spent with Chris' family.

December 25th - First Christmas

And then we are to January...hopefully I will keep up with this more...

She Arrived - As told by her Dad!

It's Sunday evening and Amanda and baby Addie are resting peacefully while I'm watching the Hawks on Sunday Night Football. But - it took some work to get here. Let me set the frame work for what is now a very peaceful situation.

Sometimes things just don't go to plan, you know? Addison was actually due on 10/10 but that day came and went without incident. No big deal - we just planned to wait it out. Another week went by with a few more doctors visits, various baby health tests, and some added worry just because monitoring the baby becomes more important when they are over due. Addie passed all the tests with rock solid heart rates and good movement and response. Unfortunately Amanda wasn't making much progress. So, on Thursday the doc decided it was time to induce and get the baby on it's way.

Well, apparently full moons mean crazy times in baby land. We had a restlessness nights sleep Thursday night and got up early to make sure we were still good to come into the hospital first thing Friday morning. So busy was the hospital that we didn't get in until 8pm Friday night. The induction started at 10pm and Amanda started getting light contractions shortly there after. We got some sleep and then tried to get Addie into this world. We tried EVERYTHING to get her to get going but again, nothing went to our plan...

As an aside Amanda and I are planners. Amanda is BIG planner. And I like to plan too, but am OK with flexing a bit. Good thing - as we had to pretty much tossed our entire birthing plan out the window. We had an idea of how we wanted everything to go, and even some "flexibility" planned. Ha ha. Well, at the end of the day only two things on our ENTIRE plan were implemented. We opted out of one shot for Addie, and we had a baby. Everything else (for the most part) - not an option.

So... back to the story. We kept trying all day to get the baby to start the march toward the real world. We walked the halls, we talked, we moved Amanda's position, tried sitting on the ball, everything... Finally at 7pm the doc came in and said even though we wanted to go all natural, that we needed to try an epidural as the C-section was likely anyway and it was his last idea to help Amanda relax and get Addie moving. At this point, the epidural was a huge help in getting Amanda to relax after almost 24 hours of working. Lots of tears were shed, ideals given up on, and lots of encouragement by me and our nurses. A C-section was our last idea of what we'd have to go through. Again, some good chat during the day started making it pretty obvious that this baby wasn't going to come through the natural way. So, with Amanda OK with the C-section, but her and i both concerned about the surgery, we gave into the idea. We waited out the last 2 hours to see if we get Addie to get moving and the doc came back in and told us that we'd actually gonna backwards in progress. During the whole ordeal Addison was monitored and showed us her strength. Rock solid heartbeats, and good response to changes. What a trooper! So, at 9:20pm on Saturday night, 25 hours after we'd gotten settled in our hospital room the doc told us that Amanda wasn't going get this baby out on her own.

The next 20 minutes went by in flurry of movement. The nurses swarmed the room, unplugging Amanda from everything and getting me ready for Amanda's surgery. Full OR gear for me, clean hands, and my new camera. Amanda was wheeled across the hall and within in 20 minutes of us hearing "C-section" I watched the docs make some cuts and pull my blue and red little girl from my wife. CRAZY. I had not prepared for this. In my mind's eye i thought i'd easing her into coming by being beside Amanda's side as Addie got closer and closer. Not a "wam, bam, here's your baby." But here came Addie anyway. Within in seconds Addison was crying with the best of babies.

And just like that, I'm a DAD. I'm holding this girl that has my wife's nose and what looks my dark hair (though i don't have much anymore!), and maybe some of my darker features. I also gotta be honest here - and biased at the same time - but this little girl is a beauty. I'm already wrapped around that tiny little finger. Such cute little fingers and toes too. More daddy here too - the longer thin feet with long toes and longer fingers. Yep, this is surely my kid too. My kid. My kid. My child. My daughter. I'm a DAD. Just like that. I'm a DAD!!!

Oh, there's a lot more to this story too. Lots of attention for Amanda, holding Addie's little face right on Amanda's face as the docs sewed her back up. Tearing in my wife's eyes as she looked upon this everyday miracle, this precious gift, this creation of God, and this little piece of life that represents the bond my wife and I share together.

I'm a man with family now. A family man... I'm a DAD.