Nearly 2 weeks old?!?!?

I put this together in my free time and thought it would be fun to share. There is sound, so turn it up if you'd like to get the full effect.



Saturday morning, we woke up early and ventured out to the Farmstead for the 7th annual Chicken Run. We were able to introduce Gillian to all of the Farmstead employees that she has gotten to know so well over the past 2 years. After that, we went home and got a little nap in before Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Smith visited. Gillian is their 2nd great grandchild, so as you can imagine, they were both very excited to meet Gillian. Aunt Amy visited for a few minutes on Saturday before work. Gillian's Great Aunt Angie and Great Uncle Jeff visited on Saturday and helped out around the house that evening and Sunday morning.

Sunday evening, Grandma and Grandpa Youngman, along with Aunt Catherine drove in to visit from Tulsa.

Gillian is doing wonderfully. She is awake much more and for longer periods of time.

Back to work

Well, it was back to work for me this morning. That was definitely the hardest thing about this past week. My intention was to come back this week though as opposed to on Monday...that way I get a couple days off after my first day back.

Anyway...enough about me....Gillian is doing wonderfully. She is sleeping in 3-4 hour blocks of time during the night, so that means she's only up once in between the time we actually go to bed and the time that we get up. VERY cool. Our week has been filled with visitors, which has been incredible. Thank you so much (again) to everyone for your generosity and kindness. We couldn't do this without you.

Gillian's first trip to the doctor was yesterday. She now weighs 7 lbs. 7 oz. and has gained an inch on her length (why is it that when babies are measured, they are in length, but when adults discuss how tall someone is, it's referred to as height? -- possibly because babies are laying down all the time??? one of life's little mysteries, I suppose) Anyway, Gillian's weight puts her in the 50th percentile and her height puts her in the 80th percentile. All of Gillian's stuff aside, the doctor was more concerned with Michelle and I's general health, since we both are having quite a battle with poison ivy. Let's hope it gets better soon....the doctor has already given me 1 cortisone shot, 2 steroid packs, and has now prescribed a compound gel to put on the affected area. If the "PIG Gel" doesn't fix it, we will be forced to let it run it's course. In the meantime, I'm not allowed to hold Gillian at all... :( Dr. Sarah gave Michelle a steroid pack prescription, so hopefully that will kick in very soon too...

I'll leave you all with this picture. This one is definitely inthe running for sweetest picture ever.

Web Albums

I have created 3 web albums for everyone to view. There are pictures from the hospital and then from the 3 days that we have been home. You can either watch the slide shows by clicking on the Play arrow within the pictures you want to see, or if you want to download any of the pictures, follow the links above the embedded slideshow and select "Download Album". Let me know what you guys think. Would you rather view them on this page or go to the web albums to download pictures.....I'm just trying out the embedded player to see if I like it or not.

Gillian's Night



Gillian Day 2 & 3



Gillian Comes Home



The first 3 days have been a dream. The first 2 nights went very, very well, but last night proved to be a bit of a challenge for the first time. That's okay though, we made it through with no major hiccups. That just meant that Mommy and Daddy got to nap when Gillian napped.

We have had several visitors in the past few days. Nana and Pops (Matt's folks) came up for a visit on Sunday and brought Uncle Garry, Uncle Austin, and Garry's girlfriend Morgan. Uncle Josh, Aunt Abby and Aunt Amy also made appearances. Everyone was very excited to get to hold Gillian. Also on Sunday, Dan and Margie Coon stopped in for a quick visit.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty low key. Several neighbors came by to visit and meet Gillian. Megan, Josh and Abby, and Amy were all over at the house at various points. They're addicted to our little Gilly bean :)

In between our visits with friends and family, Michelle and I have just fallen further in love with Gillian Grace. It's amazing what one little person can do to your life's perspective.

To all of you who have been so very kind over these past few days, thank you. It means the world to us. We are so blessed to have such great friends and family. To all those who haven't been able to see Gillian yet, we hope you will be able to soon and we will give her plenty of hugs and kisses from everyone.


One of my favorite pictures from the 1st few days....Uncle Josh is pretty proud...

Gillian on Menorah's website

You can now see Gillian's pictures on the Menorah website. If the link did not work, you can copy and paste this address into your browser:

http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage_view.asp?URLID=7P1F9J4B2S

Everything is going well. Gillian is sleeping great and is generally not too fussy at all. She's absolutely perfect! More pictures later.....

We have video!

Yesterday morning in the hospital, Michelle took a little bit of video of Gillian for everyone to see. When I went to transfer it to the computer, the file format was something I'd never seen, so it took me a little while to figure it out, but now that I have......watch out world!



As I'm writing this, Mom and Gillian are sacked out on the couch together. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I went to grab the digital camera, but I was low on batteries, so I had to settle for the camcorder.



I looked again for Gillian's pictures on the Menorah Medical Center website, but I have yet to find them. I'll keep my eye out, but if anyone else notices them, shoot me an email or comment and I will post the link.

I'm still working on getting all of the pictures in web albums for everyone to peruse, but in the meantime here are a couple more of my favorite pictures from the last 2 days.

Gillian getting ready to head for home in her Chiefs gear!!

