Maddison's 3D Pictures

When I was 28 and 1/2 weeks pregnant, we scheduled a 3D sono so that we could get a glimpse of what our little girl looks like. I was crazy excited. My parents came up from Stockdale and Dustin's mom drove in from Austin so that we could all view the sono together. Let me preface this by saying, this sono was not performed at the doctor's office, or by a doctor. It was an outside company that specializes in sono's. We paid out of pocket to see some really cool pictures of Maddison while she is still in the uterus. The sono room was set up so that several family members could view the images on a large flat screen.
So we were all there, ready and excited to see Maddie's pretty face.... except Maddie didn't exactly want to participate. She was fast asleep and her umbilical cord was completely covering her face. At one point we needed her to turn right to get a better look at her, but my daughter turned left... is this a sign of things to come? So in this 1/2 hour that we were disturbing her sleep, Maddie made a couple of faces to show us she was not very happy about being bothered during her nap time. Not even born yet and my daughter has some attitude... she must be her mother's daughter.
Okay, so here are some of the better pictures.

Here is the sweet face of our Maddison. I know I'm biased, but I think she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

This is a shot of the right side of her face. You can see her chubby cheeks and the family consensus is that Maddison has my nose and Dustin's lips. What do you think?

Here Maddie is cradling her right foot to her head, holding her ankle with her right hand. Isn't she cute?

I love this one, Maddie is kicking herself in her face with her right foot and her left hand is balled up in a fist holding up her foot. Half of the time spent looking at her, she had her feet up in her face.

This ladies and gentlemen is a glimpse into the attitude that my daughter already has :) Although I can't blame her, I wouldn't like it if someone was bothering me when I was sleeping. Mean face and all, I love her!

And in the last one, Maddison has umbilical cord across her mouth and her right leg is stretched across her body.

Baby Registration - Who Knew It Would Be So Hard?

As a first time soon-to-be Mom and Dad, Dustin and I are pretty lost. That was never more evident than when we went to register for our couple's baby shower this last weekend.
It all started off great... We walked into Baby's-R-Us confident in our parenting knowledge. We got registered at the front desk and were armed with our scanner. We were told to start in bedding so that we could establish our theme. That was easy... I already knew I wanted a ladybug theme. We quickly found the bedding we liked and started scanning away. This only increased our confidence, however, things quickly changed. The next items on my check list were the remaining bedding items like, blankets, receiving blankets, fitted sheets, etc. When I got to waterproof pads and sheet savers the confusion set in. Didn't these things accomplish the same thing? If so, why do I need both? And isn't my baby going to be wearing diapers anyway? Of course I asked Dustin, and lets just say I got the "dumb look" for even asking. If I didn't know, how the heck would he know? Again these questions came up with changing table pads and changing table covers. Seriously... I need explanations next to each item on the check list. I'm a beginner!
Well we struggled through bedding, but we made it. Next on the list was nursing and feeding. My first thought was in this section was "Why in the world are breast pumps so expensive?!" Again, the two first-timers looking at each completely dumbfounded. After picking out a reasonably priced breast pump, we moved on to bottles. My eyes widened and my thoughts screamed OMG!!! So much for a bottle being a bottle. Did I want drop-ins, straight ones or angled ones, big ones, little ones, slow or fast? We did our best struggling through the bottles and in the end I thought we made a very educated guess in getting the drop-in Platex bottles. Our decision was based solely on the kind of breast pump we got... a Platex with drop in's. That means these bottles have to work, right? Then we became confused all over again on how to use the breast pump and transfer milk to bottles. Great. Our confidence was nearly shattered at this point.
After the nursing and feeding section came the bath section. This very well could be described as our breaking point. At first we were doing good... baby shampoo, check, body wash, check, baby lotion, check, baby oil, check... or so I thought. I always knew when you have a baby you have baby oil. That was pretty much the extent of my knowledge on that subject. But our complete lack of knowledge became very evident when Dustin stopped scanning and looked at me asking, "What do we use baby oil for?" I stared at him completely lost. I tell him, "Hell if I know, I thought you put it on after a bath." Then he shoots back, "I thought you put lotion on the baby after a bath." Now we are both staring at each other, 2 and 1/2 hours into registering, confidence completely shattered, and totally lost. So what does my commonsense oriented husband do? He picked up the bottle of Baby Oil and read the Instructions section on the back of the bottle. YES! We read about the uses of baby oil on the back of the bottle. It reminded me of someone reading the back of a shampoo bottle for instructions on it's use. Shouldn't we know this?
I was too tired and my back hurt too bad at that time to start worrying about the quality of parents that we're going to be. Are we going to be putting on oil when we should be putting on lotion? I figure I will learn these details from Mom and Grandma; or should I say, I'm counting on learning this from them because I don't have a flipping clue.
After the baby oil incident our confidence in baby knowledge was -15 on a scale of 1 to 10. We went through the remaining items on our list without much question. Mostly because we stopped asking each other questions. By that time it was a well understood fact between the two of us that we were utterly lost and borderline morons when it came to this stuff. We finished scanning the rest of the items on our checklist and dragged our defeated bodies out of the store. Baby's R Us definitely won this battle. We were supposed to go register at Target next but were too exhausted and possibly too humiliated to go through that all over again.
We plan on going to Target this week. I'm hoping that the second trip won't be as bad as the first. I'm throwing confidence out of the window and going straight to hope. That's all I can do at this point.
And for all of you long time Mom's out there, please don't judge me too harshly. I'll learn it all at some point, I promise... after all, it is our first time with this rodeo.

