Two Weeks already

Wow!  Two weeks ago today I was laboring through the morning church service and gave birth to Madeline that night.  It has seriously gone by waaaaay too fast.  I  have a feeling it is only going to get worse!  I have about 6 weeks left of maternity leave.  I am already dreading going back.   I LOVE my job, don't get me wrong but I get a little excited every night knowing that I don't have to get up the next day for anything other than well....getting up!
Here are how things are going so far:

Sleep: Madeline has been sleeping 5 hours at a time at night and waking up to only to feed.  I usually wake up first and find her stirring in the bassinet next to me.  She usually will poop 2-3 times during a feeding which prohibits her from just falling back to sleep so I usually have to rock her back to sleep.

Eating: Madeline is exclusively breast feeding wonderfully every 2-3 hours during the day and every 5 hours at night.  I have not given her a bottle yet and am trying to hold off for as long as possible.  We gave Emily one at two weeks exactly and after that she started preferring the bottle more and more until she completely refused to breast feed at 4 months.  I am thinking I will offer her one around the three week mark or so.
Some various family members have encouraged me to offer the bottle ASAP! because they "heard" the longer you wait, the harder it might be for them to accept the bottle. I am not sure how true that is or not but bottles are the devil as far as I am concerned.

Emily LOVES her baby sister.  She transitioned well to having a little baby in the house.  I think this is because she has been around babies a lot the past few months and she just adores her little one year old cousin Luke who she plays with twice a week at Grandma & Grandpa Boldts house.  She is always wanting to touch the baby, hold the baby and help keep Madeline happy when she is crying.

I do feel like she is becoming more independent.  She actually asks to go play in the basement play room and watch Yo Gabba Gabba.  A month ago she wouldn't even stay down there to play if one of us was with her!

Adam with his girls!

Preview picture of Madeline's newborn photo shoot

165727_497748919984_103134699984_5955104_2382377_n
Originally uploaded by LightningBoldt82

We had a newborn photo shoot for baby Madeline on Sunday. I was really excited to do this as we never got a chance to do this with Emily. The session lasted about 3 hours and little Maddie was such a good little model! I can't wait to see the rest in a couple weeks.

Madeline Grace is here!!

Madeline Grace was born January 2nd 2011 all on her own!  She weighed in at 6 lbs. 15 oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long.
Here is the short birth story.  I don't want to bore you with every detail!!
This is me at 39 weeks!  Madeline was born at 39 weeks 2 days.

I started having contractions at 8am sunday morning. Labored through church, came home to get my things and get Emily situated and went up to the hospital around 2:00 pm. I was 3 cm dilated. All the nurses thought I was faking it because I was too happy LOL!

They had me go walk around for an hour on the labor floor and then I was 5cm. They admitted me, gave me my epi at 5:30 pm and shortly after that (probably around 7:30 pm) they broke my water. It was super fast after that.

Because I had such terrible tearing with Emily they were going to have the baby descend into the pelvis as low as she could go before having me push.  I was in such excruciating pain when they had me lay on each side to get her moving.

I started pushing at 8:40 and Madeline was born at 8:47! YES. I pushed for SEVEN minutes! It was a tough 7 minutes though. It was very painful with tons and tons of pressure. BUT I didn't tear!

The recovery has been a breeze. I feel great!

Everyone told me I looked way too happy to have just given birth!

Ready to go home!