Maddie has left the uterus!

In case you haven't heard yet, Madeline Grace was born at 11:20 am on August 8th! My water broke in the middle of the night, and we got to the hospital about 7am that morning. They confirmed that labor had actually started and then checked to see if Maddie was still breech- she was! So they put me on the fast track to a c-section and she was born a few hours later. The actual c/s wasn't too bad. Mike was in the operating room with me and when they took Maddie out they moved the scale/warmer so that we could see her the whole time she was being weighed and checked out. She weighed 4 lb 10 oz (although they weighed her twice to make sure b/c she didn't look quite that small). Then Mike got to sit beside me and hold her for the remainder of the surgery.

She came with us into the recovery room, where I was able to start breastfeeding and eating right away. They took her to the nursery about an hour later for her bath and pictures. My parents and Kat arrived and went up to the nursery with Mike to see her! When she came back from the nursery, they reported that she was 18 inches long and in the nursery she weighed 5 lb 4 oz, so her real birth weight is likely in between those two numbers.

We were lucky to be able to leave the hospital on Sunday afternoon, which we were really happy about b/c hospitals are not fun! Of course we are still not getting much sleep at home, but I'd rather not sleep in my own bed.

Maddie is just perfect! She is so adorable and it's easy just to sit around all day watching her sleep. I never put my camera down! We are working on getting her to sleep at night too- right now she has her days and nights a bit mixed up. Breastfeeding has been a bit of a challenge, but we had a lactation consultant come out and that's helped a lot. I was feeling really good the first couple of days after the surgery, but I think I did too much too soon and I'm paying for it now. Luckily my health seems to be doing pretty good, which will hopefully stay true for a while b/c coughing has been the most painful part of recovery so far.

Here are some pictures! Here's a link to some from the hospital: http://tinyurl.com/5sb37g.
And if you're friends with Kat on facebook, she took a ton of great pictures that she has posted there.

Here are a couple of my faves!:

goofy baby

baby burrito!

sporting the cool hair after her first bath!

first bath!

streeeeetch

teeny fingers