The Big Sister

Sure Love My Girls

Maddy just loves being a big sister. She can't get enough of her sister Mylee...especially when Mylee has her eyes open. We had a few melt downs at the hospital while she was visiting us because she wasn't listening and wanted to maul her sister but since we've been home she has been awesome. Of course we still have our moments with her but thats just the age I think. She has adjusted really well otherwise and so far has been extremely helpful. She knows way too much about child birth, breast feeding, and post-partum healing for a 2 year old, but if she asks a question I've been honest. The other day she was singing about Mylee drinking milk from mommy's boobies to the tune of London Bridges. It was absolutely hilarious. So it definitely has been extremely entertaining around here and I'm having a lot of fun with my girls.

Maddy helps with Mylee's First Bath

Washing Sister's Bum

Snugglin' in Sister's Bed

Reading Sister a Book in Bed

Mylee Gets to Go Home

Sunday afternoon Jason, Mylee, and I finally got to leave the hospital after 3 nights in the hospital. We were ready to leave first thing in the morning, although we were really tired as Mylee decided she wanted to cluster feed and stay awake from 3 - 8 am. My back and butt just couldn't take any more of the hospital bed and we wanted to get home to Maddy. Its was Sunday though and we were in for a long wait as the OB and pediatrician that needed to discharge us where at church and so we had to wait until they got in to check both Mylee and I out. It was a long wait and a bit annoying but that was the only complaint we have about giving birth at Huron Valley - Sinai. Otherwise our stay there was great and we were well taken care of the entire time. It was a totally different experience for us this time around! Anyway, Mylee left the hospital weighing 8 lb. 8 oz. and a little jaundice but otherwise healthy. We put her in the same outfit that Maddy wore coming home in...take a look!

Mylee Jo

Madelynn Marie

Maddy definitely looks a bit chubbier...I guess that half a pound can really make a difference, especially when most of it is in your cheeks. Otherwise, I would say these two have similarities...anyone agree???

Here are more picture from Sunday while we were waiting to leave. I just can't get enough...sorry.

Last time in her bassinet with her eyes open

Mommy and Mylee

Daddy and Mylee

Looking at daddy

Getting tired of waiting

I'm Ready...

My New Love

I must say..."I'm in love!" I wasn't sure how I would feel having another daughter, but I must say I couldn't be happier and more in love with my girls. My love has multiplied, definitely has not been divided. I forgot how much I love babies...I could just stare at my little Mylee all day long. She is really starting to look a lot like Maddy to me, and it just brings me back to when Maddy was a baby. She's just so sweet and soft and those cheeks...you just can't get enough of them. I wanted to share a few pictures from the last few days of my new love!

Welcome Miss Mylee Jo

Mylee Jo Kreider
Friday, March 20, 2009
12:44 pm
Weight: 8 lb 15 oz
Length: 21.5 in.
Head Circ.: 14.5 cm

Jason, Maddy, and I welcomed our new little (or not so little) family member yesterday. She is a "Pudge" as we are calling her, taking right after her sister. I am definitely doomed for huge babies. Thank goodness she wasn't full-term or she could have easily surpassed her sister in birth weight. She is healthy, eating well, and so far has been very quiet. She had a bit of a rough start with a lot of fluid and mucous in her lungs and stomach, which caused her to work really hard and rapidly to breathe. They paged the pediatrician who came in and suctioned 20 mL of fluid out and a bunch of additional mucous from the back of her throat and nose. She continued to monitor her for awhile and I wasn't able to try to breastfeed her for a few hours until her breathing slowed down and they were sure they won't have to take her to the CCN. By the time we tried nursing we missed the alert phase and were into the sleepy phase so it wasn't a very successful feeding but nothing they were concerned about as she clearly has some body fat and her glucose levels were great. Since then she has been nursing awesome but is spitting up a lot probably still some effects from her rough start.

So here's how it all happened:

Thursday, March 19

11:00 - Dr. Apt and Ultrasound
Ultrasound results: Low Amniotic Fluid (AF of 5-7 when it should be above 10)
Estimated Body Weight of 8 lb 11 oz with a 41 wk. head circum.
12:00 - Send to the hospital for induction
1:00 - Meet Jason at home to pack
2:00 - Arrived at hospital
4:00 - Started petosin (1-2cm)
5:30 - Stop petosin (wanted to make sure mom and baby would take well to it)
6:40 - Dinner (Yeah, Jaclynn hadn't eaten since a bowl of cereal around 8)

Hung out and watched basketball for the rest of the night.
Jaclynn slept ok, about an 1 at a time between bathroom breaks. Probably 4-5 hours of rough sleep.

