Weeks 3 & 4

Well - we survived our first 2 weeks at home alone with just the 3 of us.  It is still strange to think that Madison Claire belongs to us and isn't going anywhere and it BLOWS our minds to think that she will be one month old tomorrow! 

I did pretty well my first week on my own.  Luckily, she was still in her "angel baby" stage and I was able to get a shower most days and even took her out on errands to the grocery store, Target, etc. during the day.  Ryan is able to come home for lunch which is a huge help - it is so nice to have the extra set of hands, even if just for 30 or 45 minutes so I can eat my lunch and have a break.  We weighed Madison Claire last Tuesday when she was 3 weeks old and she was up to 9.5 pounds!!!  I guess that means that she is eating well and my milk is helping her grow!  We'll weigh her again tomorrow on her 4 week birthday - we think she might be at the 10 pound mark!

We also had a few other firsts.  We gave her an actual bath in the baby tub.  She was a little shocked at first but after about 30 seconds really liked it!  I think she is going to like the water!  We also introduced the bottle (with my breastmilk that I pumped) and she took it like a champ!  She drinks so much when we give her the bottle...we have to pull it out of her mouth sometimes so she doesn't choke.  It is nice for Ryan to be able to help feed her and it has also given us much more flexibility for when we leave the house.  She also started to breakout with the baby acne that most babies get and it makes us so sad.  She has about a million pimples all over her sweet little face!  The early ones have already gone away but new ones pop up each day so I'm not sure how long it will last.

This week has been a lot harder.  We have noticed a change in her disposition (hence my last post about who stole my angel baby) and are hoping it is a phase and not permanent!  She is very unhappy when she is awake and will not go to sleep unless she is on your chest.  The minute we put her down anywhere - the crib, moses basket, car seat, she wakes up and cries and cries.  It's been pretty hard because we just can't help her!!  Please pray with us that whatever is upsetting her goes away!!!

We are planning to follow the Babywise method and started to put her  on this schedule last Thursday.  The basic premise is that she will eat, then have her awaketime, and then sleep in that order so she doesn't become dependant on eating to fall asleep.  You also put them to bed before they are fully asleep so they can learn to fall asleep on their own and self soothe.  The first day was pretty rough - everytime I would lay her down she would start crying so I would go pick her up and then she would stop so I'd lay her back down and after 5 minutes she would cry again so you can see the cycle here.  I must have gone in her room 7 times during one nap!  But it paid off and by Friday and Saturday she was doing much better at naptime!  We thought we had a breakthrough but then on Sunday she just had these crying spells and we were happy if we could just get her to sleep anywhere.  I actually had her sleep in the bed with us (bad I know!) last night from 10pm - 1am because I could not get her to go down anywhere and I was *so* tired!   I'll keep you posted on how this week goes - hopefully it will be okay!

We've also had a lot of great help.  Cheryl came over last Wednesday for the day which allowed me to get some things done around the house and run some errands.  Mom & my Aunt Debbie came up on Tuesday and spent the night.  They actually kept Madison Claire upstairs and fed her a bottle so Ryan and I got to sleep all the way through the night - what a treat!!  Ryan and I also had a treat this past weekend.  We took Madison out to his parents house and they kept her while we went to dinner and a movie.  We feel so blessed to have such great family to help us!

The next 2 weeks will be busy for us.  I have my OBGYN appointment tomorrow so am hoping to get a good report.  My boss, and great friend Kate, will be in town Thursday through Saturday and then Ash comes Monday through Thursday and then Lauren & Heidi come Friday through Monday.  I am so looking forward to seeing all of them and for the extra set of hands.  I hope that Madison Claire is on her best behavior for our visitors but for some reason I'm not feeling so lucky at the moment!!!

Oh - one more thing, our washing machine broke last night...right in the middle of a load of laundry!  So, as I write this, I'm sitting at the Morrows house doing my laundry relishing a few minutes of quite time as Madison sleeps soundly (praise the Lord) in the car seat here next to me!  I know I will look back at these days and miss them so am trying to keep that in perspective!!  

Thanks for your love & prayers...we need them!

