Here are a few more pics from the day Alex was born :) I have to buy a new camera since my camera bit the dust! Any suggestions??? I have no idea what kind I want/need! I want it to be good, but not overly pricey! Help!!! I will download more as I can :)

What a week!!

Let me preface this by saying that our camera was accidentally dropped during the hospital stay and is now broken. So i will have better pics later...

Well, Miss Alexander Anne Cougle made her unexpected arrival last Tuesday at 11:55 AM. She has been PERFECT!! We cannot complain one iota about her eating and sleeping habits thus far! She is eating about every 3 hours during the day and sleeping about four hours at night between feedings, so no complaints here :) So...here is what happened...

BJ and I went to the MD Monday morning for my check-up, and we had a sonogram. It showed two interesting things. First, that i only had a small pocket of amniotic fluid left. oops. So we knew we would be going back to the md alot more often over the coming weeks. Secondly, it showed Alex was weighing in at 8lbs 14oz. So needless to say, with 3 weeks left to go, I thought i was carrying a giant :) So, we see the MD, I get "checked" - nothing really happening. I go back to work. That afternoon around 1 or 2pm, I started cramping. I thought absolutely nothing about it because he had checked me, and I knew that was a common side effect. We were pretty steady at work, so I wasn't paying attention to the fact that they were getting worse and closer together. I didn't realized something was up until I was walking to my car and had to stop halfway there. I called Courtney, who is a nurse at the women's clinic, for advice. I took her advice and said I would call her back. So i am laid out on the couch willing the pain to go away. Mind you, it really hasn't occured to me that I could actually be in labor -- that was the farthest thing from my mind!! At this point, thankfully, Lauren had this weird feeling she should come check on me. She walked in, took one look at me, and said you are in labor. I vehemently denied this claim. So we called Courtney back, and she called up to L&D. Luckily my doctor was on call, and he said to send me straight in. I forgot to mention...BJ is working at Walgreens until 10pm. So, LJ takes me to the hospital -- luckily i had actually packed my bag the night before. I call BJ, and we both think MD will send me right back home because I couldn't possibly be in labor. We get to the hospital , the hook me up to the monitors, check me, and MD says..."you are definitley in labor, you are being admitted". I was having strong contractions every two minutes. I am pretty sure I just sat there in shock. All I could think was that my procrastination was really shining at this moment. The nursery wasn't finished, heck, most things weren't finished. We were going to be doing this on the fly. So, then the really funny phone calls to my husband and family ensued. BJ just kept saying...."really?" over and over. Lauren stayed with me in the hospital until Laura Merrill arrived at about 10pm. BJ finally got there around 11pm -- he had to go home a get a bag (remember we are procrastinators). So we were in L&D all night, and at 4am they started pitocin to speed things up. I was 2cm. At 7 they broke my water....still 2cm. At 8:30, I finally got some pain meds (stadol and phenergan) and proceeded into a coma-like state until about 11am. All my family had arrived while I was comatose, and there was a small party in the room when I woke up. Let me tell you, that is how you endure labor...sleep thru it! The only problem was I continued to fall asleep in the middle of conversations for the rest of the day...oops! Well, the doctor checks me at 11:30 thinking I can get an epidural now. Well...you guessed it...still 2cm!!!! So we decide that after being in labor in the hospital for 16 hours and not progressing AT ALL, that it was time for a c-section. I am pretty sure he could have suggested anything at that point and i would have been gung-ho. I go in for the section to get my spinal, and the poor doctor had a hard time getting it because I kept falling asleep...oops again. Finally, I had more drugs running thru me and Bj was allowed to come in. I don't remember much from here because I kept falling asleep. But I do remember (vaguely)the first time I saw Alex. The MD said "look to your left and you can see your daughter". I did, and my first thougth was ....black hair...seriously? i'm blaming that on the drugs too. Soon afterwards, BJ and Alex were wisked away for the weigh-in (7lbs 3oz....slightly off from the 8lbs 14oz estimation), the foot stamping, and the first bath. I was then wisked away to recovery for the next three hours.

So...she is here, she is perfect, and she is everything BJ and I have hoped and prayed for for so many years. Neither one of us could feel more blessed right now! We finally got home from the hospital on Friday. My mom has been with us ever since (BJ had to go back to work on Saturday). Things are going great!! Here are more pics from the past week, and I will definitely update soon!!


well...tried to upload pics for about an hour...will try later :)

The final countdown...

Are you singing the song yet? Personally, I can't get that great 80's song out of my head. That is the only part of the song i know though. Anyways....

It's less than four weeks to go on the baby countdown! That little bouncing baby is almost to the end of her journey!! I went to the MD yesterday and I am definitely progressing. I have barely started dialating, but the non-stress test showed I am having contractions about every 1½ to 2 minutes. Can't feel any of it, so they are not very strong. We are definitely getting somewhere though :) I am just about ready for her to get here....I still have a few more things to accomplish. I'm such a procrastinator!!! I go back to the MD on monday, and we are having a sonogram. If I get some good ones, I will post pics!

