Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was officially Mackenna's third birthday. All day I kept thinking, "I was induced at this time"........"I was officially in labor three years ago at this time".........."about this time they were prepping me for the C-Section"........"she was born in five minutes"..........."three years ago at this time she was a minute old".

It doesn't seem possible that my baby is three now. In so many ways she seems like such a big girl! I sit here and look at her sitting on her daddy's lap and wonder how she got so big. I straightened her hair this morning and for some reason it makes her look older. He got up to go get his cousin (she's babysitting for us tonight) and Mackenna decided she was going to go with him. So big!

She got a Vtech for her birthday. She loves computer stuff. We still haven't figured out all the workings of it yet but I'm sure in no time she will be playing it like a pro. She just hasn't taken the time to try to figure it out yet.

Today was her birthday party. We had family over and she had a lot of fun playing with Anthony's cousin. She got lots of clothes and some pretty cool toys and my mom got her a bike. It's not too big that she can't ride it yet but it is a lot more work than her trike that she can ride all around the living room. She can zip and zoom on that little thing so fast!

Real quick, Lilly is doing just great. She's sleeping as I type.....something she hasn't done a whole lot of the past couple of days. At least not during the day. For some reason she is really fighting naps during the day. But last night she went to bed around 11:00 and slept until almost 10:00 this morning! That was real nice! :o) She's growing leaps and bounds. On Monday she has her two month check up and I will get to see just how much she has grown this past month. It's always so exciting to me so find out just how fast my little ones grow and how big they get.

I know I owe you all lots of pictures and I do have quite a bit to share. But I'm on limited time right now - especially since I want to get Mackenna's new clothes put away before we head out to do God knows what - so pictures will have to wait a bit. Until next time!

My Tank

I wasn't going to post today but after going to the doctor and uploading pictures to my computer, I decided to go ahead. Besides, it will probably be another couple of weeks at least before I'm even on here again, let alone to post something.

Lilly had her one month checkup today. She is 22.5 inches long and 10.8 pounds. A tank! I told Anthony that now I felt kind of bad for freaking out about her taking six ounces already when the child grew two and a half inches in the first month!

Mackenna had to go to the doctor with me so that she could get her flu shot. Anthony and I will have to get ours too. When I told Mackenna that we were waiting for her to get a shot, she started freaking out. Then the nurse came in, trying to hide the needle which Mackenna saw and she started freaking out even more. She didn't want me to pull her pants down (they gave her the shot on her leg). But between her sitting on my lap, holding her stuffed elephant and my hands and the basket of suckers sitting in front of her for when the nurse got done giving the shot, she never even whimpered. LOL She got a Snoopy bandaid and a purple sucker and she was set!

Since I update yesterday, I'll just leave you with some pictures.

One Month

This is gonna have to be a short post. The girls are waking up. Man! If only I had been able to catch some Z's with them! For some reason, I'm just not a napper.

It's been almost a month since Lilly was born. Her one month check up is tomorrow and I'm pretty sure they are going to tell me something I already know - she's a tank! She seriously eats all the time and constantly acts like she's starving! It's crazy. And now that she has ballooned out, she looks more and more like Mackenna did when she was a baby.

She has started cooing and smiling. It's so cute when I get done feeding her and she's just looking up at me and starts cooing and smiling as I talk to her. We're still trying to get on a real schedule. I'm not so much worried about the feeding schedule as I am sleeping. I can't seem to figure out if she's wanting to be awake more now or if she still wants to sleep a ton. I'm also a little disappointed that she's still not sleeping during the night. I know that's not anything out of the norm but Mackenna was sleeping through the night by four weeks. And I also know that not all babies are the same so I can't compare Lilly to Mackenna - especially when they're so different in so many other ways.

