Whew! What A Month!!

Matt and I are proud to announce that we have had our beautiful little girl! Madilynn Michelle Midkiff was born on 07/09/09 at 7:01am. She weighed 5 pounds 6 ounces at birth and was 18 1/2 inches long.

I went to the perinatologist on the 8th for an ultrasound to check on Madilynn's growth and my amniotic fluid. We discovered that my fluid had dropped from 7.5 cms to 6cms in less than a week. Madilynn was also still only measuring at 34.4 weeks, so the doctor said "Time to go have a baby!"

I was in complete shock when she uttered those words. Not only was I not expecting to go to the hospital after my ultrasound, but I was completely unprepared and STARVING! The doctor said I was not allowed to eat before going to the hospital because they wanted to begin the induction immediately. I called Matt and let him know and off I went!

I got started on pitocin at about 3:00pm. I was already 1cm dilated and about 20% effaced. After 4 hours of pitocin I had progressed to 2-3cm and 70% effaced. The doctor broke my water and stripped my membranes at about 7 hours into the labor (10pm). I labored naturally with the pitocin until about 2am when the contractions were coming back to back and I could no longer handle them. I asked for demerol and it helped momentarily. Madilynn started having a hard time handling the contractions (as was I!) and her heartrate kept dropping to 40bpm with each contraction...the doctor came in and said that the way things were going now we were headed for a C-Section. I desperately did not want to have a c-section but decided that if it became necessary I would rather have an epidural than a spinal tap so I asked for the epi. The anesthesiologist was in a c-section already and couldn't come right away. The doctor decided to try an amniotic flush to see if that helped with the issues that Madilynn was having with the contractions and it most certainly did. After about 10 minutes of the flush Madi's heart rate stopped dropping so drastically with each contraction. What a relief!

After I got the epidural (at about 3-4am) I passed out. I woke up around 6:30 and told the nurse that I felt like the epi was wearing off because my back hurt & she said "Oh well let me check you." This was immediately followed by "Oh my!! That's it, time for baby!" Matt (who slept through the entire labor) had to get woken up for go-time. We kicked everyone out of the room and did ONE practice push. Doctor Pehr was called and once he got in we pushed through 3 contractions (about 5 minutes) and Madilynn was born!

It was a beautiful and amazing experience and we couldn't have been more thrilled.

Madilynn weighed 4lb 14oz when we were released from the hospital. Breastfeeding was horrible at first, but things are easy as pie now! At Madi's 4 day old pedi appointment she weighed 5lb 3oz. At her two week appointment she weighed 5lb 13 1/2 oz and she was 19 1/8 inches long.

She is a great baby. She slept 5 hours when we first brought her home but we had to change up her sleep schedule in order to get her to gain weight. She sleeps about 2-3 hours at a time now because of it.

Needless to say, we are completely exhausted most days but being a parent is amazing and I wouldn't change it for the world. Matt loves his daughter more than anything in the world & it has definitely changed our relationship with each other for the better. We are truly enjoying our new family!