Say Cheese!

Melanie's favorite time of day is morning.  We don't really know who she got that from, because it sure didn't come naturally from her mother or me.  We've been trying to take advantage of this time by playing with her while she is so alert.  We were playing with her Monday morning and she got really tickled and started smiling at us!  Big thing for us since we've been on the lookout for anything resembling a smile for over a week.  Since she was in such a good mood we sat her up in her little bumbo chair and started snapping.  We did our best to capture a few fleeting images.  A couple of the best shots are out of focus, but that's what happens when you try to catch a childs reaction on a camera with red-eye reduction on.  We shot a couple yesterday on my camera and they came out a little more in focus.  For some reason the shots on my camera made her hair look a little redder than on Joanna's.  It makes Joanna happy to see the red hair come out since she think Melanie has so few of her features.  I see Joanna all over her face, but don't question a mothers instincts.  Just look at that little booger, ain't she cute?

 

While all of this is very entertaining for us, Melanie was getting bored. 

Sweet Dreams

Melanie slept throught the night last night!  She ate at 10:30, and didn't wake up to eat again until 5:00.  I woke up at 3:00 and started to worry that something was wrong.  I peeked in on her, and made sure she was still breathing, then I went back to sleep.  Who knows if we'll be as lucky tonight.  But, it was really cool that it happened at all!  Here's a couple of pictures we took last night.

Melanie - Month One

Well if we thought it was hard to find time to post new entries before...now its seems almost impossible!  I do have a lot of time that I'm sitting on the couch now, though...feeding and rocking Melanie.  I guess I just have to learn how to type with one hand!  Things are going good here.  Melanie is growing, slowly but surely. She's a petite little thing!  You can tell that she feels a little heavier, though, and her face and legs look a little chubbier.  Mark went back to work again this week, after having been off for 2 weeks.  After two weeks back at work, he'll have another two weeks off around Christmas.  Having him here was great.  My mom went home after a couple weeks with us, then we went to Auburn the week of Thanksgiving.  Once we got home, it was great having Mark here at home with me.  He did some work around the house, like running electricity to our crawlspace/basement.  Now we have a second refrigerator down there and overhead lighting.  That's Mark's "man-space", so he's happy to finally have good lighting to work by.  So, he was working, but if I needed him to hold Melanie or watch her while I ran out of the house, he was available.  Now, it's just me, Melanie and the dogs.  We're doing pretty good.  I just have to let go of the idea of getting much done.  It's definitely all about her, and not about me being able to get chores done around the house.  Daisy and Lucy are feeling kind of neglected.  Lucy still gets to sleep in the bed (of course!), but other than that, they're playing second fiddle.  A crying baby takes precedence over a crying dog.  Daisy has taken her frustration out on us a couple of times, though.  Twice, we've left the house to go to the grocery store, and she's managed to pull bags of bottles down off the counter to try to eat them.  Not too much damage was done, though, once she figured out it wasn't cookies.  So, here are a few more pictures we've taken of Melanie this past month.  Enjoy!

It's a Girl!

Melanie Jean Joyner arrived this afternoon at 4:41 pm weighing 7 lbs. 4 oz. and 20.5 inches long.  She has a full head of light brown hair, ten fingers, ten toes, and eyes that melt my heart.  She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen............

Mother and daughter are both doing great.  Joanna was able to feed her minutes after the birth and just finished her second feeding this evening.........so far so good.  Now, let's see if we can get some sleep tonight!

Thanks to all of you who have been thinking of us, helping us, and guiding us along this journey.  Though it has just begun we feel like so much has already been accomplished.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Love-Mark, Joanna, and Melanie

Labor Day

6 AM-

Good morning world, we're gonna be parents today!  Joanna and I are waking up here at northside hospital in a fog from a short restless night numb from the sleep aids.  Joanna had a couple ambien before bed and I had advil PM.  Man that stuff works well.........scary 

Joanna is hanging in there.  She has been having very mild contraction since Friday afternoon when we got here.  Though she couldn't feel them yesterday, through the night they have been increasing in strength and are now mildly noticable.  Her cervix is measuring 5cm this morning which is a good sign as she had progressed through the night.  The nurse just came in and started the petocin.  Which should really get things going........not long now

Joanna has asked several times "when can we start the epidural?"  "How long will it take to get the epidural started?"  "If I go into labor, will it be too late for the petocin?"  She's a little nervous about the pain, if you can't tell.  We both tend to jointly reply "NO" when any of the nurses ask if we want to go "natural".  I know I know, no pain no gain, right......wrong

12 PM-

Joanna is now dialated 8cm!.....not long now.  She got her epdiural this morning and has been very comfortable laying in the bed since.  We've even gotten a couple naps in.  I think I've seen more of ESPN's gameday today than I have all year!  Joanna is handling all this in stride.  As matter of fact she just told the nurse "this is fun".  Maybe it's the drugs, I don't know, but this doesn't exactly seem like fun to me.  Beautiful experience, yes.  Memorable event, most certainly, but fun?.............

