Finally the milky way!

Alright, so today Madison's milk feed was up to 10ml/hr!!!  They are increasing it 3ml/day or 1ml/8hrs!  Full feeds for her weight is 19ml/hr.  They should be at full feeds by Monday, which means her PICC gets to come out!!!  We are so happy for that because it is such a pain to have all of lines and cords in the way when you are trying to cuddle her!  They are also going to be removing her oxygen saturation monitor so that is one less cord as well. They said that we can also detach her cardiac and respiratory leads while we hold, and although she doesn't need them, the nurses said it can't hurt while the leads are there anyways.  Today they also did an echocardiogram to look at the holes in her heart, the results will not be back until sometime next week.  Madison's omphalocele is looking great, and feeling even better; the sides are all really firm now, we are still struggling with the one pink spot we mentioned in a previous blog, but aside from that, all looks well.
Today the nurses wanted me to try nursing Madison, after I pumped so that she would only get a small amount, and we were all ready and Madison was awake, yet settled, and then I got her in position and within 2 seconds, she was asleep!  Fast asleep!  Silly baby!  So we will try again tomorrow.
P.S.  A huge thank you to Jenny for the yummy turkey supper, and turkey soup!  We have eaten both now, Tyler just couldn't wait one more day!  We haven't had the spaghetti yet, but looking forward to it!  Also a big thank you to Erin, Darcy, Katie, and Sam for the mysterious package I found at the back door!! We haven't eaten the lasagna yet, but you know Tyler has already been into the muffins!  The book is adorable and I can't wait to read it to Maddy!  Thanks to all of you guys for your thoughtfulness!!!    We love you all, almost as much as your cooking!! Just kidding, we love you more then food, well at least I do!! (Don't tell Tyler I wrote that!)

Getting ready to nurse, or so we thought!

Who wants a hug?!

Maddy did a bad bad thing!

Hi ya'll!  Just thought I would give you a quick update while I organize all of the pictures on our computer.  Madison was not moved to the Children's hospital because she actually tolerated her milk!!  She was on 1.50ml/hr, and then she was on 3.0ml/hr, and now she is on 5.0ml/hr!!  Her feeding tube looked like it was in the right position to follow down into her intestines, until Madison did a bad bad thing!!  She pulled out her feeding tube!! Now I know what you're thinking, because I was thinking the same thing, how does a 3 week old baby pull out a 32cm long feeding tube??!!  With mittens on!!  Apparently, she got her hand caught in the tube near her nose, and then just outstretched her long arms, and wham-o it was out!  She so nicely left 5cm still inside, but the nurses had been working so hard to get that tube in the right spot, so they just took it out and put a new one in.  This new tube seems to be in the right spot, so her feeds, like I said, have been increased to 5ml/hr.  The nurse practitioner has put up a sign on Madison's crib reading "critical tube"; (oh that's right Madison has a crib now!)  Also Madison is now 3 weeks old, and she got to wear clothing today for the very first time!  Actually, she was was kind of forced because the nurse wanted to tuck her left arm in so that she cannot for any reason get a hold of her feeding tube, she also is under strict orders to only have her mittens off under direct supervision.  Although Madison has managed to pull out two IVs and now a feeding tube, the nurses tell us she still doesn't hold the record for "most things pulled out by a baby", but we never found out what the record actually is!
Anyways, here are some pictures!

I am a bad girl, but I am too cute to be mad at!

  

Here is Madison with clothes on for the very first time! Her one arm is tucked into her sleeper.

These pictures were taken with a drawing feature on our camera

Should I stay or should I go?