27 Weeks Already?!!

Well, I made it through the Holidays!!! It was so nice to see everyone on both mine and Dustin's side of the family. Dustin's side of the family involved a LOT more people than mine, but I enjoyed it all. There was a lot of driving around but definitely all worth it.
On a pregnancy note... I woke up today and realized that I'm 27 weeks pregnant! How the heck did that happen? How did 6 months go by so quickly? I definitely feel 6 months pregnant, it just doesn't seem like it's been that long. Although, my body is starting to feel the joys of pregnancy. It takes me a lot longer stand from a seated position, I get Dustin to pick up as much stuff as I can for me because I hate bending over, and my back hurts after doing the littlest bit of work. Not to mention the constant peeing, leaking up top, and the all time high personal weight gain. I probably sound bitter now, but really I'm not. I'll take all this and more, and I'd do it again (x 3) because I know it's worth it in the end.
On a side note, the educator in our family... Laura, told me that it was a good idea to start reading to Maddison, so Dustin and I went to Half Price Books and bought just short of 15 baby books. She knows my voice, but I'm excited for her to learn Dustin's. Dustin works sooo much that Maddie doesn't get to hear his voice nearly as often as mine, so we're hoping that if Dustin starts reading to her, then she'll learn his voice too.
For those who don't know, Dustin picked up a second job so that we can save up some extra cash for when Maddie comes along. He works like a dog... 24 hrs at the fire department followed by 12hr overnight shifts at Cooks Children's Hospital in FW, only to go right back to his 24hr shift at the fire department. The good news is that it's short lived. He won't have to work his regular hospital shifts after March, and after Maddison comes along he will have 1 whole month off of work to stay home with me and Maddie. That is what we are ALL looking forward to. But gotta love a man who will work like Dustin does to support his family. He is such a catch.... I still can't believe that I'm lucky enough be his wife. And as good of a husband as he is, I think he'll be an even better Father. I'm so excited for that day to come.... March 31st! It's just around the corner.

27 and 1/2 weeks

Somewhere around 24 weeks

Here are a few pictures that our friend Missy took when I was around 24 weeks pregnant. I know it's a little late, but these pictures were too good not to post. Hope you like them!