Best Friends 4 Life

Last November Hal and I decided to get a dog. Hal found him for sale online and he was located in Phil Campbell. Phil Campbell is not too far from Winfield, so we went home for the weekend and went and picked him up. He's had all the attention for almost a year, so I was really worried how he would act around Addison once she arrived. We decided to put him in dog training and that was truly an experience. The trainer was super intense and I pretty much dreaded every day that we had to go there. Thankfully we are through with all that and I will say Campbell (our dog) learned a few tricks and we did get a few bits of good advice while we went through the training. If you have a dog and you are worried how the dog will act around a new baby then I will share the best advice we were given. The trainer suggested playing baby noises around Campbell to get him use to it. Now, they sell a CD of baby sounds at Pet Smart but they also sell the sounds on Itunes. We downloaded a few and started playing them to Campbell. At first he would want to attack the computer trying to get to the noise but after a while he would just ignore them. Truly it was the best advice ever!

I was still pretty scared how Campbell would respond so we started looking into other options. Rachel and Jared (friends from church) offered to watch him for a while to let us get use to the new baby, so we took them up on that. After being home for a week, we introduced Campbell to Addison. I will say he has been so much better than what I expected. I think Campbell thinks his role is to protect Addison. It's pretty sweet..he wants to be near her all the time. He also doesn't understand yet that she can't play with him. When she gets fussy he will go get one of his toys and drop it near or on her. The other day Addison started crying and Campbell sprinted off and grabbed her pacifier that was sitting on the couch and dropped it on her lap....NO LIE. I guess he has seen me and Hal give her the pacifier when she gets upset so he just wanted to help out.

I told you earlier that Campbell will bring her his toys. Well I guess he doesn't understand yet that we are not going to share toys between Addison and Campbell. Sometimes he will try to play with her things. I have a few pictures that are pretty funny.

Intoducing Campbell to Addison

Campbell always has to be right next to Addison.

Watching Addison while she sleepsWe just took Addison out and he thought it was his turn

So one day Hal and I could not find Addison's pacifier. The timing was perfect! As soon as we asked each other about the pacifier Campbell comes around the corner sucking away on it.

Lots of Visitors

Hal and I are SO thankful for our church family! Martina arranged to have people bring us dinner after we got home from the hospital. Little did we know that we would have food every night for a month...WOW!! Thanks to everyone that came over and brought us dinner. Everything was wonderful! Here are a few pictures that we took when our guest came over. Again, I didn't get everyone's picture :(

A few other friends and family

Hospital Stay & Going Home

Hal had this door decoration made for Addison's door... too cute!

Hal showing Addison off right after she was born.

The family meeting Addison

Addison had lots of friends come visit in the hospital :) We got the majority of vistors that came by but there were a few that managed to get away without a picture. Thanks to everyone that came by to see us!

ohh Billy...Addison had to hang out in the baby tanning bed to get rid of jaundice and we couldn't take her out for a picture, so Billy made do :)

Going Home

my grandparents were waiting at our house when we got there :) I love them!

Meeting more family :)

Addison's Birthday

Wow...it's that time for Addison to arrive and I am feeling every kind of emotion at this point. Hal and I found out in January that we were expecting. We had one scary moment in February but besides that the pregnancy went pretty smoothly. I gained around 28 pounds and really felt pretty good. Around 37-38 weeks I started feeling a bit uncomfortable but I made it through it. When we went in for my last appointment I started measuring a little big and our doctor was a little concerned. She asked us to stay around and have another ultrasound to see what all was going on. At this point I was only dilated 1 cm and Addison was super high. Once we had the ultrasound my doctor noticed I had some excessive fluid which was causing the baby to just float and not drop. That then was causing me to not dilate. Oh FOR THE LOVE... Because we had some insurance issues causing us to need to have Addison before October, my doctor said she would induce on Monday morning if she didn't come before on her own. Also, she said I would need to come in on Sunday to have a procedure done to cause me to start dilating (it sounded super fun). I'm not going to go into to details, BUT it was the absolute worst pain throughout this whole year and a half experience that I had gone through. Monday morning I was dilated 4 cm, so it obviously worked. SO Dr. K came in at 6:30am Monday morning to break my water and start the contractions. I think I did pretty good. My contractions started getting bad but I would just close my eyes and focus on my breathing. Around 10:30am my nurse walked in (she was at the nurses desk monitoring my contractions) and said I have your epidural ready after that last contraction. I was pretty surprised....I guess I still had the image of a Hollywood movie of a lady having a baby and screaming at the top of her lungs. Well, it wasn't that bad yet and I really didn't want it to get that bad :) SO I took the offer. I'm really terrified of needles though. I had heard from several people that getting the IV was really bad for them, so I already made it past that point and made it. I just told myself that I would be okay and honestly it wasn't that bad. They give you a numbing SHOT (yes they have to use a shot to numb you for the bigger shot :). Now it was definitely an experience and I was so pleased with the guy putting it in. He told me what was about to happen right before it did everytime...from a cramp to my leg shooting out and feeling like there was an electric shock...he was great and it wasn't unbearable. Now, after I got the epidural I didn't feel a thing! I remember Hal and my sister sitting near the machine that showed the chart of my contractions. I would see them look at each other and then look at me and they would just be in shock that I didn't budge. I knew I must have been having a contraction EVERY time they did that.

Around 12:30pm I remember my nurse taking my temp and as she took the thermometer out of my mouth I started not feeling well. She said I had a fever and she needed to give me some medicine for it. Well, not long after that my doctor came in and let me know that the baby's heart rate was over 200 and she was monitoring everything very closely. She let me know if they couldn't get the heartrate down quickly then we would have to do a c-section. She said she would be back in 30 minutes. Well, it was not long and she was back in telling me that we had to do a c-section right then and get the baby out. I honestly felt very calm and I think it helped in how my doctor and nurses talked to me. They remained calm the entire time and moved pretty quick. They gve Hal some scrubs to put over his clothes and told him to get ready and they would come back to get him. They took me on to get started. I just remember praying the whole way to the operating room and then while I waited on Hal and they got started I just started singing church songs in my head to keep me calm. Maybe that is funny but it kept me very calm...I definitely felt God with me! Hal finally got to come in and sit with me and it wasn't long after that that Addison arrived.

September 28, 2009 at 1:05pm Addison Lynn Craig arrived. She weighed 8lb 5oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. We think she is the most beautiful little girl ever and we love her even more than we would have even thought possible. Thank You God for giving us sweet little Addison!

This was right after Dr. K broke my water and the experience began :)

Our new family! well...without Campbell

Addison with our family friend/pediatrician -Dr. Jennifer McCain

Dr. Jennifer was my brother's doctor at Children's several years back when he had a heat stroke. He was in ICU for about 2 months and she helped take care of him. After that she has been a really close family friend. Just recently she went to pediatrics and we were thrilled to have her in the Birmigham area!