Gillian's first Saturday morning

At this point, she had only been out of the womb for just under 36 hours, but seemed nail the Saturday morning routine.

She's also had her portrait taken by the hospital photographer and her photos should be updated on the Menorah website within 24 hours. I'll post that link when I get it, but in the interim, here's a shot of Gillian in her special picture day outfit.

More pictures of Gillian

After Gillian was born, the nurse gave her a bath in the middle of the night. Here's a picture from that....

Yesterday brought more visitors and a day full of sleep. Here are a couple more pictures from her busy day.

Far be it from me to not include one of my favorite pictures of the day.

We were able to get a couple pictures with her eyes open yesterday and I wanted to share one of those. You can really see how blue her eyes are! The swelling from the birth is starting to go down, so she's able to open her eyes more often and for longer periods of time. She obviously did not have time to do her hair before this particular portrait.

Welcome Gillian Grace!

Gillian Grace Madison was born at 10:10 pm on July 12, 2007. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 4 oz. and measured at 19 1/2 inches long. She has a full head of jet black hair and the hair is about an inch long.

All told, Michelle was in labor for just under 12 hours, and is doing wonderfully. We are relaxing for the evening and hope to get a few minutes rest before Gillian comes back for another feeding. Right now, she is in the nursery, basking in the warmth of a heat lamp. She has gotten her first bath, and her hair has been washed. She has a mini-mohawk with all that hair!!

Here are some action photos from the day...

This is Michelle in the midst of her contractions during late morning on the 12th. We headed to the hospital between 1:30 and 2:00. I believe she was consulting with the doctor here and they were trying to determine what the course of action would be.
Here is Baby Gillian at a little after 10 o'clock. This is her first portrait :)

Here is all 3 of us!

I will be uploading a few more pictures to the web share site as soon as I can, so I don't take up blog bandwidth. As for now, Mommy and I are going to retire for the night. We both have a very calm and serene feeling right now. Today was the best day of my life.


My girls....

Michelle is in labor

Michelle went into labor around 10:45 this morning. After a few contractions and talking with the doctor, Dr. Sarah decided that it was time to come in. When we arrived at the hospital around 2 pm, Michelle was admitted. After being admitted, they checked Michelle and she was already dilated to 5 centimeters! She was given the epidural around 3:30. That seemingly slowed labor down and at last check (around 7 pm), she was dilated to nearly 8 centimeters. Michelle is now sleeping peacefully and everyone here at the hospital is playing the waiting game. She is doing wonderfully and we are both so very excited that tonight is the night when we add a new member to our family.

Happy Birthday to Will by the way!! Today is his 1st birthday. With any luck, the cousins will share a birthday.....

I'll post back soon....

not sure if you've heard -- MICHELLE IS PREGNANT

Just so everyone knows, once Michelle either goes into labor or has the baby, I will post just as soon as I can. Michelle thinks it will happen very soon. We've taken walks each of the last 2 nights, and late last night we finished packing our bags.

David, Michelle's brother came in to town last weekend and hung out with us for a while. We visited George Brett's restaurant on the plaza, and then on Saturday night, went and watched the Royals take on the Devil Rays. David hadn't been to a game since the early 90s, so that was pretty fun for everyone. Plus it was Buck Night at the ball park! Hot dogs, pop, and peanuts all for a dollar!

Well, here we go. I know you've all been waiting for these....Michelle's 9-month pregnancy pictures! This first one was taken at her shower given on the 23rd of June.

This was also taken at that shower.

These last 2 pictures were taken on Tuesday night. (Notice her shirt says "Coming this Summer" -- I love that shirt!)

so many things, so little time...

Among the many things on that there is little time for? The blog of course...

Last Thursday Michelle and I visited the Birthing Ward at Menorah Medical Center for a tour of their facilities. We were able to see the birthing room, along with the post-partum rooms. It looks to be every bit as good as advertised. The address for Menorah is 5721 W. 119th Street Overland Park, KS 66209. There is a very comfy lobby and waiting room, so in the event that anyone does want to come up to see us during the process, you can use Entry B and take the elevator to the 3rd floor. Here's a pretty good map of the facility. From what I remember, visiting hours are 9 am to 9 pm.



We had a visit with Dr. Boylan Thursday afternoon after the tour of the hospital. Since Dr. Fischer was out of town, she wanted us to go ahead and come in to see Dr. Boylan just to make sure everything was normal. As usual, everything went very well, and the visit was fairly quick.

We were finally able to procure the glider for the nursery, and then we also went and purchased the stroller/carrier/carseat combo from Babies R Us on Friday night. On Saturday, as previously mentioned, we ventured out into the monsoon to buy our new video camera. I love new toys like that! We've also begun buying diapers when we make trips to Target. We now have everything that we could conceivably need in order to bring home the baby.

On Tuesday, I took the day off and Michelle and I finished up a couple of landscaping projects that were lingering on for quite a while. Now that all of those outside projects are complete, we really are just waiting on baby to come home.

We had a few friends over on the 4th for a cookout, washers, and beanbags. We lost about an hour to a mid-afternoon thunderstorm, but after that moved out, we had a great time.