Introducing....

Madison Celeste Tracy! She wasn't due until March 12, but decided to come 3 weeks early and was born on Feb. 21st instead!

On Saturday, the 2oth I started having a bunch of contractions in the afternoon but didn't think too much of that since I've been having lots of them for weeks now. Bubba and I actually had a date planned that night, and by the time my parents came over to watch the kids, I was having contractions every 4-5 minutes, but kept thinking they would go away and they weren't really that painful at that point. We went up to Orem for dinner, and during dinner the contractions were getting more painful and were every 3 minutes like clockwork so I started getting a little concerned. We had tickets to go up to a play in Salt Lake, but I really didn't feel like we should drive even further away from the hospital (in Payson), since my last 2 labors only lasted about 4 hours from start to finish. So we decided to head to the hospital (I didn't want to wait for the contractions to get worse since I found out that I was GBS positive this time around and they wanted me to try to be on antibiotics for at least 4 hours). I walked up to the nurse and told her that I thought I might be in labor and I'm sure she thought I was crazy since I wasn't really in much pain or anything but they put me in a room and hooked me up to all the monitors and checked me. I was only dilated to about a 3 at that point but was having a contraction every 2 minutes so they decided to keep me there so they could get the antibiotics started. This was at about 8:00 pm. The contractions started getting much more painful a couple of hours later but I was only dilated to a 4 at that point so I got my epidural at about 10 and then my dr. broke my water shortly after that. I thought things would move more quickly at that point, but I continued to only dilate about a centimeter an hour until just after 4 am when they told me I was ready. I can't believe things moved so slow this time! The dr. came in at about 4:15 and they got everything ready and then I pushed through a few contractions and the baby was born at 4:31 a.m. She gave a little cry but then was so quiet I was starting to wonder if she was ok, but it turns out that so far, she just is really quiet!

Madison Celeste weighed in at 7 pounds, 7 ounces and was 19.5 inches long...good thing she didn't wait 3 more weeks or she would have been quite large! So far, she is such a wonderful baby and we love having her in our home. She hardly ever cries and she sleeps so good right now which has been wonderful. Last night she went to bed at about 10, woke up at 1 to eat, went right back to sleep and then I woke up at 6 am in a panic because she was not awake yet so I woke her up to feed her again! Who knows how long she would have slept? I feel like I'm constantly waking her up to eat because she just really loves to sleep right now! However, when she does eat, she nurses like a champ and so far has been my best nurser too. I know she's only 5 days old and a lot could change, but up until this point, she has been the perfect baby and she is just so sweet. Even when she is awake, she just lays there contentedly and looks around which is unbelievable to me because the other 2 had to be bouncing or moving or being walked around to be happy when they were awake! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't just a fluke! I feel great and am so happy that I got to skip the last few weeks of being pregnant! So far, the girls love her and haven't seemed to be too phased by her appearance. They come look at her for a few minutes and then continue on with playing like normal, although they keep telling me that they want her to grow up so she can play with them too.

And we'll be off....

This summer, Bubba is going to be managing in one of Platinum's summer offices and we just found out recently that we will be going to Virginia Beach for the summer...sounds rough, doesn't it? :) I'm actually really looking forward to it, except for the fact that it is about 36 hours away and I will be driving there with 3 kids, one of which will be a 6 week old baby! But Virginia Beach is one place we haven't been yet and it sounds like there is a lot of fun stuff to do there...we're all excited to be able to spend lots of days at the beach!

Pregnancy Update

So I just realized the other day that I haven't taken any pictures of me during this pregnancy and I'm almost done! So here is a picture of me at just over 36 weeks along...hopefully we won't have too much longer! Looking at this picture, I don't think I look nearly as large as I feel...I feel like a whale and have definitely gotten more uncomfortable over the last couple of weeks. I don't remember feeling so slow and unable to move the last two times I did this, but maybe we forget these things for a reason!

Up until about 5 weeks ago, the baby had been head down at every appointment and then at about 32 weeks, she was head up and stayed that way for several weeks which was making me nervous, but I did a lot of tricks that I found online (including hanging upside down off the couch, putting frozen veggies on her head, and having the girls shine a flashlight on the bottom of my tummy which they thought was hilarious), and at my appointment last week she had flipped and we are hoping she stays in the correct position! And at my last appointment (about a week ago), I was already dilated to a 2, so that means all these contractions I've been having are maybe doing something at least!

The girls are getting very anxious for their baby sister to arrive and I think they are starting to believe it will never happen since we've been talking about it for so long. A few weeks ago, we put them in the same room, which I was a little nervous about since they are such great sleepers and I didn't want that to change, but they have done great! It takes them a little longer to get to sleep at night, but so far they have still been sleeping all night and waking up at their normal wonderful time of about 8:30!