Hello again, sorry for the long time with no writing, but I didn't really have anything new to report.  Madison was off her milk for the entire weekend.  They had her on feeds of 0.5ml/hr but she just threw that up.  They have tried advancing that tube that is supposed to be going into Madison's intestines, but all it does is curl up inside her stomach.  However, today they started the feeds again, well they tried to, but the tube that is now a total of 32cm into Madison's nose was clogged.  In fact, it was clogged so bad that they ended up having to inject coke into it.  Apparently, the coke will eat away whatever is clogging the tube, but it took the nurse practitioner at least 15-20 minutes to get the coke into the tube, so it must have been a large clog.  So they eventually got the tube running, and had Madison at 1.5ml/hr, and she seemed fine while we were there, totally settled...but as we know tomorrow will bring other things.  They started these feeds in hope that now that the tube has fluid running through it, it will find its way out of the stomach and into the intestines.  They have also started laying Madison on her right side because that is supposed to be the side that will lead out of the stomach, but as we know Madison's anatomy is a little bit different, so who know if that will work or not. This is that last step that they will make before sending Maddy for fluoroscopy.  Due to the feeding issues as of yesterday the word is out that Madison is going to be transfered to the Children's hospital sometime this week, actually today they said that is will probably be tomorrow, because rumor has it there is a bed with our name on it, but who knows what will happen by tomorrow.  Also, one other thing, last night Madison had two bowel movements, and one of them was quite large! (Mom, I know that this just made your day!!) Tyler and I think/hope that this will be that answer to the feeding problems, because Madison was tolerating her milk before, and then all of a sudden stopped tolerating we think that this is the reason, so now all her milk will digest with ease, and come out the other end, and not be thrown up!  I know that you are probably thinking it is pretty scary to be extremely excited about a bowel movement like we are, but when things come out that end that means something is working!!
  As you may or may not know we have been putting flamazine on Madison's omphalocele; flamazine is a medicine that they normally use on burn victims, it works as a topical antibiotic, and it also encourages the skin to  grow where there is no skin.  So in Madison's case, the flamazine has been put on the whole omphalocele and within the first application 95% of her omphalocele turned yellowish, which is the flamazine doing its job.  By now the yellowish part is thicker and harder, which will help with the skin to come up the sides, and also gives the sac some strength.  There is, however, one spot on the top of her omphalocele that has never changed in color or texture.  Until recently that part was just flat and pink, nothing too exciting, but yesterday Tyler and I noticed that the pink part is bulging out, so the surgeon came to see Maddy this morning, but she never took off the dressing, so she never actually got to see that part.  During the dressing change today, we had the neonatologist, and the nurse practitioner look at it, they seemed a little concerned, so they phone the surgeon.  The surgeon said that she thinks that it is just a bowel loop, and that it is not anything to be concerned about, she also is confident that it will eventually granulate, and harden just like the other areas.  This is good!
So I guess we will find out if our little one is being moved to children's tomorrow or not, but I kind of hope so!  It seems that they have the best team for feeding problems, and also the surgeons will be able to see Madison daily instead of weekly.
Here are some pictures of Madison's grandparents, holding her for your viewing pleasure:

Grandma Diana

Grandpa Dan

Grandma Sherrill

Grandpa Tim

Tummy Tug-of-War

Good evening all!  We just got back from Calgary so I thought would quickly update you all.  First, I would like to start by making a correction to the blog that Tyler had written this morning; he wrote that the nurses were trying to advance Madison's feeding tube from her stomach to her esophagus, but what he meant was from her stomach to her intestines.  So last night they had advanced her feeding tube 2 extra centimeters from what it was, in hopes that it would make its way into her intestines bypassing her stomach altogether, and then they were going to shoot an x-ray to check the placement of the tubing.  However, as we learned today when we arrived at the the hospital, Madison had been started on her continuous milk feed of 1.38ml/hour at midnight, and they were stopped at noon today.  The feeds were stopped because Madison started throwing up large amounts of milk, pretty much she threw up all the milk that she had been given, so none of it made it through.  Also, the conclusion was that the feeding tube had not bypassed the stomach, and was still sitting in the stomach letting all the milk accumulate. So today the doctors decided that they are going to try advancing her feeding tube another two centimeters, and then shoot another x-ray in the morning. The idea is that the tube will eventually find the way out to the intestines, but the only way to be sure that it is in the right place is to x-ray the tubing.  However, because of the omphalocele, the x-ray is apparently really hard to read, but this is the only option for now.  The next step would be to send some sort of tracer down, like barium, so that they could watch the movement, or lack thereof, through Madison's system.  This way they would be able to look for any obstructions, or kinks.
 While we were at the hospital Madison started throwing up again, so she has not been given anything by mouth since the feeds were stopped at noon today, and she will not be given anything by mouth again until at least tomorrow morning.  Also the surgeon stopped by today to watch our new dressing change, and he was saying that they are going to start talking about moving Madison to the children's hospital again.  He believes that they have a better support team for babies that are having feeding problems, such as an occupational therapist that will help Madison get pleasure from her mouth, so that when she is able to feed properly she will still want to, also they have a nutritionist, and basically a whole team of professionals just for feeding and gastrointestinal problems.  So back and forth we go from feeding to no feedings, to moving to the children's hospital, to staying a foothills...
Aside from all of the feeding problems, and throwing up Madison is still a calm and happy baby.  She only fusses because she is so hungry, she sucks on her soother, and my finger, and her hand, and anything else you will let her have...poor girl she wants it, but her body will not let her have it; it is tummy tug-of-war!  Madison doesn't appear to be in any pain, or suffering in anyway, I just wanted you all to know that.  We have been holding her everyday, and giving her all the kisses and love that we can, and all the kisses from you guys too!  Thanks for all your support, and pray for our little girls little tummy!

