Mazie's cute pics

If any of you are interested in viewing some super cute photos of Mazie at the hospital. Go to www.bellababyphotography.com and login with 0526maziemcmillen. They will be up for two more weeks. Enjoy!

Bilibed

Unbelievable...I feel like this little girl is the shining example of health, but as we left the hospital they said her bilirubin levels were high and they wanted to have her tested the next day. So after driving to the hospital 4 days in a row to have her little heel poked and the levels not going down, they decided she needed a bilibed. I was really surprised that this was the case since my milk had come in the day I got home from the hospital, she was eating great, and pooping like crazy. I felt like my other girls were much more jaundiced, especially Eliza, but I guess the tests don't lie. So we ordered a bilibed and biliblanket.
It was very conveniently delivered to my house (I'm grateful for that). And the other bit of good news was that she loved her little tanning bed! She slept like a log (I was going to say "baby" instead of "log" but she is a baby...funny) on it. We got her tested 2 more times and it looked like the bed was helping. So she got to get off the bed. One last heel prick on Thursday showed that her levels had gone up just a little but they thought that she was on her way to getting better. Mazie has been missing her tanning bed but I am happy that I can put cute girl clothes on her now instead of just a diaper.

Time to go home!

Bundled at the hospital...

Mazie in her "take home clothes"...

They always look so ridiculously small in their car seats for the first time...

Libby and Daddy made us a welcome home sign (you can kind of see it in the background by the mailbox), Eliza made me a card, and Daddy got me flowers.

It felt really nice to be home. Rob had even cleaned the house up real nice.

The girls just can't get enough of little Mazie. They have been really soft with her and really good helpers. There has been a little bit of change in their behavior (I think they miss the amount of mommy time they used to have) but I am happy that it hasn't been towards Mazie at all. So far so good!

She Finally Arrived!!!

Mazie Celeste McMillen
Wednesday, May 26 2010 2:57 pm
9 lb 6 oz
22 inches (Yes we have no idea how 2 midgets produced such a tall baby)

The day of her birth:
So I went in for my doctors appointment that morning around 10:00. My doctor had mentioned the week before that he might be willing to start me so I was really hoping he would do it that day and with that hope Rob came to the appointment with me. During the appointment the doctor said that he was so surprised I hadn't gone into labor and that my "cervix was very favorable". Rob and I thought that was funny. Then at the end the doctor said, "Well we can set up an appointment to have you started for tomorrow or Friday." My heart sunk. I really wanted to get this baby out that day. Fortunately Rob spoke up (at the time I was a little embarrased but now am so relieved he did). He said, "Well from previous conversations we were under the impression that we might be able to do it today." The doctor said, "Well usually you can't get in the same day but I will call down and see if we can." Fortunately, they were not busy and I was able to go down. We stopped and got a snack. Rob apparently was hungrier than he thought because I had finished my snack by the time he arrived with a big plate of breakfast (eggs, hashbrowns, toast, etc.). We laughed and I told him I would meet him downstairs and went down stairs to check in. Rob met me soon after and then we went into the labor and delivery room and they started me on potosin around 11:30. About 12:30 I started feeling contractions and then stood up to go the bathroom. Just a few minutes later I started feeling really hard contractions. It was funny because a few minutes earlier I had just told the nurse I didn't want an epidural yet and then suddenly I had changed my mind. I told her to send him in asap. The contractions hurt worse than any contractions I have felt in the past. On my other 2 the contractions were painful but most of all I just couldn't handle them because they had been going on for so long. These were so much more intense but easier to handle because I had only been having them for a short time. The anesthesiologist came in within the next 5 minutes (luckily)! After the epidural I felt so much better but was still having contractions painful enough that I had to breath through them. My doctor came in and checked me and I was at a 6. But since I was still feeling the contractions pretty strong the anesthesiologist gave me another dose. Finally I was feeling so much better. It was the perfect feeling, I could still feel the contractions but they weren't painful. (With Liberty I felt too numb.) Around 2:00 the nurse checked me and said I was a 10 with a lip (whatever that means). She came back a little while later and said that I was completely ready and got the room prepped. The room was ready and the nurses were standing by and the intern, we were just waiting for the doctor. The intern mentioned to us that some doctors let the husbands help deliver the babies. We thought this sounded like a great idea so when Dr. Lloyd arrived Rob asked and he was happy to have him help. Rob put gloves and a gown on and sat in position to catch the baby. I pushed 4 times and the baby was out at 2:57 pm. (Holy cow what a fast and easy delivery!) Rob cut the embilical chord, she was coughing a bit and not crying very hard. It was making me nervouse. I kept asking if she was OK and they kept reassuring me that she was. They let me see her for a minute and then they took her over to check her out. My mom had walked in right around now. (I had told her she could come to the delivery but it happened all a little too fast.) I was glad she at least made it for this part and she seemed happy taking pictures of the new baby. When the scale said 9lb 6 oz I was so surprised because she didn't look that chubby. I remember Libby looking chubbier but Mazie was 22 inches long so maybe that chub got spread out a bit compared to Libby. I was also relieved because I was afraid that maybe I was being crazy by getting started rather than having nature run its course. But a 9 lb 6 oz baby made me feel justified. She was fully baked. And I also felt justified for feeling so miserably large. After checking her out and cleaning her up a little they brought her over and let me and her have skin to skin contact. I got to hold her for a really long time. Rob, my mom, and my dad got to hold her too. She still had the vernix on her, but still seemed so beautiful to me. (She did smell a little stinky though with that vernix still on her.) She has Rob's recessed chin but then a little knob on the end that makes it protrude a little. I thought maybe she had a bigger mouth than the other two but now it is small and peirced like Eliza and Libby's when they were a baby. She (like all my babies) has a round chubby face with black fuzzy hair.
I heald her for a long time. I was surprised that she was still awake and that she hadn't gone to sleep. Usually newborns are so sleepy it is hard to keep them awake. I decided to try to feed her and wow that girl knows how to suck. I couldn't believe how great she did at latching on and sucking. I did both sides for quite a while and she just kept sucking. It was starting to hurt too much that I just had to take her off. (Quite different from my breast feeding experience with Eliza.) During this time Rob called the girls to tell them. He got a little emotional doing this because he said he just loves our family so much. The girls were so excited!



Finally the nurses came in and tranferred me up to the recovery floor. Mom, Dad, and Rob stayed. We ate dinner and then visitors started coming. Dave and Jenn stopped by. (Then she finally got a bath and then you could see the bruising on her nose and around her mouth, it made her look like she couldn't breath. It was sad. The nurses said it just probably happened during birth because she came out so fast.) Then Sarah came and had picked up a birthday cake for us. Adam and Chelsea had kindly babysat the kids all day for us and brought the kids to the hospital with them. We continued the tradition of having a birthday party at the hospital and broke out the birthday cake. The kids were so excited to see the new baby! Libby touched her face so gently and Eliza wanted to hold her. Libby climbed into bed with me and wanted to snuggle and kept saying, "I missed you mommy!" It was really sweet. Then everyone decided to leave. It seemed kinda lonely to go from a full house to nobody but that feeling didn't last for long. I was really tired and needed to sleep. It had been a great day! I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father that he would bless me with such an easy delivery with no complications and such a healthy baby. I feel so blessed to be able to be a mother!