I know these are a few weeks late, but I still wanted to post them because Hartley is so beautiful.  (Well, I am sure I am bias!) 


Here are a few of my favorites:

I am laying in bed with my sweet little eskimo and she is asleep.  I was thinking I could set her down so I could blog, but i figured I better keep holding her.  She won't be small forever.  The blog will have to wait...  :)


Loving motherhood,

I hope I get better about blogging, but I make no promises.  I want to be around my sweet Hartley girl ALL THE TIME.  When she sleeps, I love to just look at her dreaming peacefully, and when she's up I enjoy looking at her dark brown eyes... Maybe one day I will get to the point where I can take my focus off of her, but until then, please know that we are doing great!!  She is eating and sleeping amazing and I am so proud of her.  BF is going great for us.  She's a great little eater.  At nights she sleeps around 2.5-4 hour increments which is perfect for me.  I sometimes feel tired but not that often.  


Here are her stats from her 2 week appointment:  (Mommy's chunky monkey) 


75% weight  8.15 lbs
50% height  20 inches


My mom just left yesterday so I guess life really starts this week for us.  This was perfect timing because I also got mastitis last week.  I was down for the count about 4 days.  Worse thing ever!!!!  I am feeling better today, but still not 100%.  I haven't cooked, cleaned, done laundry, really anything besides tend to my baby, in quite some time.  I hope I can be supermom!  I have pretty high expectations of myself (like usual) so hopefully I can live up to them.

I wanted to ask everyone... Since I am just about all healed up and H is doing so great, would it be too early to take her out for a patio lunch today?  It's beautiful weather here and I know it won't last long before we have, as the weatherman put it, "unusually high temps this summer"!  She's 2.5 weeks now.  I don't want to rush things, but I also am going a little crazy in the house.  Let me know what age you first started taking your kids out to run errands and such.  


Hope everyone is doing good!  I am going to try and catch up with all my blogs today.  Take care!!!

I am so excited to be writing this blog post.  I seriously thought I would never have this baby girl.  Here's the story:


Wednesday morning around 6:00 am I woke up with bad "cramps".  They were pretty strong and coming and going.  Marc woke up around 7:00 and thought this was the day!  My mom (who was already here) woke up around 7:30 and started helping me time them out.  I felt some tightening in my stomach but mainly it was just the pain of lower cramps.  Contractions were not what I thought they would be like.  Everyone told me "You will know when you are in labor".  I am here to stay, I had no idea if I really was.  Finally around 11:00am my contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart and lasting around 45sec-1 min.  Marc and I decided that we would go to the hospital because the pain was getting very bad.  Once we got to the hospital and got all hooked up to the monitors you could tell the contractions were coming strong and fast.  Unfortunately, when they checked me I wasn't dilated AT ALL!!  At this point, I was VERY discouraged.  They called my doctor, Dr. J, and she came up to the hospital.  I will skip most of the details on this next part, but let's just say, once my doctor got there she MANUALLY got me dilated and broke my water.  The minute she opened it, I was instantly dilated to a 2.  I am here to say that whatever she did should be illegal.  It was horrible, but it got the ball rolling!!!  They also started pitocin around the same time.  My doctor asked to nurse to check me in 1 hour.  An hour later, I was only a 3 and the pain was starting to get crazy!  Thankfully, I asked for the epidural because 45 minutes later I was dilated to a 8.  Yes, you heard it right!!!  I went from a 3-8 in under an hour.  I got the epidural just in time.  Everything after this happened super fast.  I was a 8 and Dr. J told us she was going to go sit in her car and read for 30 minutes.  Once she got back she said she was just going to check me but I was already a 10 and ready to start pushing.  The pushing part was hard work but not painful!  I pushed for about 30 minutes and then I got to meet my precious baby girl.  

I don't have much to say, but I wanted to give everyone a quick update.  My doctor originally told me she would induce on Monday, March 5th, but when I went for my appointment last Tuesday I still wasn't dilated.  She doesn't want to induce me until I have started dilating because it makes labor a long, slow process.  I go back on Monday afternoon to be checked and to come up with a plan of action.  


My patience and my body have about had it!  I am trying to stay positive but at this point it is getting a little frustrating!  It's really the unknown and the waiting part that is killing me.  I am learning about God's perfect timing and trying to concentrate on that aspect.  


Please pray that this baby girl will STOP primping and just come out to meet everyone!!!!!!

WARNING:  I think this post is a little depressing... Sorry!  I will blame it on no sleep, backpain, and heartburn!!  Hopefully I will be back to my old happy self in no time.   

Remember when you were little and you were so excited Christmas Eve that you couldn't sleep?  You knew that once you went to sleep, you would wake up to a house full of joy, laughter, and presents.  This is similar to how I feel each night, except every morning when I wake up, I still don't have my present! 

I am 39 weeks and 5 days!!!!  I am so ready for this sweet precious baby to get here I cannot stand it.  For the past 9 months time has been flying by, but then when I got to week 36, time started creeping.  It's like each day is an eternity.  Everyday I get up hoping and praying that God will bless me with our baby girl and in the mean time, I just wait!  I am still working (a little), so that takes up some time, but not enough to fill my days.  Every little new ache and pain, I get all excited thinking... This is it!  I am going to have this baby today!   

I have a doctor's appointment today and I am hoping for some progress.  Please pray for me... I need patience!  I just need to relax until she is ready to make her big arrival. 

My mom came into town these past few days to help me complete the nursery.  It turned out PERFECT!!!  It is exactly what I wanted.  I love to sit in the glider and just look around.  I am so excited about how it turned out.  It's girly, but hopefully not overdone.  It's modern but very functional.  Seriously, I love love love it!!!  I cannot wait for her to get here so we can use her princess palace.  What do you think?? 

Without further ado... Here is my angel's room