On a completely different topic... our blissful small-town Starkville summer is over! The students have started decending as evidenced by long lines at the grocery store, crazy traffic on hwy 12, and the massive wait today at mccallisters (where, by the way, I was refered to as "that pregnant lady over there"). I forget every year what a difference 18,000 students make :) Don't get me wrong, I am very glad they are here! I just have to get readjusted to everything.

Hope everyone has an excellent weekend!!

Has it been a month already?!?!

Wow! I remember looking at BJ in May and telling him that this was not going to be a busy summer...we really have nothing going on. HA! was i wrong! We have had so much to do and such a fun summer! July has been chock full of things. We started off the month with Walker's 2nd birthday party. It is so hard to believe he is two. He had a wonderful Bob the Builder party. Everybody had lots of fun, and Courtney even made a precious dump truck cake.

The next weekend, we were in Greenville for my baby shower. I had THE BEST time! It was so nice, and I had so much fun. Here are a few pics that Allison took.

I included the pic of just me because it cracks me up....I look like I am so suprised....totally not a surprise party....i'm such a doofus. The food was wonderful, and aren't those cookies precious? It was sooooo good to have all my family and friends together to celebrate Alex's pending arrival.

Let's see, the next weekend, we went to a surprise party for Jason and Casey. They both were turning 30, so Shannon and Courtney put together a little shindig to celebrate. For BJ and I to be able to keep the party hidden from the two of them was quite funny. BJ cannot lie to save his life, and came up with this outrageous story for Casey to throw him off. That story led to Casey getting really upset with Courtney...whew, we were glad when the party got here. It was all worth it that night though. We had lots of fun :)

i'll post more later...lunch break is over :)

A Wicked Weekend

On Saturday afternoon, BJ and I headed up to Memphis for a night of fun. We started off having dinner at a new restaurant in Memphis. It is called Flight. It was fantastic!!! It was opened by one of Greenville's own. Lauren Street Powers husband is part owner. The whole concept of the restaurant centers around flights of wine. They also have flights of food -- from appetizers all the way to dessert. We had the Seafood flight appetizer that had some amazing BBQ-shrimp. I had the salad flight. Very cool -- one salad was watermelon, feta, and mint, and another was avocado and mandarin orange. Soooo good. BJ had the Fish Flight for his entree -- we were both very impressed. The halibut was fantastic. And you know me, I had to get dessert. My choices were the creme brulee flight, the chocolate flight, the cheesecake flight, and the sorbet flight. It was a tough choice, but creme brulee won in the end. There was a vanilla, chocolate, and orange creme brulee. It was a perfect end to great meal. I highly recommend you check it out if you are in memphis!

After the meal, BJ and I went to see Wicked!! It was so good!! We actually saw it on our 3rd anniversary in Atlanta, so this was our 2nd go round. It was just as good this time if not better! FYI to anyone that is going.... the girl who plays Elpheba just finished playing her on Broadway... she is phenomenal!! I hope everyone gets a chance to see it while it is in town :)

And the name is...

Alexander Anne Cougle -- we will be calling her Alex. I cannot believe I only have 10 weeks to go. Time sure does fly! I had my 30 week checkup this morning. She sounded great. I was pretty anemic -- whoo hoo. Other than that, things look good. Her room is coming along -- at a snails pace. I will post pics when it is done!

The latest goings on...

First off....Happy Birthday (late) Laura Merrill!! LMA turned 27 on Monday. BJ and I headed to Greenwood on Sunday to help her celebrate. We had a great time with some bean bag game (i'm forgetting the name), Mexican Lasagna, and Jessica's Funfetti cake. It was all yummy! Doesn't Laura Merrill look fantastic? And you know...i actually thought I was tan, and then I stood next to jessica. oh well. I think this may be the first "bump" picture I have posted. I was 28 weeks and 4 days in that pic. It is steadily growing now :)

The other "entertainment" Bj and I have been enduring is child birth classes. oh my. I am definately one of those people who likes to know what I am getting myself into. This may have been a little much. I had seen a birth before, thanks to Mrs. Noble's 10th grade biology class, but it was definitely different knowing it would be happening in 11 weeks. I think I personally learned more about labor and delivery on our girls trip to orange beach. I think I know lots of different scenarios that can happen :) I think the thing I have enjoyed the most is watching BJ go thru this with me. I totally expected to have to drag him there every week and keep his cell phone away from him. Now, neither one of us are particullarly jumping for joy to go on Mondays, but he has really taken to the class. He pays attention and has actually learned alot. It is so cute! We practiced swaddling babies last monday, and BJ and the largest,fattest baby in the room -- it didn't go real well. So as long as we don't have an overly large baby, we will be doing good. We have our last class on Monday night, so I will let ya'll know how it goes. Til then...