First Father's Day

This past Sunday we got to celebrate John's first Father's Day. It was definitely a memorable one and according to him it was a great one. We are glad to hear that he enjoyed it because we loved letting him know how grateful we are that he is Addison's daddy. She and I are both lucky to have him.

I had spent some time prepping a few things on Addison's behalf to gift to John on the big day. However, unbeknownst to us she had a gift of her own she delivered to him at 2:00 am that very morning. To preface, our little girl is just perfect when it comes to sleeping through the night - we literally have to wake her up to feed her (pretty much all the time). Sorry to make everyone jealous out there but we really do have it easy with lil Addison. Anyway, so Sunday morning, after I fed her I did the usual hand-off to John so he could burp her, change her diaper, and put her back back in her swing. Well this particular morning, he was in the middle of the diaper change when she decided to pee all over (not the first time this has happened) so off I run to get her new pajamas while John held her with her bare bum exposed. I wasn't gone for more than two minutes when Addison decided to then poop all over her daddy as he held her (this was a first). It was the most adorable thing - yes even at 2:00 am John was enjoying every minute. The funniest part of it all was after the poop, John asked her if that was his early Father's Day gift and Addison just started smiling from ear to ear. It's amazing how little moments like that, even when they occur at 2:00 in the morning, are so memorable and fun.

Once we had our morning feeding, we gave John his presents and card to open. Addison and I had worked really hard to get her little footprints stamped on the card (not easy to do with one adult and a 3 week old). And we framed some adorable pics of both Addison and I so John could take them to work. That way whenever he started missing us he could just look at them.

It was also our first Sunday back to church after Addison was born AND our first Sunday in our new building with our new start time of 10:00 AM :D !! It was a day of firsts! Since our start time was earlier, I spent the morning running around like crazy making John his favorite breakfast of Belgian waffles, and then getting Addison ready, and then salvaging whatever time I had left to get myself ready. Then after coming home from church John got to enjoy one of his favorite dinners (and mine too) of chicken fried chicken...YUM! John kept offering to help me with dinner but I was insistent that he needed to relax because it was his special day. However, I finally took him up on his offer once I realized it was impossible to do it all by myself. It was a busy but fun day. Thankfully Sunday naps have now started back up and we all slept for a good 3 hours. A wonderful ending to a wonderful day!

We are so grateful for John and we feel lucky that we get him as a Daddy and Husband. He is such a great provider and takes such good care of us. We are definitely spoiled and we love every minute of it. He doesn't ever complain when I wake him at 2:00 am to burp and change Addison. He may be half asleep but he is still happy to do it. I love laying in bed just watching him talk to Addison and rock with her before he puts her back down. He has such a special bond with her and I'm thrilled that she gets to have such a great dad. She's his little princess.

Here is one of the pics we gave to John...

Daddy & Daughter on Father's Day

Daddy & Daughter on Father's Day

Photo Shoot

For John's first Father's Day Addison and I decided to give John some adorable pictures to take to work. So the week before Father's Day we ventured down the street to our own little "professional photographer" also known as Aunt Sarah. We had quite the busy shoot and Addison was definitely accommodating to our relentless posing and snapping of pictures. Surely she must be use to it by now. Sarah got some great pictures and we managed to narrow it down to the most adorable (yes this was a hard task) but here are a few we came away with. And we both made a realization that day - this middle picture of Addison reminds me so much of pictures of Suri Cruise when she was a baby. Granted, I think Addison is MUCH cuter than Suri and Suri's parents are crazier than us - but there are moments when they look similar. Enjoy the pics of Addison at 3 weeks old! Thanks Aunt Sarah for all the wonderful pictures!

Two Peas In A Pod

Alas, I finally found some free time in between napping, diapers, cleaning, feeding, etc to write a few more blog posts. I know our devoted readers are patiently waiting for more photos of our adorable little Addibell....so as promised...

This post is devoted to Miss Addibell and her Daddy. I know I talk often of how I hope/wish she has similar features as her mommy but I must say she is almost a spitting image of her daddy. This does not disappoint me by any means. Her dad was an adorable baby and the "Hufford gene" is not only a dominant gene but also a good looking one too so I can't complain. Here are a few pics to compare. We'll let you decide. Far left is John, middle is Addison, far right is Shannon.