Anthony and I used to joke about Mackenna being high maintenance but really, she was kind of easy going most times. She loved the swing, liked the bouncy seat, didn't mind the carseat and did well on the floor on her jungle mat. Really we could put her anywhere and she was content. Lilly, on the other hand, isn't happy anywhere. If she's not being held and rocked, she's cranky and crying. It gets a little frustrating. She tolerates the swing for a few minutes and the same goes with everything else (bouncy seat, floor, carseat, etc). I joked with Anthony that if we joked about Mackenna being high maintenance and she's like this now and Lilly is worse than her, I can't even imaging what Lilly is going to be like when she gets to be Mackenna's age!

Um, what else? Being off work has been great for the most part. I still feel like I'm on maternity leave. Anthony has been back to work for almost week and in the past week, he had two days off. After this though, he will work the next 15 out of 16 days so that might make it a bit more stressful. Sunday night Anthony got up and did the midnight feeding for me so that I could sleep. It was so sweet! (He was off Monday and Tuesday.) Monday night he did the same thing but mainly because I was sick. Not sure what I had but I'm feeling better today. Not back to 100% but I'm getting there. I think it was the stomach flu or something.

Anyway, I think that's all I have time for right now. It's getting close to Lilly's next feeding and she's starting to squirm so I better get off here. Catch you all later!

Lilly Madison Marocco

You have to forgive me for this being so late. The ones on Facebook already know that my second daughter has arrived. The other night I typed out this whole big post about the birth and all that and then had to end it and save it in a hurry because it was time to feed Lilly and low and behold, blogger decided to mess up and not save or post my entry. I was upset. So upset that I haven't taken the time to type out a replacement post until right now. And that's pretty much because I've just pumped, Lilly is sleeping (still, like a newborn) and Anthony toTok his mom and Mackenna to Blockbuster to get a few movies and who knows what else.

Okay, so here is the birth story again in a nutshell:

I got up at 5:00 in the morning, called the hospital, left, was there a little after 6:00 (yeah, I was late for my own scheduled C-Section, but only by a little bit), did the normal getting hooked up to IV's and all that and was ready to go by 7:15. I was in the OR by 8:02 (only because they repeated it about 20 times) and by 8:33, she was out.

And this is how much our baby weighed:

Nice 10 pounds, huh? I'm not really sure why I was so big if I had such a small baby. And I know that 8lbs. 7oz. is not that small but compared to how big Mackenna was, anything smaller than that is small to me.

Mackenna loved on her little sister pretty much right away. Although it took bribing to get her to kiss Lilly for pictures. We had to bribe her with a sucker. Once I got in the post-partum room,

they all went to lunch. After they got back, Mackenna wanted to hold Lilly before anyone else. She held her, hugged on her, kissed on her, loved on her and then said, "I have a sucker now?"

And for some odd reason, we didn't get a picture the day we came home. Anthony was in a rush to leave and was trying to be all efficient-like with getting things in the van and ready to go so that when they said, "you can go" we would be ready. The camera was in a bag and taken to the van so we didn't get any pictures. Well, he got some on his cell phone.

So there you have it. There's the story and there are a few pics of her. Everything is going - well, going with the recovery. We took Mackenna to some pizza and play place yesterday. Anthony was nervous about me going but I told him that I was sure there were places for me to sit and it would be fine. I really didn't think I had done too much but by the end of the night, I was hurting. Not anything too worrisome because I was off all day with taking my pain pill. However, after we got home and I was getting ready for bed, I decided to check my incision and there was blood. Fortunately his mom is a nurse so we had her look at it before I called the doc to see what I needed to do. The stitches are not broken through so that's good and there's no odor (a sign of infection) so that's good too. But the rest of the night I was afriad to do any walking or anything. I didn't get up unless I absolutely had to. And today I've been on "bed rest" according to Anthony. I just have to make sure to take it easy the rest of the time.

So, until next time.

38 and 4 and 3 days left to go

It's almost over - the pregnancy, that is. And I can't wait. I'm so tired of being pregnant.

I've been having some contractions. Nothing major or really timeable or anything like that. Just enough to make it uncomfortable when I'm trying to sleep or relax.

