Amelia 1 month old

Amelia was a month old yesterday. She is growing so quickly. Her newborn clothes no longer fit her. She is having to wear the 0 to 3 months only now. For the first time today, she laughed out loud. It wasn't just a smile, it was a smile with a giggle. I couldn't quit loving on her. She is just so cute. She's staying up more at night than she was week. It's wearing me out, but I read this morning that this happens at three to four weeks...right on schedule. She is having her first growth spurt. I can't wait until this is over and she is only getting up once a night again.

We made mini cupcakes yesterday to celebrate her one month milestone. I am so proud of how well the girls help take care of Amelia. Destiny, Samantha and Sabrina all help to pick out her clothes and to feed her. They are always willing to watch her whenever I need to leave the room.

Getting to know Amelia...

It's so hard to predict what her personality will be, but we can already see that she might be a bit impatient. She completely loses it when it's time for a bottle and she doesn't like to wait for even a second. She's also inquizative about everything around her. When she's not sleeping, she's soaking in her new world. She loves it when he daddy first enters the room after a day of work. She smiles when she hears his voice, and yesterday, when he failed to acknowledge her, she burst out crying until he touched her and said hello. I was holding her at the time, so she wasn't crying to be held. She literally started smiling when she heard him and screamed when he started to walk away. He came right back and said hello to her and she immediately calmed down. She's having lots of trouble with her days and nights being confused. I was pretty sure this would happen. The whole last trimester, she kept me up by moving around at night. She's completely backwards. I have to start working on this this week. We need to get her on a schedule, but it's so hard for us to do schedules. We are not schedule people...unless it's my job or school, everthing else is out of order. Which is why our house can be so chaotic. If we both had predictable work schedules, this would be easy to accomplish. It will certainly be a more important when the girls start kindergarden this summer. I cannot believe my babies are going to big girl school. WOW!!! Where have the years gone? In a couple of months, Peyton and I will have been together for a decade. I am so blessed to have a real partner in life. It is clear that my husband loves me and our children. He puts up with all of my faults and rarely ever points them out to me. He's really an amazing man.

St. Patrick's Day

I had a plan to go out on St Patty's day this year. I really wanted to spend some time along with Peyton and some old friends. With a newborn at home and four other kids in tow, I couldn't quite work out the logistics of childcare to make it happen, so we stayed in and celebrated with the kids. We had a nice time. It's always fun to share even the simplistic holidays with these guys.