Lauren & Ryan

More Pictures

I'll still plan to upload my favorite shots to the  blog but if you want access to all of our pictures of Madison Claire, check out our online gallery:

http://gallery.me.com/lmcswain

There are some cute ones out there!  I'll take some more this week!

Who stole my angel baby??

I want her back!!

Joy Unspeakable

Wow....*so* sorry that it has taken me so long to update the blog! Who knew that having a newborn would be so time consuming?? I also have felt overwhelmed about trying to describe the last 2 weeks in writing so have been procrastinating on getting this post completed. I'm going to try my best for a good update here but know in advance that words cannot do justice to the joy & love we have experienced the past 2 weeks!

First - the hospital stay! We left the house around 5:45am on Tuesday morning to head to Baptist Hospital. Notice the curly hair (see post from March 17th titled "39 weeks" if you are confused :))! We met our delivery nurse, Bonnie and she was FANTASTIC!!! Such an answered prayer...it was also hilarious because she looked like she could be Ryan's moms sister!! They started my Pitocin around 7:30am and Dr. Macey came in and broke my water around 8:45am. The contractions started getting more intense so I got my epidural around 10am. The epidural was AMAZING!!!! I highly recommend it!! I felt no pain at all from that point forward...in fact, it almost felt like a party in my delivery room. Mom, Dad, Sarah, Meredith, Cheryl & Gary were all in and out for most of the day. Whenever they would come to check my progress, everyone would leave except for Ryan. Every time they checked my progress I had progressed at least one centimeter if not more! It went by so quickly and the nurse kept saying that I was progressing amazingly fast. By about 2pm I was ready to start pushing. Because of the epidural, I couldn't really feel an urge to push so I was super paranoid that I wasn't going to be a good pusher! So I tried to envision doing the tightest stomach crunch that I could think of and pushed and pushed! Bonnie said that it was the best push she had seen in 6 months! Maybe she tells everyone that - but it made me feel good nonetheless! Ryan was the only one in the room at that time and he was helping me by counting and being encouraging - he was GREAT!!! I had to push for 39 minutes and Madison Claire came at 2:49pm on March 31st. For those of you wondering about my doctors prediction - see the post from Sunday, March 29th - he NAILED it!!! Almost exactly right!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!


When she first came out I remember it felt like forever until she started crying. Once she did I felt such relief that she was okay!! Dr. Macey asked Ryan if he wanted to cut the cord but of course he said no. Once Dr. Macey cut the cord, he asked Ryan if he was wearing a golf shirt...I thought to myself during this exchange "this is the oddest conversation to be happening right now" and the next thing I know, Dr. Macey is literally tossing Madison Claire to Ryan...still covered in blood (see the picture below for proof). It then took a really long time for them to "fix" me. I had 2 really bad tears - one internally and one externally - and ended up losing a lot of blood during the process. I'm very thankful for hospitals and skilled physicians...if I had delivered Madison Claire in the old days, I probably would have bled to death...scary thought!!


Ryan and I were immediately smitten although we didn't think that she resembled either of us in anyway! Her sweet little face was so swollen but she was still precious! She took right to breastfeeding like a champ and then got to meet her grandparents and aunts! They were of course thrilled and I think they love her *almost* as much as we do! On a scale of 1 - 10 with 10 being the worst, the labor & delivery process was a 2 in terms of pain and discomfort...such an ANSWERED PRAYER!! The recovery was really difficult for me and much more difficult than I had anticipated. That aside, the rest of our hospital stay was wonderful - a big THANK YOU to all of the nursing staff at Baptist...we had a great experience and would highly recommend it to any of our friends!! Also a big THANK YOU to the Morrows, Mathews, Lance & Jessica for coming to visit us in the hospital!


We left the hospital on Thursday and were excited to get home but knew we would miss the great staff at Baptist - it was so nice when the nursery would come take Madison Claire and just knowing that there were people there who could help if there was an emergency! Mom had saved the outfit that I wore when I left the hospital when I was born so that is what Madison Claire wore home - so special!