Detour on Milky Way

Hi everyone

I know you get tired of the ups and downs of the milk story, but yesterday was another bump down. They tried feeding her with a bottle and found that the milk did not move through her stomach. They wanted to try this to see if it would work better then the continuous feed through the tube that was going to her stomach.  When we saw her yesterday she was not getting any milk, and she was sooo hungry! It is hard to just watch, listen and not have control over the situation. I want to take control and be like you should do this or this and have you tried that. I have to remind myself that these Doctors and Nurses have Madison's best interests at heart and to let them do their job. The best thing I can do is be there for her and know that it will all work out for little Madison.  We did give a list of some of our favorite nurses to the Charge Nurse, in hope that they will become her primary nurses. We did this because with her feeding troubles she will be at the Foothills for a little while longer, how long is anybody's guess.  The next plan they are going to implement, is to put a tube down that can be X-Rayed and push it through the stomach into the esophagus. They hope this will work until her stomach can digest the milk properly.  If this does not work they will have to put a tracer fluid through her and watch the path it takes to determine where the problem is. No one is really sure what is what and where it is in her omphalocele. This is the last option, because they want to do the least evasive options first.  So cross your fingers for todays news.  Every day is an adventure for Meg, Madison and I.

All the bad days paid off!

Oh my goodness!!  Yesterday was probably the second best day of my life!! First of course being October 6th when Madison was born!!  When Tyler and I first when in to see Madison, we were stopped by two of the nurse practitioners that we love, they talked to us about Madison is now back on her milk, at 1.38ml/hour, they told us that they figured when the feeding tube was in before it wasn't in far enough and that all the milk was just going right into Maddy's esophagus, which would explain why she kept spitting it up.  The nurses told us that normally they us the belly button as a landmark when inserting the feeding tube, but because of Maddy's defect she has no belly button.  So with the insertion of this new tube, they did x-rays to see where the tube was, and to make sure it was in the right spot, now the tube is a whole inch deeper then the previous tubes.  This is just the beginning of the good news!
Also the surgeon from the children's hospital came in and completely changed Madison's dressing.  The surgeon said that we do not need to put the medicine that we were putting on Maddy's omphalocele anymore, because the sac is granulating, and the skin is growing, so no more medicine is needed!  The surgeon was very impressed with the rate of the skin growth, and the shrinkage of the sac!  The surgeon also thought that having her dead umbilical cord tied to the bed was not only gross, but unnecessary so she cut the cord!  Which means Madison is no longer tied to her bed!!  Which means...I got to hold her!!! For the very first time, I got to hold my baby!!  It was the best thing in the whole wide world!! She was awake and looking right into my eyes, she is just so beautiful!  She didn't stay awake for very long though, but she woke up pretty fast when I had to put her back into her bed.  Later that night Tyler also got to hold her, he was a little awkward at first, but we got him sorted out.   There is still no word on when the big move to children's is happening, but it could happen any day now.  We will keep you in the loop!

