Christmas Came Early

Above is a little video that Micah put together. I have to say... it's pretty precious. :)

Wow... I didn't expect my next blog post to be this. Adia decided she wanted to come 13 days early. She arrived on Saturday, December 4, 2010 at 12:01 PM. She weighed 8 pounds and 4 ounces and was 19 and 3/4 inches long. Needless to say, we are so incredibly overwhelmed with how much we love this little girl. She is the sweetest and most beautiful little thing I have ever known. So here are the details:

On Thursday, I thought I was getting a stomach virus. I made several trips to the restroom, but I never threw up and I never had a fever. I also ate that evening and never got sick again. Now, I think this was my body cleaning itself out and getting ready for labor. On Friday, I was having what I thought were several Braxton Hicks contractions. Looking back, I wonder if they were the beginning of real contractions. So, on Saturday morning, I woke up around 4 AM realizing that I was in very very wet clothes. My water broke. I went to the restroom and said to Micah, "Micah... my water just broke." In his sleepy state, he said, "I'll go get you some water in just a minute." I said, "No, I don't need water.... my water BROKE." He immediately hopped up out of bed and started packing his hospital bag. I immediately began feeling the contractions, but they weren't unbearable. I didn't begin timing them until we got in the car. We called the hospital and they told us to go ahead and come on in. On our way to the hospital, I started timing the contractions. At that point, they were already about 3 minutes apart and were already getting painful. We got to the hospital a little before 5 AM and they immediately got me in a delivery room and checked to see how dilated I was. I was 3 cm. I had an epidural soon afterward, (which really wasn't that bad), and the dilating came so quickly that everyone was just amazed. Apparently, most women do not dilate so quickly. I went from 3 cm to 7 and 1/2 in about 1 and 1/2 hours or so. By a little after 10:00 AM, I was already 10 cm dilated. With the epidural, the contractions didn't hurt, but I could just feel a lot of pressure. The pressure got more and more intense as it got closer to show time. I had to push for 2 hours. The first hour wasn't that bad, but around the last hour of pushing, I was so worn out and feeling so much pressure. All of the pressure became painful toward the end. Micah and both of our moms stayed in the delivery room and watched. I will never forget their reactions when they could see her face. Let's just say there were lots of emotions going on in that room! So much joy.

After the delivery, the pain medicines they gave me made me pretty sick. I couldn't keep anything down, so I stopped the pain meds that day. Since I couldn't take the pain meds, I got pretty sore, (but everything was sooooo worth it!) Our hospital stay was pretty nice. We had a double tempurpedic bed, so Micah was able to sleep with me in the bed for our entire stay. That was very nice for both of us. Adia spent lots of time with us in the room, but she stayed at night in the nursery. They brought her to me any time she got hungry so that I could nurse her.

Nursing has been both hard and wonderful. She has done an excellent job and the lactation nurses have been shocked at how well we've done. So, that's my life these days... Feeding, feeding, and more feeding. I am so in love with this little girl though. It is just insane how much your heart swells when you become a mommy. I cannot describe it. Micah's mom has been here this week to help us. She has been awesome! She is making meals for us and making extras so that we can have more to freeze. She's also been doing our laundry, going to the store for us, vacuuming, etc. It's been soooo nice to have that help. His sisters from Nashville were able to come and stay for a night. They also helped out and loved on our baby.

I knew how little sleep I would get since everyone warned me, but I didn't REALLY know how little sleep I would get until our first night with her last night. Wow. I don't know how single moms do it. Bless them. My husband is incredible. I cannot express how much love he has for his little girl. He is absolutely enthralled with her and he has completely taken initiative and has helped in so many ways. Needless to say, I am so in love.

I will keep updating the blog with photos, videos, and info on our precious little girl. In the meantime, enjoy the video that Daddy made!