She's here!

As usual, I've been a bad blogger...but I have a really good excuse now: Addison Marie is finally here!!!

She was born September 24th, at 6:57 a.m. and weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz. and was 20 inches long! And she's just perfect! She was born with a ton of dark hair and lonnng eyelashes (so lucky, she won't need tons of mascara! haha).

I went to the hospital Wednesday night (got there at 11:40) once my contractions were coming quick enough-good thing too, because I was ready to go no matter what at that point, they hurt so bad! When we got there, they checked and I was already dilated to a six, so they went ahead and moved me to labor and delivery. Since I was already dilated pretty far, they got my epidural done pretty quickly. That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be-I was terrified about the huge needle. But, to me, the thing that made it so bad was that I was having contractions while they were giving me the epidural, and I had to be completely still-that was HARD! But worth it, because as soon as they were done, I was feeling goooood!

They warned me I might feel the next couple contractions before it really kicked in, but I didn't feel a thing! So I was able to sleep for a couple hours and just relax before everything got started.

Finally, a little before 5 am, I had to start pushing. So, I pushed...and pushed...and pushed...and wouldn't you know, Addison is already starting out stubborn! I pushed for almost two hours before the doctor finally said they were going to have to do a c-section (she wasn't coming down enough with each push, and was still too high for them to reach her with the forceps or the suction thing to try and help her out). I started freaking out a little, I hadn't even considered that I might have to have one, but my mom was there with me and the nurses and doctor were all so nice and reassuring, so I was able to calm down a little. Once they got started, the c-section was done in about 15 minutes, and there she was!

She'll be a week old tomorrow, and I already can't imagine her not being here. I know that sounds corny, and they always say it in movies and stuff, but it's true! It's like, I look at her and just think to myself, well of course you're supposed to be here, why wouldn't you be? Like she's filled this void in my life that I didn't even know was there.

You have no idea how excited I am to know I feel this way about her too! During my entire pregnancy I always had this little fear in the back of my mind that I was going to resent all of this (maybe not her, necessarily, but the situation at least) or that I was just going to be annoyed by everything. But I've loved every single minute so far! Even when she's screaming in the middle of the night because I can't feed her fast enough, or when she wakes up from a nap as soon as I lay down for one. I've honestly loved all of it.

Anyway, I have to quit now because I'm going to start tearing up soon if I keep going on and on about how much I love her! But I'm sure I'll there will be plenty more of this in the future, just a warning!

Here's my favorite pic of her so far (I have tons more already, so I'll be putting some up randomly):

It finally feels like fall!

Ok. I've been having pre-labor contractions (I don't even know if that's an actual term, but I'm using it because I'm not really in labor yet, but they feel a lot like contractions) since yesterday morning.

This is no fun! I'll be in the middle of lunch, or walking down the hall or something and just have to stop what I'm doing to focus on breathing. The worst ones are the ones that wake me up during a nap or in the middle of the night. Interrupting my sleep is usually a bad idea in the first place, but doing so by waking me up just to be in pain is definitely not cool.

I'm done complaining now, I know this is all actually good because it (hopefully!) means that it's almost time!!!

Supposed to have dinner with Heather, Chelsea & Andrea tomorrow, hopefully I'll be able to make it! I'm looking forward to seeing them and it'll probably be my last night out, but I'm not sure about going out in public at this point-I didn't even want to go to Walgreens earlier, I'm scared of my water breaking in the middle of a crowd haha.

Which is a shame, the weather has finally cooled off and actually requires sweaters now, and I haven't even really been out to enjoy it! Maybe I'll just walk up and down the sidewalk tomorrow! :)

False alarm...

Well, I woke up this morning around 4:30 to a little contraction. No big deal. Then another one about 30 minutes later. Then another a little after that. They were pretty irregular so I didn't really start timing them for a while. Finally, I started to write down each time I had one.

They were still pretty erratic, sometimes there'd be ten minutes between each one, then I'd have one a minute for the next three or four minutes. This went on for a little over two hours, and then we finally decided to go ahead and head up to the hospital, just in case (I am due in four days, after all!). So of course, on the way up there, they began slowing down and weren't nearly as strong as they had been all morning.

When we got there, the nurse said they were going to go ahead and check everything just to make sure, but that most likely this was a false alarm and I was going to end up going home. Boo! Actually, I'm a little relieved. On the way up there I was hoping it was the real thing, just because I knew I'd feel silly if it wasn't. But once we were headed back home, I realized that there's still a lot of little things that need to get done before she shows up-like laundry, for one!

As soon as we got home, Mother took all the tags off of all the onesies and bibs, opened up the sheets and burp rags and everything else and started washing everything with Dreft (which we also had to go buy this morning, because we still hadn't done that!).

So, now I'm just hoping these contractions don't continue all week. They've definitely slowed way down, but I've still had a couple since getting home. Supposedly, if I continue drinking a lot of water, these (not-so-little) fake ones will go away, then if I start having them again, I'll know they're the real thing this time.

Tomorrow we're going to finally start getting the furniture set up in the nursery-it was finally finished being painted today! Cutting it pretty close, huh?! It's so cute already, I'm so excited! And I really can't wait to get the mural done, it'll definitely be even cuter once that's finished! :) I'll put up some before and after pictures of the room soon!

Goodnight!

Counting down...

Just a couple more weeks now! Ah, I'm so ready, I'm tired of waddling around everywhere. When I can actually move, that is. Some days, I feel like my legs have just completely shut down and refuse to work.

But, I had my massage this past Friday, and it was AMAZING! I didn't ever want it to end. However, I think it just spoiled me, now I want one every day! That's one bad thing about Angela being back in Denton now, she gives the best massages! I could really use her right now.

My goal by the end of this week is to have my hospital bag packed and ready. This has been my goal for the past week, so I guess today is my deadline. Really, I should have had it packed by a couple weeks ago, according to The Bump. But, obviously, I haven't needed it yet, so whatev.

We started working on the nursery (FINALLY!) The hard part is over-peeling off the wallpaper, scraping the popcorn off the ceiling, and getting the walls ready to be painted. And none of that was actually all that hard-well the only part I really helped with was getting the wallpaper off the walls, but I thought that would've been the hardest part. That's all a bit worrisome to me, though, because now all that leaves is painting, which I thought would be a piece of cake, so of course it's going to be the biggest pain in the ass. (Oops. Pain in the A.)

I've decided that I want to paint a mural on the wall, so my major concern now is going into labor before I finish. And if that happens, who knows when I'll ever get to finish it once baby is here.

A couple other things I wanted to accomplish before she's here: start on her baby scrapbook and get all the sonogram pictures and baby shower pictures done; write a letter to her (I know that sounds corny, but I've been wanted to do that for a while anyway, and I've been told by several people now that I need to do it); mosaic something for the room-but I'm just trying to be serious with myself now, I know that's not going to happen.

Luckily, I do still have a couple weeks to try and finish up last minute things. I've been saying that I hope she's a little early and that I'm so ready to be done with this part and for her to be here, but really I would probably freak out. There's still way too much to do!

Better go get started! :)