Announcing Our Newest Addition!

Ambrie Solei McNeel was born Tuesday, June 23 at 3:34 PM!

She weighed 6 lbs, 2 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long

She came a little earlier than we expected. I was scheduled to be induced on Thursday, but when I went to my doctor's appointment Tuesday I had a lot of protein in my urine and high blood pressure, plus I've been SUPER swollen for the past few months. The doctor told me "I think we need to get this baby out soon". I said "soon, as in, Thursday?" and he said "no, soon as in now. I want you to go down to maternity." So Brian and Sadie (who were there with me) ran home to get some things and Brian took Sadie to daycare for the day. I was kind of freaked out, because I wasn't expecting everything to happen so fast, but obviously it all turned out ok :)

I will say, the one really hard thing that happened was once I got the epidural, I dilated from a 5+ to a 10 in about half and hour- and the epidural hadn't kicked in all the way! I was in a ton of pain, and I thought it was from the catheter the nurse had just put in, and she told me, "no, the baby's coming NOW". I was like "NO!" because I could feel everything, I swear and I was so scared. And it really did hurt- I totally look up to women that do it completely natural because I at least had a little relief. But I didn't have to push long before our beautiful new little girl came, and she was worth all of it! I mean, the bedrest, the difficult pregnancy, and the labor pain that I really didn't want to experience but had to anyway ;) We're so happy though and excited to have her here :)

This picture makes me smile :)

Sadie's first look at her new sister! She's doing better than I thought she would. She was really excited when she got to the hospital and was so cute with Ambrie! She kept kissing her and talking to her :) Since we've been home, she still wants to hold her sometimes, but not as often and she gets bored with it fast. She's been a little jealous, asking me to hold her if she notices I'm feeding Ambrie, but I really think she's doing great with the whole thing :)

Brian and his "mini-me"

Happy to be a big sister!

Just Four Days Left!

And I'm running emotions between "yes, finally!" and being nervous about having another baby. Mostly though, I'm just excited.

I am a little worried too though because today it looks like Sadie is coming down with a cold :( Mostly she's just been really congested and hasn't wanted to eat much- she hasn't had a fever or cough yet, so I'm hoping its just a little thing that goes away soon. I'm going to take her to the doctor tomorrow anyway though because

1) if she's sick, I want her to feel better before I have to leave and can't take care of her. I'd feel HORRIBLE if she got really miserable and I wasn't there

2) I REALLY don't want to get sick right before I give birth (who wants to go through childbirth AND be sick while doing it?)

3) I don't want to risk having the new baby get sick from any of us who might catch it!

Hopefully she just has a really mild cold, but this close to my due date, I don't want to take any chances. I'm kind of a hypochondriac that way. If she is sick, I think I'll hold off on getting induced, but I'm still due in six days, so I still just want all of us to be healthy. I'll keep everyone posted, and OF COURSE as soon as the baby comes, I'll see if I can get Brian to post some pics :)

I Moved My Due Date Up a Couple of Days

I realized the other day that our insurance deductible for the year is almost met (yay!), but it starts over July 1st (boo!).  Which got Brian and I talking about how we need to have the baby and get out of the hospital before July 1st or we'd probably have to pay twice as much.  Who wants to do that, right?

So at my doctor's appointment this morning, I talked to him about it and we decided to induce me on the 25th (yay, three whole days early!) if I haven't gone into labor by then.  I'm excited to know I'll have the baby a few days sooner, but I'm also kind of nervous about being induced.  Who knows though, maybe the baby will come on her own.

I was also excited this morning to find out I'm dilated to a one!  Yippee!  I know its not much, but at least its something :)  I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high yet though, because I was dilated to a two with Sadie for a couple of weeks.  Still though, the end is in site!!!!  And I think we've got everything ready (clothes, itty-bitty diapers, blankets...), so this baby can come any time she wants!!!  I'm so excited!

37 Weeks Today!

And I think we've got everything ready other than buying some itty-bitty diapers!