Welcome Home Addison!

Well the day finally came! I was convinced it wouldn't but sure enough we evicted lil miss Addibell yesterday, May 28, 2009. And after seeing just how adorable and precious she is I quickly forgave her for staying in my belly longer than she should have. She was born at 8:15 pm and weighed 8 lbs 8 oz and 21 1/2 inches long. Surprisingly she didn't take too long to join us. We headed to the hospital at 9:30 am for our induction and got things moving right along by 11:30 am. We made just a little headway from 11:30 to 7:00 pm, then I was ready and willing to get the epidural. Once I got that and had them break my water, I went from a 4 to a 9 1/2 in 1 hour. Even the epidural couldn't numb all the pressure that I went through.....it was one long hour! But I was thrilled to know that we were that much closer to meeting our little girl finally. 45 minutes of pushing and she had arrived. It was such a surreal feeling to finally have them place her on my stomach. John and I definitely got caught up in the emotions of being first-time parents. We are just so in love with her and can't stop staring, holding, squeezing, and kissing her. Luckily the "Hufford DNA" didn't dominate and she did manage to get a few of my features as well. She has my nose (aka the famous "Bell nose") and definitely has John's abundance of hair - just like he had when he was a little baby. John even joked after she was born that it's so long we are going to give her a permanent on our way home. She is a darling bundle of joy and has passed all of her testing and screenings with flying colors - a HUGE relief for me! We are all running on adrenaline at this point but wouldn't have it any other way. She was worth all the lack of sleep we endured. We are anxious to get to spend the rest of our lives as her parents.

My sister-in-law Sarah was our wonderful doula for our birth. Not only did she give us great instruction on pain management and all the little reassurances to calm our fears, and answer our questions, she also made us a beautiful video of Addison's first moments. She is a great photographer and definitely shows her skills in the below video. Enjoy!

Ignoring The Obvious

In light of the recent events (that have yet to happen)....for my sake, and yours, I will not be discussing the fact that I'm still "You know what" in this blog post.  Aside from acknowledging that oh so wonderful little "ticker" in the right hand column.  Did you know that once it gets to ZERO it starts counting back up?  Now how's THAT supposed to make me feel on top of everything else?  Sigh...anyway....as promised...

I choose to blog today on everything BUT the obvious (still protruding) belly.  Such as....my daily events for the past few days.  Riveting as they are I'm sure you'll all be jealous of my natural talent of watching time just tick by on it's very own.  

SUNDAY: the day Addison was supposed to have her birthday.  I went to church and defiantly challenged Mother Nature....turns out she won.  Darn!  So instead, we headed home afterwards and had a nice relaxing evening.  Still nothing.

MONDAY: the day of our weekly Dr. Appt.  I was just thrilled to have more information on the lack of events.  We requested an induction for the following week, got an extra ultra sound to check on our lil one - she was resting quite comfortably and everything checked out so we aren't evicting her yet.  We had my doctor strip the membranes and left on our merry way.  I spent the rest of the day running random small errands and moving moving moving!!  We've been in a cleaning frenzy the last few days.  Both John and I have caught the nesting bug apparently.  And we dined on yummy pizza and lounged in the silence of the evening.  I experienced a few random contractions but nothing noteworthy.  We took a midnight walk and worked up quite a sweat.  Still nothing.

TUESDAY: I awoke, enjoyed a quick VT visit, and ran a few errands.  Then spent the afternoon at Sarah's and did some nice relaxing bends, lunges, and positive thinking and ended with a brisk walk around the block.  Then headed home for a nap, hung out with John after work, and headed to the movies to see Angels & Demons and stuff our face on popcorn and pop.  While the movie played I entertained fantasies of heading to the hospital after the movie was over.  Still nothing.

WEDNESDAY:  I awoke, went to the bathroom SEVERAL times both in the middle of the night and all day.  Caught up on my DWTS TIVO'd episode.  Folded some laundry.  Finishing up some more yet again last minute tasks, and am getting ready to conquer the kitchen floor.  I plan on practicing my lunges while I scour on my hands/knees.  Wish me luck!  So far...still nothing.

Isn't life just glamorous when one sits around and waits and waits and waits?  So much for not talking about my protruding belly.  I'm convinced maybe I've not been blessed with the gene of actually BIRTHING a baby.  I swear I've seen a show like that on TLC - A woman pregnant for 40 years - granted she lived in a third world country AND she was 80 years old - but still!!  I could be her long lost relative!  ;-)  I'm also convinced this is how Heavenly Father is preparing me for the pains of labor.  Keep yanking the carrot from me in hopes that I'll be willing to go through just about any pains to get her out once she decides it's time.  I think it's working.

But, in all honesty, I can't wait for Addison to choose her own birthday but she should know she will be getting evicted next Thursday at 10:00 am.  Hopefully she hasn't doubled in size by then - for both of our sakes.

Still Counting...

Welp, I'm still holding out with the hope of delivering this little girl sometime by/before my due date - which happens to be THIS Sunday.  But my hope is dwindling fast.  She seems to be a patient (or maybe stubborn) child and seems content hanging out in my belly a bit longer.  Although, one sure couldn't tell seeing as sometimes I'm convinced she's trying to stand up in there and stretch her legs.  I keep trying to convince her it's more comfortable out here and that Mommy and Daddy REALLY want to meet her and play with her - but so far no luck.  :(  We do have a Dr. Appt this Monday so we'll see if we've made any major cervix changes by then.  We may resort to some type of extra coaxing once we hit 41 weeks.  I just keep telling myself - you can't be pregnant forever right?  Surely not.  I keep trying to take advantage of the down time by getting every last thing in order before she comes but I'm running out of stuff to do - then what do I do with my time?  So, in the meantime....3 days and counting.  ::crossing fingers::