Tingle Baby Story

I went to the doctor on Friday afternoon, February 26, 2010. I had been feeling some funny pains for a couple of days...not contractions, just pain...like she was trying to push her way out without any contractions. The few contractions that I was having were not regular...just a couple a day. When I told Dr Yeagley about the pain, she had Lori (ultrasound tech who happens to also be a labor and delivery nurse) check me. At 3:30 on Friday afternoon, I was dialated to 4cm and was 50% efface. We let the kids go home with Grandmother Tingle and Molly just in case Friday night was the night. I was starving so we ran to Panda Express for some orange chicken/mandarin chicken and rice. It was my last meal of the pregnancy. I had a feeling it would be. I told Peyton I needed to get in as much protein and carbs as I could because I really thought I was going to need them. We left Panda Express and went to Walmart for some last minute items. I really wanted to walk to try to help bring on labor, but I was so tired and sore that I couldn't make myself walk. I got what I needed and we headed home. Peyton was really sleepy and even though I had started having contractions around 8pm. I told him he really should get some sleep just in case. I think he started dozing off around 1000. I called the doctors office at midnight once the contractions were 8 minutes apart...at 8pm, they were still 11 minutes apart and slightly irregular. The funny thing is that only about every third contraction actually hurt...even a little. My stomach got hard, I knew it was a contraction, but they were not painful. Being already dialated to 4cm, I thought it best not to wait. The doctor agreed. I woke Peyton up and told him it was time to go to the hospital. We walked into Southern Regional at 1230 on Saturday morning. We went through registration and then to triage. In triage, they determined that my contractions were not coming as closely together anymore. I had two in the whole first 30 minutes I was there and they were not big. But, my head was hurting and my blood pressure was high. They decided to do a cath to get a urine sample...straight from the source. Sure enough, there was protein in my urine and I was suffering from the beginning stages of pre eclampsia. I had pre eclampsia at 37 weeks with the twins. They started an IV and put me on a magnesium drip to keep me from having any seizures (which is the real risk with high blood pressure). The nurse who moments before told me she was going to have me go for a walk to try and get the contractions started, was suddenly telling me to relax while she got me setup to move to my labor and delivery room. The show was just getting started. I knew that I would have my daughter in my arms soon. After settling down into my room, they got the pitocin started and gave Peyton a blanket. We needed to rest. Fat chance of that. I was beginning a marathon of no sleep. It's all very blurry for me from this point. I called my mom and told her to take her time it would be hours, but I was in the hospital. The next time I called to tell her she should go ahead and come up because they had broken my water, it was 6:15 and she was already getting off of the exit at 19/41. She never went back to sleep after I called her. She got up, washed some clothes, went to the grocery store, packed her bags, and headed to the hospital. The kids were at Peyton's parents house and he called them to let them know. The plan was that Rabun, Mary and Adriene would come over when it was closer to time and Molly and Michael would keep the younger kids. I don't remember much about the next few hours, it seemed like every time I looked at the clock, an hour or two had passed. They checked me at some point and I was at 6cm and 90% effaced. I think I got the epidural around 7am or so. It hurt much worse than the first time. I think it was because I had two really big, painful contractions during the epidural. The minute it was in, I told the doctor, he was a god. I felt immediate relief. (I should point out that for the first several hours, I didn't really feel the contractions. The nurse actually asked me how I couldn't be feeling them. This was before the epidural and they were only 3 minutes apart. But when they started, they were hard from the first one I felt.) I posted a comment on Facebook to let everyone know the epidural that I was dying for was finally in. I had several friends call to tell me how funny they thought it was that I was posting during the actual labor. What else would I be doing. I was lying in the bed, suddenly feeling no pain, too anxious to sleep, and my cell phone was right there....too easy. It was nice to get those immediate words of encouragement back from some of my friends. Words of encouragement mixed with congratulations and hope it goes quickly!! It took so long to get from 4 to 6 that I was sure we were stalling out. Kim and Chelsey came in around 1000 and I was just as I was telling Chelsey that I didn't feel any pain at the moment because the epidural was in, I suddenly had a contraction that I felt. It was followed very closely by another. Peyton had walked Rabun out. He was heading home for a while and we told Mary to take her time coming in about an hour before because things were progressing slowly and the doctor was certain it would be a while still. I grabbed my phone and called Peyton. I told him that I was suddenly feeling the contractions again along with a lot of pressure and I that he probably needed to hurry back in because I knew that it something was happening. Just as he came in the room, the nurse was checking me. She turned to him, laughing and said, you won't believe this, she's at a nine plus and is ready to go now. I dialated the last three plus in less than 15 minutes. Things really started to fly at that point. They began breaking down the bed and getting ready to put my legs into the stir ups. Peyton, Mom, Kim, and Chelsey were all still there. We had discussed the night before that only Peyton and I would be in the room when the baby was born. I had been open to my mom and his mom joining us, but his preferance was for it to be the two of us. I agreed. The moment the nurse said, anyone who needs to leave the room should leave now, I changed my mind. I told my mom to stay. I really didn't want to be without her at that moment and she has never been in the room when any of her grandchildren were born. I looked at Peyton and he didn't seem to care at the moment who was there. I was in so much pain and we just wanted to get it over with. I asked Kim and Chelsey to grab our two cameras and to take as many pictures as possible. "Take pictures of anything and everything. The cameras are digital so I'll delete whatever I think is inappropriate afterwards." Chelsey was white as a ghost for a minute, but she picked up a camera and she stayed. In fact, she posted a comment about not wanting to look on her Facebook page during the actual pushing. I really laughed at that the next day when I saw the message. From the minute my legs were up it moved really fast. One of the nurses wanted to call the doctor. The other wanted to wait until I did a couple of pushes to make sure I was really moving the baby first. Two practice pushes and they made me stop pushing. She was moving alright....too quickly and the doctor was about to miss the delivery. The worst pain was when I couldn't push. It's just cruel to make someone wait when their body is screaming at them to push. Doctor Youngblood came in and told me to hang on a minute longer. He had one glove on and he just needed to get the other one on before I pushed. I told him he had missed the first nine months of the preganacy and if he didn't hurry he was going to miss the delivery. It's the only time I laughed during the delivery. We had just seen one another at an appt that Monday for the first time. I had appointments with the other doctors, but not him. I ended up pushing three or four times (in sets of 3) with Dr Youngblood. After two pushes, he asked me to give him one really, slow steady push. He told me if I went slowly through that one, we would have one head and likely no stiches. I did what he asked and suddenly, he was suctioning out her mouth. One more push and the rest of her body was out. He had to take the cord from around her body. It was wrapped twice....body, not neck. She screamed from the beginning. No reason for concern about her breathing, that was obviously not a problem. Peyton cut the cord and our daughter was born. I cried like a baby when they put her in my arms. I have never felt so much love for a little person. Those first moments when you hold your baby are just amazing. I had wondered if I could really love a new little one as much as I did the other kids. My beautiful litte girl was born at 1115 on Saturday, February 27, 2010. I've had three daughters now and all three were born on Saturdays. She looks just like her daddy. This morning, I looked at a picture of Sabrina when she was born. I knew she looked like this new little sister, but honestly you can't tell the picture is not of Amelia.