I can’t believe it’s the end of July already. The summer is flying by, mostly because we have a baby! I’ll try to sum up the last few months in this catch up post.

The last few weeks of my pregnancy were fine. I was pretty tired and some of the nausea came back, but nothing too terrible. At about 38 weeks, the light braxton hicks contractions started and continued straight until the end. They weren’t bothersome or painful, just awkward – like my stomach was doing crunches for me. As my due date approached, I realized that I probably wasn’t going to be early like everyone said.

On Sunday, June 12th, I woke up early like always but things felt different. I let Boone sleep in a little while I ate breakfast, but when he woke up I told him I thought today was it. The contractions started getting stronger around 10am and we labored at home until almost 2pm. At that point, we went in to the hospital. We walked around the triage area for a few hours while they waited to see my progress, and they admitted me around 4pm.

Now, I’m not one of those people to share every detail of my labor experience. I think it’s something private and special between Boone and I. But I’ll give you the highlights. I labored for 28 hours total, with an epidural at hour 15. I pushed for three hours but baby was face-up, sometimes called sunny-side up, which put her at a bad angle. So, we did a c-section. I was a little upset about it at first, but as my OB said, ‘Our goal is healthy mom and healthy baby, and this is what we need to do to achieve that goal.’ The surgery wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t emergency surgery which is much safer and easier on everyone. Plus, the surgical staff were actually quite friendly.

Madelyn Kiersten Sesvold was born at 2:06pm on June 13th, a very sunny Monday afternoon. She weighed 7 pounds and 7.7 ounces (lucky sevens!) and was 20 inches long. She had dark brown hair, even though we thought she’d be blonde, and slate blue eyes. We had two names picked out, and decided she looked like a Madelyn. There’s no special meaning; we just liked it and we liked that we can call her Maddie/Maddy/Madi (We haven’t decided how to spell the nickname yet.). Kiersten is a traditional Scandinavian name, following our Norwegian heritage. I’ll never forget looking at her in Boone’s arms nor will I forget the look on his face as he looked at her.

It’s been a little over six weeks now and we are adjusting to the baby life. Madelyn is a very good baby – she started sleeping six hours straight at two weeks old. She’s gaining weight and growing like a champ, and learning all sorts of new sounds and tricks. We recently went out with some friends who had a three-week old and we couldn’t remember Madelyn being that small! I’ll try to keep this updated with pictures and tales as they happen. You can find pictures on the Madelyn picture page.