At my last appointment (on Wednesday) I didn't even have him check me. I was on the non-stress test for an hour again. The ultrasound showed that my fluid is still okay and she is movin and groovin just fine. My appointments are done. The next time I see my doctor will be at the butt crack of dawn on Monday morning when he finally cuts her out of me! I'm very excited about it.

So my plans for my last three days of pregnancy is something as follows: exchanging a gift I got for Lilly (long-sleeved newborn jammies that are probably not going to fit her for very long, if at all), some more cleaning and laundry, baseball game tonight, more cleaning and laundry (if I don't get it all done) tomorrow, finish packing Mackenna, church on Sunday, taking Mackenna to Anthony's work so he can see her, taking Mackenna to my dad's house where she will stay with them until Monday when they bring her to the hospital, dinner with my mom Sunday night, more cleaning and laundry, finish packing and turning in for the night.

Kind of a lot, huh? I still need to get the carseat put in the van. But the rest of the stuff I have to do is just keeping up with the cleaning and getting laundry done so it won't need to be done as soon as I come home from the hospital.

I feel pretty ready though. I admitted to Maria that I'm a little nervous about the shot before the epidural. I remember how I was when I was in labor with Mackenna. I kept flinching away and he had to keep telling me to round my back and sit still. I really hope that I can do better this time. I know the last time I fully had no idea what to expect, now I do. I just hope that I don't react the same way. Other than that, I'm not too worried about anything. I don't have to push or anything so I'm not worried about the actual labor. And I remember what recovery is going to be like. I guess I'm just trying to stay excited and hope that it carries over to when the anesthesiologist says, "okay, round your back and hold still".

Anyway, so I guess this means that I'm not going to be on much more after this. I'm on facebook all the time so those that are on there, I'm sure I'll still chat with you that way. But I don't get on here much anymore so I'm not sure if I will be on before having the baby. I'll get on and update after she's born so I'll chat with you all then!

37 Weeks

I had another appointment yesterday. Another ultrasound and non-stress test in addition to meeting with the doctor. Ultrasound showed that my fluid is still in the normal range and Lilly is about nine pounds - already. The tech is guessing she's going to be about ten pounds by the time she's born. Great.

I was on the non-stress test for an hour because her heart rate wasn't fluctuating again. I "spooned" my belly and poked her a lot. The spooning was taking two spoons, putting one on my belly and using the other one to beat against it. It was loud and apparently they can hear it in the belly and it pissed her off (LOL) but it didn't make her heart rate improve. Between all the poking, I was able to make her heart rate go up long enough for me to "pass" and not have to go across the street to the hospital again.

My doctoro checked me this time and I'm still not making any progress down there. If I was delivering vaginally, I would be bummed but since I'm having a scheduled C-Section and it doesn't matter, I just laughed when he told me I was still thick and closed. So I have about another week and a half until I'm done! One more appointment then I'll be having her!

I've been working on projects almost daily. I didn't do one yesterday mianly because my appointment took so long but also because I was still hurting from Tuesday's project - cleaning mine and Anthony's bedroom. It was seriously really bad. We had so much crap piled up on the dresser and bookshelf, there was stuff all over the floor along the wall and dresser. We had a pathway to the closet, bathroom and out of the bedroom but that was pretty much the extent of clean floor space. Even then the floor wasn't clean because it hadn't been vacuumed in so long. I told Anthony that I almost wished I had taken before and after pictures - not that I would want anyone to see how bad the room was before but just so that you could see the difference! I was hurting so bad when I got done that I didn't even clean our bahroom like I was originally planning on doing. So I'm cleaning the bathrooms today. That's my project for the day. Then I need to do a few more things as far as preparing for Lilly's arrival. Then I'll be done with all that stuff and the rest of it can be cleaning and keeping up with the laundry.

Well, I've got a kiddo on the potty that's telling me she's done and ready to be cleaned up and I need to get her in the bathtub. (Now she's singing "Jesus Loves Me"! LOL) Just a second ago she was singing, "in the bathtub, in the bathtub". LOL I guess she's ready for her bath too.