X-rays, blood gases, and suction..oh my!

Hi all!  Well yesterday was another one of those backwards days.  Madison was again taken off of her milk, and  was not allowed anything by mouth!  Apparently during the night the nurses were able to suck out quite a bit of milk from Madison's tummy, so they got scared and stopped her milk.  Not only did they stop the milk they also thought that they should do some x-rays, which came back showing, what looked to them, like a dilated intestinal loop...whatever that means.  So Madison was left with just her TPN, which is the nutrients that she gets from her PICC line.  However, later in the evening when Tyler and I were there, Madison started spitting up quite a bit of "yellow stuff" (thats what Tyler and I call it), so the nurse paged the doctor, and he decide that they needed more x-rays..oh joy!  Those x-rays showed no dilated intestinal loops, but it did show a big gas bubble in her stomach.  The doctor then decided that they needed a blood gas, thankfully they were ok with just a capillary blood gas, so they just took blood from her heel.  The blood gas came back very good!  After that, the doctor decide that Madison needed her repogle  tube back (which is the tube that was suctioning her stomach), but this time the nurse is going to put it in Madison's mouth instead of her nose, and she planned to use a bigger tube.  This was the time that we left, there was no way I was going to watch the nurse shove a tube down Madison's nose or mouth!  Earlier that night the nurse had suctioned Madison's nose out, and I couldn't watch that either, the sound alone was horrible.  We were glad that they were going to put the tube back in to suction Madison's stomach out, because with her always being on her back, she could easily aspirate, or choke on the "yellow stuff".  Amongst all this action, on a positive note, Madison did have bowel movements, and she had great bowel sounds, so some of the contents of her stomach were making their way through, so she obviously has no obstructions, or problems in that way.  Tyler and I believe that the reason that Madison had such a hard time with the milk feeds is that the nurses increased her feeds too quickly, they went from 1.2 ml per hour to 3ml per hour in 2 days!  We believe that is too quick of an increase.  The doctors believe that feeds as a whole started too quickly, and that she never should have been fed milk at all yet.  However, as we have learned the opinions change as quickly as the staff, so by the next shift change we will have a new theory and a new plan of action.  Until then...

Milk Milk Milk

Hi everyone! Just a quick little update on Madison. She has been doing really well on the milk and it has been making it through her system with ease.  They have increased the amount of milk she is getting per hour! She is also sleeping through the night better and the omphalocele is still shrinking nicely! Grandpa Tim is down from Ontario and is going to meet Madison for the first time today. He is so excited he can't wait, he is even getting his hair cut before he sees her. Grandma Sherrill, Grandma Diana and Grandpa Dan visited yesterday and I have some good pictures of them with little Maddy!

Grandma Diana holding Madison's hand!

Grandma Sherrill

Grandpa Dan

Grandma Diana

One step forward and two steps back...

  Yesterday my mom and I showed up to visit Madison, Tyler couldn't come because our furnace broke so he had to stay and fix it.  It seems all bad things have to happen at once, first the furnace fan belt went, then the whole complete motor seized!  He was pretty upset with having to stay here instead of coming to visit, but there is always tomorrow.
  So when my mom and I showed up to visit we found out that last night Madison was crying all night, and not really being herself, so the nurse suctioned out her stomach, and found 30 cc's (close to 1 oz.) of milk in her stomach that hadn't been digested.  Madison was on a continuous feed of only 5ml per hour, so having that much in her stomach was a red flag.  And as you may have guessed they took her off of the milk, and now she is again to have nothing by mouth.  It is one step forward two steps back, but we were warned of that.  They said that they will try again tomorrow, so hopefully that will go better.  Madison is so hungry though, when we were there she was trying to get a hold of anything so that she could put it in her mouth!  She is also losing weight like crazy, I think she has almost lost a whole pound!!
   Although Madison was up all night crying she slept all day until we got there, and they she was wide awake looking right into our eyes with her big eyes that somehow look right into your soul.  She is just so beautiful!
  Also, with the dressing changes that we do daily, Madison's omphalocele is measuring 5 cm from the top down. The other day Tyler and I seemed to notice that it looked smaller, so now I measure it during the dressing changes.  Also the sac is turning yellow, and some parts are becoming very dark; the sac is still not hardened but it's getting there.

