Charlea

It has been a while since I have gotten on here. SORRY! I'm sure from the earlier post, you can understand how upside-down my world has become. Actually... it kinda seems like my world was upside-down before. Now it might just be absolutely right. You always hear about how your whole world changes when you have a baby. I have to say that it wasn't this beautiful epiphany like I thought it would be. But man is everything so different, wonderfully different. 

Charlea came into this world at 11:46 AM on October 22nd 2009 after almost 18 hours of labor. She was 7 pounds 1 ounce and 19.25 inches long. I'll keep the labor and delivery story short for your sake :) My water broke while I was cooking dinner at 6:00 on wednesday. We went to the hospital and got all checked in. I was only 1.5 cm dialated at that point. My contractions were about 7 minutes apart and not very painful, so I knew I had a ways to go. AT 5:00 AM my contractions were a few minutes apart and more painful (I was having to breath through them) I was soo sure I was making progress. NOPE! I was checked again and I was pretty much the same. I had to be given pitocin to get my cervix going. which I was very upset about because I know pitocin messes with the body's natural way to deal with the pain and a natural labor and delivery would be much harder. I was given the pitocin at 6:00 and almost immediately the contractions became waaay more intense. At 9:00 I was checked again AND... still no progress!!! I was devestated!!! I was in constant pain and hadn't gotten any sleep and I still had 8 cm to go. The nurse told me that if I had an epidural my body would calm down and dialate pretty quickly. She was absolutely right. I had my Epi at 9:30 and less than two hours later I was fully dialated and pushing!! he pushing was hard since I couldn't feel anything, but it went fairly quickly. My little angel was finally here. The lil girl that was kicking me all those months was finally in my arms.

The first few days were a little rough because my milk took a while to come in, but we got through it just fine!

She just had her one month birthday yesterday and time is really starting to fly! At her last appointment she was up to almost ten pounds!!! She also grew about 3 inches longer. She is just so beautiful!!!

Being a mommy is such a wonderful feeling. Even the moments when I get so frutsrated/sad/nervous/stressed out... one little smile from Charlea and my heart is completely melted. 

Tyson has been pretty great through it all. He stayed awake with me through my labor and delivery and has held my hand through every little bump that has come up. Thank you Tyson, for my beautiful daughter... and for loving us so much. I Love you like crazy :)

Life is pretty good right now. I can't wait to keep living it!