Madeline's 1st week at home

After two days in the hospital, we brought Madeline home on Friday, April 8th. Her first week at home went just about as well as any new mom could ask for. Although she woke up a lot at night to eat, she also slept a LOT during the days and allowed me to get stuff done around the house. We also had a helpful visitor who kept me company while Joe was at work and lent an extra hand with Maddie. Here are a few pics of our first week at home!

My little family :) 

Milk coma

My favorite place to sleep

Cracking a smile 

Nap time with daddy after work

Walking with my two babies (Maddie is hiding in the Moby wrap)

Maddie and I with mama-to-be and Baby Simmons 

Nicole in her happy place: knitting and surrounded by babies!

Me with my little girl!

Madeline's Arrival

On Wednesday, April 6, we welcomed our first little child into this world. Madeline Faye Newton was born at 12:08pm at Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg, OR. She weighed in at 7 lbs 7 oz, and measured 20.5 inches in length. She was 8 days early, which came as a surprise, but I guess she is impatient like her daddy :)

Overall, the delivery went pretty well. (Not that I have any reference point or anything to compare it to.) After having irregular contractions all day Tuesday, we headed to the hospital around 2:30am Wednesday morning when they became more consistent, frequent and intense. I labored for a couple of hours before requesting an epidural around 4:30am. At this point I was 6cm dilated and the contractions were getting very intense and painful. However, the nurse informed me that the anesthesiologists don't arrive at the hospital until 7am, so I had a bit of a wait. Let's just say that was not the response I was hoping for.

So, I labored. It was hard. Joe was very supportive and encouraging, but nothing could distract me from the increasingly intense pain. By the time I finally received the epidural at 8am, my body was shaking, I was in more pain than anything I've ever experienced, and my contractions were (literally) peaking off of the charts. I was 8cm dilated at this point and all I can say is I do not even want to imagine how it feels to complete the birthing process without any pain meds.

Once I received the epidural the whole process was tremendously better. The shaking subsided, the pain eased, and I actually got a short nap in and regained some energy for the most important part: the delivery. I started pushing around 11:30am and in less than an hour our beautiful, healthy baby girl was born. As any parent knows, there are simply no words to describe the emotions we felt when the doctor handed her to us and said "Say hello to your beautiful daughter". Let's just say we feel incredibly blessed and are very happy with the addition of Madeline to our little family.

3:30am- After laboring for one hour, there was still a long ways to go...

Joe attempting to get some sleep 

Hello baby girl :)

She did NOT like getting weighed

...or measured

Daddy comforting his little girl

A natural :) 

Our little girl 

In love 

Daddy and Maddie

Grandma Kathy

Her first bath 

All clean! 

The first of many diaper changes...

Auntie Nicole

Grandma Bev

Sleeping in Grandma's arms 

Nap time with daddy :) 

All cozy in her swaddle

Love this little face!

Beach day

Life has been crazy busy as usual lately. At one point in March, Joe literally worked 17 days in a row without one day off. I have also been working a lot, and driving back and forth to Portland for fun events like baby shower's and the welcoming of one of my bestest friends back to Oregon. So when Joe finally took a day off, we were determined to do something fun together. I am huge and can't do anything too crazy like go skiing, so we decided to head to the beach. The weather was less than desirable and we got stuck in traffic due to a mudslide, but the company was wonderful and it was still great to spend quality time with my boys :)

 Filled with anticipation!

 Not a great day at the beach.... We practically had the whole thing to ourselves, true Oregonians don't get scared away by a little rain!

 Jack didn't seem to be disturbed by the weather one bit :)

Me and my little buddy :)

 Sheer joy.

Love these two

 Trying to get a Jonas and Jack pic... Jack was a little excited and it was kind of hard to get him to stay in one place! (See below)

 Ha... love this

 Crazy Jack attacking foam... clearly a dangerous foe

 More chasing...

 And now pouncing :)

 What would we do without this crazy dog?!

 Jonas found a toy and thought he'd act like his hero- Indiana Jones

 Jack liked the toy as well...

 Before deciding to attack it.

 Maybe our last day at the beach as a family of 3, 

Love the Newtons :)

Progress...

While there are SO many things I want to blog about in the last couple of months (the holidays, our trip to Maui, baby showers, our weekend trip to So Cal, etc.), the biggest news is quite literally, well, BIG. As in my belly. Our baby is 34 weeks old and should be making his/her debut into the world sometime next month. I am feeling very pregnant these days, and as one of my students so eloquently said, I look as if I "swallowed a basketball". Oh the joy of working with 14-16 year olds every day, you know you are jealous ;)

On the medical side, so far everything seems to be going well. I feel our little baby squirming around every day and all check-ups have gone smoothly thus far. (Please keep your fingers crossed this continues!) I am getting a little anxious now that we are getting closer, but super excited as well. We still have A LOT to do before the baby gets here, but two recent baby showers (which I hope to blog about soon) have helped a ton, and we still have one more. The baby room is pretty much non-existent, but that is going to be my spring break project. Currently our weekends are simply too busy to spend much time to prepare  the "nest", so that is something I look forward to doing over break since Joe will be stuck working. Then it's back to work for 2 weeks after break and then it will be showtime! I can't believe we will have a son or daughter next month, but ready or not here it comes :)

 30 weeks

 32 weeks 

(I know I look bigger in the other pic, but I think the black slims the baby down :)

34 weeks

And how could I forget the sweetest daddy and big brother to be! They are also getting very excited for the arrival of our newest little buddy :)