Hello all!  Again today we helped with the dressing change, while we were doing the change the surgeon from the children's hospital came to see the omphalocele without the dressing on it.  While he was there he wanted to chat with us about the future plans for Maddy.  He said that they are now going to feed her my milk!! They are going to feed her through that same tube that was originally sucking out her stomach. They are going to do those feeds for a while and depending on how well she does then they will change her to bottle feedings!!  They also want to give her some milk on a q-tip and have her suck it off, they said that if you wait too long to give babies food by mouth they then later forget to feed or they will refuse to feed by mouth.  So that is wonderful news!!  Also the surgeon said that they are planning to transfer Madison to the children's hospital by the end of this week.  He said that she is not sick enough to stay at Foothills!!  The surgeon also said that once Madison is at the children's occupational therapy is going to come in and fit her for a neoprene cover for her omphalocele that will put gentle pressure on the sac and slowly put the organs in her abdominal cavity.  He reminded us that we will have to be patient because it is a long and slow process.  I asked him about when we will be allowed to hold her, and he said that as soon as the sac becomes harder, and she gets the special cover we will be allowed to hold her and walk around with her in the hospital!!! So hopefully the transfer will take place this Friday, but anything can happen.
On a different note, Madison's blood cultures came back fine, again, but unfortunately, the CRP blood test that they did came back high, so today they did a lumbar puncture on her!  They took some cerebral spinal fluid so that they could culture it.  The preliminary screen showed that everything was fine, but they have to culture the fluid, so it will be a few days before the final results are in.  The nurse practitioner that we saw yesterday came over that talked with me about the lumbar puncture and she said that they did it because some babies can have meningitis even though their blood cultures are negative.  I also over heard her in the evening rounds telling the staff that they did the blood cultures and the lumbar puncture because there is a tear in the omphalocele sac, but in all the days of doing the dressing change we have never seen any tear...I don't know why no one told us about this tear that by the sounds of it happened at least a few days ago.
So tomorrow I have to go to the doctor for my lovely blood pressure that even now has been through the roof!! Who knows what they will do to me, but hopefully nothing too crazy like making me stay at the hospital for two days!
Anyways, talk to you later, I am going to bed!!

Diaper Doughnut

Hello there!  I just thought I would give you all a little update, not that there is much to say.
Madison is still doing great!  Her tubing that was is sucking out her stomach contents was irritating her stomach, so the tubing was sucking out quite a bit of blood, but now that has all cleared up and she is off of her medication for that.  They did a blood culture on her when she was first born, and until the results came back to be safe they put her on antibiotics.  The results came back, and her blood has no bacteria, so they had taken her off of her antibiotics.  However, today we arrived and they had put her back on her antibiotics because the doctor wanted her on them for a full week, and they took more blood for cultures today.  Yes, that means they shaved more of her beautiful hair!! The hair that I suffered with acid reflux for so long for her to have!  The reason that they think maybe she has an infection is because her temperature was a little high, and by little I mean like half a degree!!  The nurse practitioner told us that they are always going to be too cautious with Madison because of her omphalocele, she also told us that she was under the impression that they weren't going to start her back on her antibiotics until the results from her blood cultures came back.  Apparently, Madison's nurse never got the memo and started her back on the meds....communication between staff would be nice.  Anyways, there isn't much we can do, we just have to rely on the fact that they know what they are doing.
Today, we again helped with the dressing change of the omphalocele, things were done a little different, but I think the changes were for the better. They were just small changes in how certain layers were put on the sac, and the support doughnut that went on the top around the base of the omphalocele used to be two washcloths, is now two diapers rolled up.  It looks funny but they are a lot softer on her skin.  After the dressing change Tyler got to change Madison's diaper; it's so funny how we are both so excited when we are even allowed to do that!  Once Maddy had a clean bum, we help the nurse weigh her.  We all worked together to lift her on and off of her isolet so that her bed could weigh her.  That was the closest we have been to getting to hold her.  Pretty sad that she is 5 days old and we haven't even held her yet.  Makes me cry just thinking about it.  I feel like she isn't even ours yet.
During the dressing change the nurse gave Madison some sugar water (even though I am pretty sure she wasn't supposed to) to calm her down.  I was holding her hands up away from the omphalocele, and she found my finger and started sucking on it!!  She sucked on my finger for quite sometime, it was the first time I felt like she and I had actually bonded, it was the best moment ever!  
Anyways, I better start to get ready for bed seeing as it seems to take me forever now between the pumping, and the pain.  Love you all!