Catch you all later!

A 36 week update

I had a few questions on my last post so I figured it was time for another update. I guess updates are going to be more and more frequent in these last couple or so weeks due to doctor's appointments and all that.

I guess I'll get the work stuff out of the way first since it will be shorter. At times it still feels weird being off. It almost seems like I'm on maternity leave instead of a SAHM. It has been nice getting to sleep in more and I've been noticing that I've been stayng up later and later - which isn't a good thing when it comes to Anthony having to work. Last week I felt like I was constantly gone to some appointment or another or visiting with family or whatever. By the time the weekend came, I was ready to just be home and not go anywhere. This week has sort of been the same way - lots of appointments keeping me out of the house. But I'm sure that soon enough I'll be dying to get out of the house for a little bit so I guess I should stop complaining. LOL

As far as the pregnancy, things have gotten kind of - complicated or stressful or something. I have had three appointments in the past week. I had to have an u/s and non-stress test last week in addition to the regular check up. My fluid was on the high side, the baby was measuring big, I was measuring big and they had no idea why.

I had to have an extensive u/s done at a larger hospital like I did at 20 weeks when they checked the heart. I was told that the baby was in the 90%, I was measuring 2.5 weeks farther than what I really was and it was all due to poorly controlled gestational diabetes - basically.

I was shocked. I had doctors telling me that I didn'treally have it, that I just had an abnormal during my three hour test. Then I find out that the reason poor Lilly is so big is because I haven't been controlling the GD very well. One doctor told me that as long as less than half of my sugars were high, then I was doing very well.

So I spend the last couple of days (this appointment was on Tuesday - this past Tuesday) eating hardly any carbs or sugars in fear of how much I have messed up things for my unborn baby. The doc I saw on Tuesday wanted to suggest to my doc that I be put on medication to "tweak" my sugars. But when I saw him today, he didn't feel it was necessary. He looked at my book and said that I was doing a good job of controlling it with my diet (I guess I just need to do better), less than 25% of my sugars are considered abnormal and I only have a couple of weeks left. He said that we would see how it goes this next week and decide then.

And when I had my u/s today, my fluid had dropped drastically back down to the lower end of normal. I'm sure she's still big and I'm still measuring 38 weeks but at least I haven't gone up a week. (I was measuring 38 weeks last week when I was only 35 weeks so staying with the same rate, I would be 39 weeks at 36 weeks. But I'm not.) So that part was good.

However, when I had my non stress test done today, I was on the machine at the doctor's office for about 40 minutes when they said they couldn't get a good reading and that I was going to need to go across the street to the hospital to have one done there. When I got there, they had me on the monitor for about 30 minutes when the nurse came in and said that she was "flat" and that I needed to drink something to help improve things. I was trying to get an idea of what was going on and what might possibly happen if things didn't improve. The nurse told me that she was plenty active but for some reason, her heart rate wasn't reflecting that activity. Since I have GD, I couldn't drink the Sprite she originally brought in so she had to get a Diet Coke and hope for the best. I guess it worked cause about 10-20 minutes later, she came in and told me I could go home. I was having some contracting going on while on the monitors so before leaving I was told to monitor the contractions for regularity. The weird thing is that when I was pg with Mackenna, they were typcial contractions. I could feel the tightening of the whole belly. I could tell when they started and when they ended. This time, for some reason, the contractions are more like cramps. Since they start so low in my belly, I can't ever really feel when they start until they're pretty close to a peak. So I think that's gonna be hard to monitor them efficiently. I've had some since leaving the hospital including some since I've been typing out this post.

Anyway, I'm sitting here waiting on Anthony to get home from golfing with his work buddies so that we can go swimming at his aunt's house. Mackenna is already there because I asked his cousin to watch her while I had my appointment. Since my appointment went so late, I hadn't had lunch and came home to eat and wait for Anthony. I hope he gets here soon cause I'm ready to get Mackenna and either go swimming or come home - whichever - I'm just ready to be with my daughter already though. :o)

So.......until next time.