Hospital pics:









Mom stayed in town until Easter Sunday and was SUCH a HUGE help...I cannot say THANK YOU enough!!! Our first night home was tough - she was up most of the night and we couldn't get her to sleep. 2 funny stories from that night - first, I had just gotten the baby to sleep (finally) around 3am and I woke up around 3:20pm with my boobs on fire!! It turns out that my milk had come in and I freaked out - I did NOT want to wake up the baby to feed her but we hadn't opened the pump yet and when Ryan went to get it, we realized that we had to go through this long sterilization process that was just not going to happen at 3:30am! So...I ended up waking up the baby and thankfully she provided me some relief :). Next story - after getting little to no sleep that night, I fed Madison Claire at 7:00am and as soon as I was finished I marched myself and Madison Claire upstairs to where mom was sleeping and opened the door. Right about then, Madison Claire made a little grunt and mom threw back the covers like it was Christmas morning! I threw the Boppy on the bed and said "here is the baby, she has a dirty diaper, won't need me until 10am, I'm going to sleep"!! PRAISE THE LORD FOR MOTHERS!!!


Luckily, it got better and she has been a good little sleeper for us! She is giving us stretches of 3, 4, and even a few nights at 5 hours. She is sleeping in our bedroom in a moses basket (THANK YOU STIERNAGLES & BRADSHAWS) and is doing pretty well. Her favorite sleeping position is on her stomach on your chest so she doesn't really like being put down and on her back...pray for us on that one!


A few other random updates you might be interested in:

• She is still breastfeeding like a champ - I call her my little birdie because she reminds me of a little bird when she is hungry. In fact - when we left the hospital she was down to 8lbs but at her first doctors appointment she was already up to 8.4 and this week the little chunky monkey was up to 8.12!! The doctor even called me a cow! Seriously...he said, "you are a cow". I'm pretty sure in any other time in my life I would be horribly insulted but I just laughed because I feel like I could feed triplets these days!


• We love our pediatrician Dr. Heil (cow comment and all!). Ryan coaches his son at CPA and he has been such a blessing. He prayed over Madison Claire in the hospital and we just pray that God would continue to bless him as he provides care for Madison.


• Ryan and I went on our first date post baby when she was 3 days old! I fed her and then we left her with mom while we went out to our favorite Sushi place....the owner even gave us free sushi!


• Mama & Papa Howard were able to make a trip up to Nashville to meet Madison Claire when she was 5 days old and it was such a treat - for everyone!


• The grandparents are absolutely adorable with her! My mom is Grandma or Mama (she goes back and forth), my dad is Papa Steve, Cheryl is Nana, and Gary is Papa. Mom is already trying to teach Madison Claire how to say "I want to go with Grandma"!


• My family came in town for Easter weekend and it was such a treat...I don't think Madison Claire went one minute without being held by someone but they say you can't spoil them at this age...I'm not so sure :)


• I love watching my sweet angel sleep - I really do think she is the absolute cutest thing in the world when she is sleeping...there is nothing better


• Ryan says he has never seen me so happy


• Ryan is AMAZING with her - you would think he had worked in a nursery his whole life he is so sweet with her! He is going to be such a great dad and I am so excited for Madison Claire to be blessed with his leadership & love.


• Some of our favorite pictures from the last 2 weeks:

My heart has never been so full! God has truly fulfilled our dreams for a baby and given us an angel. I'm convinced our next one will be a terror because she is too good to be true! God has answered so many of our prayers related to the labor, delivery, recovery, parenting, breastfeeding, and so many more...we are overwhelmed by His incredible love and faithfulness to us. Another of those blessings is being surrounded by family and friends like you...so THANK YOU once again for your love, support and prayers - for me, Ryan, and our sweet Madison Claire! We will need them and covet them in the days, weeks, and months ahead! Thank you for caring about us enough to read this update...I will try my best to update more real time moving forward!


With much love,


Lauren & Ryan

Madison Claire McSwain

It is with great joy that we introduce you to our precious angel, Madison Claire McSwain!  She was born at 2:49pm on Tuesday, March 31st.  She weighed 8 lbs 8.5 oz. and was 20 inches long.  So far she is a great baby with such a sweet disposition!  We will post many more pictures & details of her birth later this week but for now wanted you all to have a picture of our sweetie! Praise the Lord for a healthy, beautiful baby!

Love,

Lauren & Ryan