P.S. Thanks to our wonderful neighbors who brought us some flowers, and some delicious stew and buns; which we had for supper tonight!! YUM!!

Here is a picture of that magical moment I was telling you about!!

Madison yesterday holding onto the teddy that I spent 2 day with it down my shirt to get my scent on it for her.

And now what you've all been waiting for...

Hello all, we got home last night and Tyler told you all that I would be writing a post, but I was too tired, sorry!  Anyways, we came home last night after assisting with Madison's dressing change which Tyler told you about.  We got home and it was a pretty uneventful night, just pumping milk, and pain management.
  So Madison is beautiful and perfect in pretty much every way!  She never actually cries she just kinda makes a little squawk, once in a while.  She was 6lbs 1oz, 47 cm long, with a head circumference of 33cm.  She was born at 4:47pm on October 6, 2010.  So far she has had an echo-cardiogram, a abdominal ultrasound, a spinal ultrasound, and blood work (with the blood work they shaved part of her head, she has the softest hair). The results are:  with the heart she has two holes, one very small, and the other larger but not super huge.  They said that the smaller will likely close up, or cause no problems, and the other may need some repair work in the distant future, but not necessarily open heart surgery like previously discussed!!  We are sooooo amazed!  They said that they may be able to put in a catheter into the heart and place a patch on the hole!  With the abdominal ultrasound they found that she has some swelling on one of her kidneys, but they said it can be just a normal occurrence, but it is something that they will keep and eye on.  The spinal ultrasound was done because apparently babies with omphaloceles can also have spina bifida, which is when parts of the spine do not fully close over the spinal cord, leaving the cord protruding through the bones, pretty serious!  But little Maddy's spine looks great! yay!!  The blood work was just a basic complete blood count, and they were going to send some kind of clotting factor, but it clotted before they could get it tested, so I guess no clotting problems!!  
Right now Madison is not allowed anything by mouth, she is getting all her nutrients through her PIC line. So because of her having nothing by mouth, her lips have gotten really dry, so they were going to use sterile water to  wet them, but the nurse we had suggested using some of the colostrum for her mouth. She liked it, she couldn't have any in her mouth, but once she had it on her lips she was sucking her soother like nobody's business! However, now that we have a different nurse the mouth care has changed to sterile water, don't ask me why!  GRRR!!   She also has a tube in her nose, which used to be in her mouth, and the tube sucks out everything that goes into her stomach, just in case there is a blockage somewhere in her intestines they don't want anything getting past her stomach.  Being the little trouble maker that she is, they had to put socks on her hands because she keeps trying to rip out the tubing.    So now here she is.....

learning how to dress

Hi everyone, sorry I did not wtite yesterday, it was busy and I was lazy. Yesterday we helped with Madison's dressing for the first time. It was a real process, it took four of us in total. One to hold her feet, one to hold her hands, one to support the omphalocele and one to do the dressing. Our main nurse taught us yesterday, and today we helped the new nurse through the steps. We are learning so many new things, it is crazy! Meaghan has been learning how to pump milk, and is doing so well! This is just a quick little post, we are finally coming home for the first time and Meg is going to write tonight.
Thanks to our nieces who sent me us picture they painted welcoming Madison, thanks Hannah and Shelby for the nice art work!

