Maddie Claire: Welcome to the World, Madelyn Claire!

They say that pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, so when we found that we were pregnant in April I was fully prepared to carry our little miracle until January 2nd, 2012. It wasn't until my 36 week doctor's appointment that things changed. The doctor told me that morning that I was already 2cm dilated (you must get to 10) and that Maddie had dropped down. This was all good information because we knew she had figured out the exit and my hope was to go without an induction or a c-section. On the other hand, it was a little scary to know that she could come anyday or in a few weeks. Some women stay dilated for quite sometime, so it's not a real indication on how close labor is. My baby shower was not until I was 38 weeks pregnant and I still had a lot to do at work, so I was hoping that Maddie would stay in a bit longer. Everyday I tried to do a little more to get ready for Maddie and at the same time tried to take it easy, so she would stay in! My last day of work came, the baby shower came, Christmas happened, and then I was super ready to meet our little girl! We had done just about everything to get ready for her...bags were packed, nursery complete, and house cleaned. The day after Christmas, Shawn worked on some projects at the house and I decided to pack away the Christmas decorations. After we got things packed up and cleaned, we headed to Lowes for some materials. On the way home from Lowes, Shawn asked what we were doing for dinner. I had just cooked a big Christmas dinner the night before and at 39 weeks pregnant, I had no interest in cooking, so I asked what he wanted me to pick up. He joked and said, "well we want this baby to come, let's get hot wings". At first I laughed and then said, "okay, can't hurt". The old wives tale says that spicy food can induce labor, so I headed our and got hot wings and jalapeno slices. We had dinner at 7:30pm on December 26th and at 9:30pm, my water broke! I didn't start having contraction right away, but we were told that if you water breaks you have to go the hospital. Shawn and I took showers, got last minute things packed, prepared our house for the company that was coming, and then headed off to the hospital at about 10:45 that night. We arrived at Winnie Palmer Hospital around 11:15pm and by then I had started to have some painful contractions. Our first stop was triage, where they check to determine if you really are in labor and can admit you. The triage nurse said I was only 3 cm (usually they don't admit you until 4cm), but my water had ruptured, so they were going to admit us. Unfortunately, they didn't have any labor and delivery beds, so we had to wait in triage until 2:30am. By then, my contractions were VERY painful, so when we got into a labor and delivery room, I started to think about an epidural. They had already come and spoken to us about the epidural and it's something they offer up pretty quickly. This wasn't originally in our birth plan, but having never been through labor, I didn't know what to expect and the pain ended up to be more than I could handle. After getting the epidual, life was wonderful! I never fell asleep, but I was able to lay down and close my eyes. Since I was in labor through the night, we kept the lights off and tried to stay quiet. At 6:30am, the nurse came in and I was 9cm dilated! Shawn and I sat up, turned the lights on and started to get excited. It took about another hour to make it to 10cm and then about another hour for us to wait for her to drop further down in the birth canal. At about 8:30am, we started to push. I didn't know what to expect and I thought it would only take an hour or so for our daughter to get here...well, 3 hours of pushing later and almost the entire episode of the TODAY show, we finally met little Madelyn! She was absolutely beautiful and had a big healthy cry. Shawn and I both couldn't believe that we had brought this little miracle into the world.

We were greeted by many visitors throughout our 2 day stay in the hospital. Our friends and family are so supportive and were so excited to meet little Miss Madelyn.

Here are some pictures from the beginning of our adventure as parents!