Now that I see them side by side, I think I may share a couple of features with her. Namely the shape of the face and the nose. But all the rest go to John. Everyone that meets her always says she looks just like her Dad and they can't get over how similar they look. She definitely gets her hair from her Daddy. I wasn't bald as a baby, but I definitely wasn't blessed with the luscious locks that both of them were. You can't tell by the pictures but Addison's hair actually goes down to her little shoulders. It's adorable and we can't wait to put it in pigtails - which may not be too far down the road. Of course with long luscious locks comes lots of baths as her hair gets oily more often. She's not a huge fan of the body washing but loves the head rubs/shampooing. Any time she gets upset I just tell her that's the price of beauty and she may as well get used to it because she is definitely beautiful. Here are some more pictures of her and John as babies.

The Birth Story

After giving it some thought, I decided I wanted to document the details surrounding Addison's birth and since this blog is technically the only "journal" I keep, I'm choosing to post it here. This way Addison will always know the details of when she was born, even if mommy forgets them over the years.

Thursday, May 28th 2009 - Addison's Birthday!

Little Miss Addibell was due to be born on May 17th but much to our surprise chose to stay inside her mommy for 1 1/2 weeks PAST her original due date. We did have our first induction scheduled to take place on May 19th but we decided to reschedule for a later date and give her a chance to make her debut on her own since Mommy wasn't effaced or dilated at all for that matter and didn't want to chance an emergency c-section.

So, we waited....and waited...and waited...and finally decided to schedule the real induction for Thursday, May 28th (just three days before I hit 42 weeks!) We were definitely ready to greet her and Mommy was beginning to wonder just if she would ever come on her own. So, Thursday morning we showed up to the hospital at 9:30 am and after filling out the paperwork we finally got the Pitocin drip at 11:30 am. Things seemed to progress fairly slowly at first. We spent the day relaxing and visiting. John, Sarah, and my Mom gave me feet rubs, helped me with my breathing, and made sure I was as comfortable as possible. The pain wasn't bad in the beginning but it did creep up on me throughout the afternoon. I tried to hold off on the epidural as long as possible but by the time 7:00 pm rolled around I was in tears and in intense pain. I was dilated to a 4 and finally requested the epidural pronto. At that point the Pitocin was making me contract every 45 seconds so I didn't have much of a chance to recuperate between contractions. I was worn out and needing a break. Luckily the anesthesiologist came quickly and even inserted the needle quickly. I had been paranoid that I would feel pain but he was great. He never once mentioned when he was doing the actual epidural needle - he only announced the pain numbing needle and before I knew it he was done and I was on my back letting the medicine run through like cold water. He did wonderfully and I was finally pain free - well for at least 30 minutes or so it seems. I didn't get much of a break from the contractions before I felt immense pressure. I remember him telling me the medicine would take away the "pain" but I would still feel some pressure - surely I thought this wasn't my definition of "some pressure" - it was a LOT of pressure. According to the monitor I was having contractions pretty consistently - and I could feel them - well at least the pressure of them and it hurt. Up until this point, I had resisted hitting the little pain control button in my hand but because of the pressure I was clicking it as much as possible. I just didn't seem to get any relief even with that. The nurse had another anesthesiologist brought up to see if he could up my dosage and relieve SOME of the pressure. By then the nurse also checked me and I had dilated from a 4 to a 9 1/2 in an hour - no wonder I felt so much pressure. They started prepping the room for delivery and I just laid there in pain. My doctor had visited me earlier but had now already left for home so they had to call her back to the hospital. Apparently she had mentioned to my nurse to go ahead and have me push a couple times in the meantime. My nurse relayed this to us and said there was no way she was going to do that since I was so close to delivery. So we sat and waited and finally Dr. Ford arrived. Everyone assumed their positions. John held my right leg and Sarah held my left, while my Mom videotaped. For some reason I had assumed that my doctor would tell me when to push but everyone just kind of stood there and waited for me to begin the process. So finally, I announced each contraction and pushed as they came. They made me do three 10 second pushes on each contraction. Even though I had an oxygen mask on, I still seemed to get light headed and I started wondering how I would be able to deliver a baby if I passed out. Then I got nauseated and in between contractions I puked three times. After every contraction I kept saying how bad it hurt and how sick I was etc etc until I finally realized what little energy I had I was wasting on talking so I decided to buckle down and shut-up before I passed out on the floor. During the process I had no idea how close Addison was to coming out. Except for when John and Sarah counted to 10 for me each time I could hear their voices go from normal to excited. Even through the pain of pushing I liked hearing their inflection in their voices so I could know I was actually progressing. Otherwise I was convinced I'd be pushing forever. My doctor asked if I'd like to reach down and feel the head - I think I said something to the effect of "No, I'll feel it when she comes out, I just want her out". John also mentioned that Addison had so much hair that between contractions our doctor would just twirl her hair in her hands as she waited for me to start pushing again. I pushed for 45 minutes before Addison came out and I was definitely surprised when they laid her on my chest. She was so beautiful. John and I were both bawling as we looked at her. Then finally the took her to clean her up and John and Sarah headed to the other side of the room with her while my Mom stayed behind with me. It seemed like my doctor was stitching me up FOREVER. It hurt too. She gave me some more numbing shots but it still seemed to hurt. I finally asked her how much I tore and she said it was a 2nd degree tear I think. I don't know why I asked since I had no idea if that was a bad tear or a good tear. I just remember thinking I wanted her to be done already. While laying there in pain, I'll always remember looking over at John & Sarah as they looked at Addison in the warmer and seeing John just break down and sob while Sarah hugged him. It made me tear up just seeing how happy he was. Then they started taking pictures and meeting her while I laid in bed getting stitched up. John later mentioned he felt so pulled in both directions. He'd look at Addison and want to be with her then he'd look back at me in pain and want to be with me. We had previously agreed that he'd be with Addison after delivery so he finally chose to stay with her until they bundled her up and gave her to her Daddy and he came and gave her to me. We had another crying session and I held Addison and just loved how she looked up at me. She was so adorable. I couldn't believe after all of these years John and I were finally parents. Everything was just so surreal. She was perfect in every way. She was born at 8:14 pm and weighed 8 lbs 8 oz. We couldn't be happier being her parents.