Madison's first day

First off, I want to thank everyone for their comments, your care, love and support is stong, and we apreciate it. Today was sooo busy and exhausting for Madison and ourselves. Meg was not feeling well this morning, every time she tried to sit up she would get dizzy and have to lay down. She was getting upset because she wanted to see Madison so bad, but her body did not want to cooperate. After a lot of effort, determination and a couple of hours we were on our way. When we got there they were in the middle of an ultasound of her heart, and ushered us away. Meg had only seen her for a brief moment the day before, so she was understandably upset. We went back later with grandma McGuire, who jut arrived from Ontario. We got to spend a lot of quality time with her, and our day nurse was very helpful. Because of the omphalocele, we can not pick her up, but we can touch her. The omphalocele is about the size of an orange and is contained in a sac. She has gone pee and poop, so things are working, what a relief! They have her in a special little bed that has a heater, humidifer, and a roof that raises up. She is hooked up to all kinds of monitoring equipment. She ripped out two IVs until they got a pic line in, she is a little fighter! She has long fingers and long feet and a tiny little body. She is also breathing on her own which is awesome! For now they are dressing the omphalocele with some type of dressing and what looks like saran wrap! They say she is doing well. My parents came in the afternoon, and got to meet Madison for the first time. We found out that grandparents are the only ones allowed in the NICU unit, no brothers or sisters. Strict! You also have to scrub with a soapbrush for 2 min before you can enter. Anyway by the end of the day a lot of doctors and nurses had poked and handled Madison. She had a long day and was tired when we said goodnight to her. I am going to go to bed my self, it is late. Pictures will be coming when I get home, I am writing in the blog from my phone, and can't upload pics.

Madison's Birth

Hi Everyone
It is almost midnight and I am just finally catching you up. What a scary and exciting day. First off was the epidural deal, they have the husband wait outside until it is finished. The reason for this, was too many husbands passing out, or so I was told. From where I was sitting I was not supposed to see, but I discovered that when I slouched in my seat I could see under the blind! I watched them clean her back with a solution, then put a small needle in her back, then a bigger one and finally inject the stuff that freezes her from the waist down. It was wild to watch and was going fine utill they layed her down. After she layed down she looked like she was going to pass out, with everyone rushing around it was clear something was wrong. I have to admit I was scared and wished I had not snuck a peek! I found out later that her heart rate had dropped fast and she was going to pass out, so they gave her a shot of epinephrine which straightened her out. After that was under control they brought me in and I sat at Meg's head comforting her and not looking at the c section procedure or I would have passed out! Then the magical moment came when we heard her cry and knew she was out and safe. I looked over at her and my heart was flooded with love. She is so tiny and precious. The surgeons are going to decide how to procede next with her care. They are most concerned with her heart and want to make sure she is strong before doing surgery on her stomach. I will keep you up to date with the details as they unfold.
By the way Meg was super brave and never let on how scared she was. She is amazing!

Baby is here!

Just wanted to take a quick second to tell everyone that Madison came out healthy and screaming! Meg is in good shape too! Don't have much time to write, I will elaborate late tonight. Madison is so beautiful!

Today is the day...

Well today is the big day, and I am so excited, I just can't stand it! Meg and I are sitting on her hospital bed playing games trying to stay relaxed. It's hard to imagine the day is here, it seems like just yesterday we were telling people we were pregnant. The nurse is going to put Meg on a IV at noon. The c-section is scheduled for 2:00pm. Bye for now, Meg and I are going to play some cards.
I will keep you posted on the action!

Panic! Panic!

Hi Everyone

Today Meaghan went for her weekly ultrasound and discovered that Madison had not grown any since last week. So instead of her being born on Oct 12 now she is being born on Oct 6, this Wednesday! The doctors want to get her out as soon as possible , so now only one day away! On top of that they are keeping her at the hospital from now on. We thought we had another week and now it is happening right away! I am in panic mode trying to get all Meg's stuff together, getting all the things in order to leave my job for a while, and all the other final preparations to be made. I am excited, scared, anxious and hoping all goes well. I pray that Meg and Madison come through this safely. I can't wait to see and meet Madison for the first time. Nothing in my life has come close to this feeling, and nothing has been as important. Well except marrying Meg!

Got to run, it is 10:00 pm and I have more work to do!