2 PM-

Time to push.......Joanna is fully dialated, Melanie is in position, and it's time to push. Joanna's body has done all the work it can do on it's own without her pushing.  Time to cowgirl up and push this baby out!

Showers!

Last weekend we had our 4th and final shower at Shannon's house.  Now we can say that we have everything we need for our new little arrival.  Now, it's just a waiting game until she decides to make her appearance.  I hope it's soon though, because my ankles won't be able to take much more.  Right now, it looks like I have a thick pipe for a leg that runs straight down into my foot...no ankle bones can be seen.  This weekend we have a wedding to go to (Chris Carney), and I hope they're okay with me wearing flip flops with my dress.  Because that's about all my feet will fit into!  The showers started a few weeks ago in Auburn with my family at Debbie Hamby's house.  That's where we loaded up on all our Auburn baby gear.  Melanie got her first cheerleader outfit, and she got a matching Auburn stroller.   We got a ton of stuff, and I don't know how we made it home with it all. 

Just a few days after that, we  had a shower at my office.  We were really surprised with all the gifts we got there!  I guess I was just expecting to have some cake and for everyone to chip in on a gift, but everyone went out and got baby presents for us.  I guess people just like to shop for babies!  We don't have any pictures from this one.  Mark came to the shower, but we forgot to bring our camera.  The next shower we had was at Gabby and Liz's house.  This one was with our friends here in Atlanta.  Kelly had never met Gabby before, but they worked together to throw a beautiful shower!  This one was especially fun for me, because I got to drink fake beer! 

Finally, we had the shower at Shannon's house with Mark's family this past weekend.  We got some really adoreable outfits, and we even got two homemade baby blankets!  We played the game where everyone has to guess my belly size.  Mark was way off...which he should have gotten in trouble for!  The winner was Wesley.  He guessed almost exactly right!  I'm still not sure how he did that.  He must have had some help! 

      

 

So, a big thank you goes out to everyone helped us get ready for Melanie by throwing all these showers.   It's so nice to have family and friends that want to help us out.  We're so lucky to have you all!  The album with pictures from all the showers is over on the left.  Next time we post, we hope to be proud parents!

"Homework"

For a while this summer, people kept asking us if we had Melanie's room ready.  Well, a big part of getting her room ready was finding a place for all the stuff that was in there already.  We were using that room as an office.  We had a large desk with our computer stuff on it and a huge rolling bookshelf that dominated the room.  Luckily, for Christmas we got a laptop.  So, we were able to get rid of the desk and the desktop computer pretty easily.  The next thing we needed was a place to put all of our books.  We've always had this weird space in our bedroom that no furniture would really fit in.  So, Mark decided to build a built-in bookcase there.  It took a while to finish, but it really turned out great.   

   

A few weeks ago, we also decided to take the plunge and get our bathtub fixed, once and for all.  Pretty soon after Mark bought this house, we could tell that the previous owners had tried to "re-finish" the bathtub by putting this glaze stuff on the tub to make it look new.  The glaze started chipping off, and really just made the tub look even worse that it did before.  There were also places where the grout had worn out of the cracks, and it looked like dark moldy lines.  It really bugged me, since I'm the one who likes to take baths.  With Melanie coming, we wanted to do something to fix the tub for her as well.  The main problem with doing anything in the bathroom, is that it's our only one.  If we went through a renovation, like we did with the kitchen, we would be without a bathroom for quite a while.  We could not think of a way to make that work, so Mark contacted Re-Bath, and the guy came out to the house to tell us about it.  Well, after hearing about the product, Mark and I were sold.  One of the biggest selling points was that if  they found any water damage in the walls, when they went to install the new walls, they would cover the cost for any repairs.  Also, the work that was done was guaranteed for the life of our house.  So, if there ever is any water damage, leaks, etc., then they would come out and take care of any repairs.  Finally, and most importantly, their work was guaranteed to be finished in one day.  So, we wouldn't be without our shower at all.  It cost more than we had hoped to pay, but we're really happy with the results.