Friday, March 20

6:00 - woke up and showered
7:00 - Started petosin
7:30 - Met Dr. Kean - really enjoyed her. It was the first time we met her.
9:15 - Dr. Kean broke Jaclynn's water (3 cm)
10:15 - asked for epidural
10:30 - 4-5 cm - epidural ordered
11:00 - feeling relieved again. Still a lot of low pressure and burning. I (Jason) was asked to leave while they put in the epidural. Didn't really liked that but I could see it took well as Jaclynn's mood was once again more upbeat.
11:45 - 6-7 cm
12:30 - All systems go, we are clear to push
12:44 - Mylee Jo comes into the world!!!

Jaclynn reduced her pushing from Maddy to Mylee from 3 hours down to 14 minutes! :) So obviously that was a great relief for us both.

Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers. We are so thankful for our 2nd little precious gift from God. We are really excited for Mylee to meet all of you soon.

Mylee sees Mom for the first time
Eyes wide open

25 minutes after labor-how great does Jaclynn look!!!

Very proud Daddy

Our new bundle

Can you see those back rolls! :) First bath

Sisters first meeting

My girls!!! :)

The family

Happy Birthday Mylee Jo

Doctor's Appointment

I'm been off of bed rest now for 2 weeks and everything seems to be going fine. I am really tired and physically sore after work so I spend most of my evenings resting on the couch after a nice hot bath or shower. My cardio system actually feels better since being off of the procardia. I continue to have a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions but nothing more intense or more frequent. So I'm convinced I'm going to be pregnant for at least another week or two.

At my appointment this week it appears that there is nothing new happening either so being off of bed rest and the medication hasn't resulted in any cervical changes. It is kinda funny because now we are talking about watching the baby's size and possibly inducing. Within a month we went from stopping labor to now talking about inducing labor. The reason is I definitely do not want to deliver a huge baby again this time. So next week we are going to have another ultrasound to estimate the baby's size. If she appears huge we will probably induce sometime that next week, otherwise he said we will wait until the week of her due date to induce. So this baby will be here in the next 3 weeks one way or another. I am perfectly fine being pregnant until then as long I don't end up with another huge baby to try to push out.

Sunny Side Up

We are still hanging in there and doing great. My vote is for another 2 weeks, but probably not much more than that as this baby seems to be on track to be as big as Maddy. We had an ultrasound at our appointment this week and they estimated our lil' girl at 6.5 pounds. Maddy was estimated right about that at 36 weeks as well so this little girl is looking to be just like her sister. Our little girl looked great and scored 8 out of 8 on whatever they tested her on...not really sure what that means, but sure sounds good. Another thing that we found out was that she is sunny side up. I had suspected that since I've been having so much lower back pain, especially when I have contractions. There is definitely still time and a chance that she will turn around, so lets all keep our fingers crossed and hope that she does. I would really prefer to not have back labor. Other than that the appointment went pretty good. I had my strep B test and another internal exam. The consensus...1 cm dilated, but no more effacement. So I'm not sure what that means besides changes are starting to take place since being off of bed rest. The doctor said I could definitely still walk around like this for weeks yet, but when labor does start not to spend too much time at home because things could go really fast. He reiterated how LOW she is and so once labor starts I'm going to already be ahead of the game. This really makes me a bit nervous, but we'll see what happens. I did go back to work on Monday and have felt pretty good besides being exhausted and physically tired. Its hard going back to carrying around an extra 20 pounds after laying on the couch for 2 weeks. In the end, I am so thankful for getting this far after such a scare.

Before the Storm

So what were we up to prior to the flu and the bed rest??? We were having weekend get-a-ways with our friends enjoying each other and the kids.

