Addison's Birth

Well, it's been a little over a week with our newest little girl. She is such a sweetie and we are really enjoying her. I thought that I would write a little bit about her arrival. Well... it's actualy pretty long, so if this is too much reading for you just skip to the funny quotes that Alec and Ava have said and the pictures below :)

Addison was due January 11th, but a repeat C-section was scheduled for January 6th (I had to have a C-section with Alec because he was breech). Anyway, the week she was scheduled to come I had been having lots of contractions and some were pretty painful, so I knew she was getting ready. The night before we put the kids to bed at Meredith's house since we were going to have to be at the hospital at 6:00 AM. So, she was so sweet to get them all ready and sent off to school the next morning. It was so hard leaving her house that night since Alec was a little weepy...he kept saying...."I just want to come home with you"..but Meredith was great and got him to stop crying by letting him play the Leap Frog game for 10 min before lights out. Ava was totally fine and excited to be there. Anyway...after some last minute packing we finally got to bed around 10:30.

I woke up at 2:15 with some really strong contractions and started timing them. They were about 5 min apart, so I called the on call Dr. and he said that I need to come in especially since I have a C-section scheduled. So, I got out of bed and took a shower and my water broke...she was ready to be here for sure! This was a first experience for me. I had two kids, and had never been in labor...I was always a little curious about labor, so Addison obliged and let me have at least some of the experience! On our way to the hospital I was contracting the whole way...and they were really getting intense. We got to the hospital around 4 AM , and they got me all checked in and hooked up to everything. Eriik was having way too much fun watching the monitor for contractions and making fun of the faces I was making...it's probably a good thing that I have C-sections because he was driving me crazy...and to be fair, I'm not very nice when I'm in pain! So, Dr. Benefield got called to come in early, but since I wasn't too far dialated she decided to run to her "boot camp" class first! So, my contractions were getting pretty bad, but we held on till she got to the hospital and ended up not going into the operating room till around 7:00 AM...just a half hour before it was scheduled! Everything about the surgery went great and there were not any complications at all. I had been predicting that Addison would "Definatly be bigger than Ava!", and I turned out to be wrong. She was just 6 lbs 6 oz...exactly Ava's birth weight! When they popped her little head over the tarp to show her to me, I was shocked at her teeny tiny head! She had her little face all scrunched up and was so cute. Despite her small size her cry was really loud...much louder than I remember Alec and Ava's being. We ended up having to stay in the recovery room (which was about the size of a closet and only had a bed and one chair) for about 8 hours because all their rooms were full...lots of babies that day! But we ended up getting a large room with two beds which was great for Eriik, so it was worth the wait. We ended up having a great stay in the hospital...in fact I was tempted to take the offer of staying a third night, but Alec and Ava needed us to come home.

Addison has been soo sweet and calm for her first week of life. She is practicaly putting herself on the "Baby Wise" routine without me really having to try! When she is awake after every feeding she is so alert and just looks around all contented and then falls asleep after about an hour and a half (including feeding time)...sleeps for about an hour and a half and then is up to eat again...perfect! At night she goes about 4 hours between feedings...love it! Ok....I realize this is just he first week and things can change, but I'm enjoying this while it lasts!!

Alec and Ava are doing great with her and have said some really cute things in the past week:

When Ava first saw me nursing her in the hospital she said "Mommy, why is Addison eating you???"

A little later that night she was looking at my tummy and said "Are you going to have another baby?!?"

We were telling Alec that she was curled up in a ball when she was in my tummy, and he said "so, she's kind of like a Bakugan!!!"

Ava is always saying "mommy, can I pet her please?"

Today after church Alec said "I think Addison is my favorite sister, but if she poops on me, I'm switching to Ava!"

The day after we got home from the hospital with Addison we got some snow...which is a really big deal here in East TX! We maybe get one or two snows a year if any at all. The kids said that the snowman they built was Addison.