Packin' On The Pounds

It has now been a little over a week since Addison has joined our family.  I must say being a first time parent is definitely hard!  No one really went into great detail about the ups/downs your life would have on a day-to-day, even minute-to-minute, basis.   We are very glad we survived our first week, especially Addison I'm sure.  It seems the minute we stopped worrying about one thing, we'd find something else to worry about.  And in all honesty, Addison has been a perfect baby - it's her parents that have created the roller coaster we've traveled on this last week.  Our life has reached an all time high now that we get excited about pees & poops, burps, smiles, breast feeding success and of course weight gain.   

Tuesday was our first pediatrician visit and we found out that Addison dropped in weight from 8 lbs 8 oz to 7 lbs 12 oz.  Not a huge issue for most people but I managed to worry about it non-stop.  I knew it was normal for the most part but for some reason convinced myself she was wasting away.  Needless to say, shortly after that visit we headed straight over to the hospital to meet with the lactation consultant and figure out this breast feeding thing once and for all.  I can't begin to say how wonderful Miss Pam was.  I will now put her on my Christmas Card list - and I don't even DO Christmas Cards!!  We will tell Addison wonderful stories about her "Aunt Pammy" and how she saved all of us a lot of stress.  She showed us a few methods to help Addison learn how to latch and of course helped her Mommy a TON more.  Now that we've resolved that issue, all we had left to do was go home and fatten our little baby up.  And that we did!  We went back for a follow-up visit with the Pediatrician to re-weigh and she made it all the way up to 8 lbs.  Great results!  I was literally clapping and jumping up and down in the doctor's office when we saw the scale.  Now we only have 8 more oz to go by this Thursday.  I'm convinced with a little hard work we can get it done.  

We've had a lot of fun getting to know Addison better this week (once all the worries were gone).  She is the most laid back baby.  Because of her long luscious locks she has already had two sponge baths since she's been home.  She loves them - well she definitely loves the head rubs.  She's not a huge fan of the body washing since she doesn't like to be cold - what baby does?  She sleeps well and only requires 2 late night feedings.  She rarely ever cries - just stares at us as we change her and feed her and play with her.  She's very obedient - when Mom/Dad ask for poops/pees she gives them to us.  When the nurse asks her to wake up so we can check her eyes - she does.  She's happy to oblige.   She makes me laugh a lot with her cute expressions.  Once after a feeding, I sat her up to burp and chat with her.  She gave me about 5 different "silly faces" as if she were intentionally trying to make me laugh.  And I definitely did.  She has already smiled for her Daddy 3 times and I was lucky to get just 1 smile out of her.  We will pretend she was doing it on purpose and not because of gas. ;-)

Being first-time parents has it's moments but even despite the challenges we wouldn't trade it for the world.  We are so excited to get to know her more and more each day and see her grow.  We couldn't have asked for a better little girl to join our family.  She is absolutely adorable.  And as her mommy, I am so thrilled that I get to spend every day with her.  I couldn't think of any place better to be.  She is such a blessing to have in our home.