Trip to Indy

First was our trip to Indiana to visit with the Spindlers. Maddy was so excited to see Rylee, Jason was excited to help Brad with the basement, and I couldn't wait to see Brooke and spend a prego weekend together. We always have such a good time together and this trip was no exception. In fact, this time was better then the past few because Maddy and Rylee played so well together. We really just had to be around to make sure they weren't getting into anything they weren't supposed to. Other than that, they played really well together running around the house pushing the stroller and grocery cart, reading books together, and nurturing their baby dolls. In the past, we always had to be right there with them because Maddy would smother Rylee. Rylee was just too little to get away or defend herself, now she is getting old enough where she really only needs us to intervene 20% of the time. The other giant leap we made this weekend was Maddy's recognition of Brooke and Brad. She remembered them right away and just couldn't get enough of them. This is acutally pretty remarkable because Maddy is not lovey with too many people like that. She usually plays the shy or hard to get card. It took her no time to warm up to them. In fact, the first night she started out going to bed with Brooke rather than me and then at church on Sunday she sat with Brooke and Brad rather than Jason and I (we were a bit late and so we weren't able to sit together). Gotta say...she loves her godparents!

So what did we do? Well, Saturday the guys wanted to work on the electrical for the basement so Brooke and I decided to take the girls to the Children's Musuem in downtown Indianapolis. It was a blast. The girls could have stayed all day but with Brooke and I both being pregnant we were hungry and tired after chasing them around for about 3 hours. We actually kinda felt bad because we were rushing them through it a little bit. Funny story from lunch that day...Maddy was digging through her diaper bag looking for fruit snacks and I told her to just let me get them because I didn't want her making a mess. She said, "Momma, RELAX!" in a tone that was right in context. It was hilarious! Oh, anyway...here are some pictures from the museum.

Going down the slide

Riding in the indy car

Holding hands

Splashing in the water table

Digging in the sand

Rylee on the carousel

Maddy terrified on the carousel

Don't look so thrilled girls! Actually they both loved it and didn't want to leave. We had to stay and dance for a little while afterwards and then wave bye-bye to the horsees

Cleaning up

Washing their hair

The girls both fell asleep on the way home of course and transferred pretty good when we got back. So we called the guys up from the basement to play some euchre. (Girls 3 - Guys 2...yeah!) That night we had a great fajita dinner and a nice birthday surprise for me...ice cream cake. Yum! Thanks guys!

As I mentioned, Sunday we went to church and then came home for some yummy left overs...cake again too of course...I did mention two pregos didn't I. We then got on the road so that we could make it home in time for the Super Bowl. What a great weekend! We just love spending time with the Spindlers. Can't wait to see them again soon.

Trip to Chicago

The very next weekend we packed up and headed to Chicago to meet my high school friend Casey and her family at a hotel with a water park to spend some time together. We hadn't seen the VanCamps since Labor Day so it was long over due. They live by Green Bay, WI so Chicago seems to be a good meeting spot. Since it was the middle of winter we thought we would try out a hotel with a water park so that we had some good entertainment for the girls. It worked out perfect and the girls loved it. We unfortunately didn't get much cribbage in as sharing a hotel room left us with no other options then to nap while the girls were napping. Casey and I got a few games in while the dads were running around with the girls in the water. It was a great trip. Maddy and Ava got along great right from the start...great friends no doubt. We sure wish we lived closer to them because those two would love seeing more of each other. They are so similar its adorable! The girls got along so good they had no problem sleeping on the floor together in sleeping bags, which made it nice for us parents to not have to share our small double beds with them. We stuck around Sunday until after lunch so the girls could get a full day of the water park in before we had to leave. Plus we wanted as much time together as we could because it could be awhile before we get to see them again. I sure wish we lived closer. Thanks VanCamps for a great weekend.

Getting ready to get wet

Maddy going down the slide


Maddy and Ava take on the slide together

Maddy's landing on the bigger slide

Daddy and Maddy

My little girl looking so grown up to me here

Ava loved the hot tub

The girls holding hands while warming up in the hot tub

Waiting for their daddies to come down the big slides
(This was quite a highlight)

Can't get enough of these cute bottoms

Just as cute from the front

We don't want to go! You are going to have to pull us off of this pole...we aren't going anywhere!

Before we left, we shared some valentine and birthday cupcakes. It was the weekend after my birthday and the weekend before Casey's so it was a perfect excuse for dessert. (Like being pregnant isn't enough of an excuse.)


Maddy had such a great time and was so exhausted that she was sleeping before we got on the expressway. Little did we know what was ahead...