I guess I'm keeping this blog :) UPDATE

I decided I should probably keep this blog since Lee's is primarily going to be for his buisness. I've been completely slacking off on keeping people updated, sorry!

Where to begin??? Lee graduated in December and since then we've been living in Valdez with my family while we look for work...kind of slow in the winter! I came back to Alaska a few weeks earlier then Lee because I was very pregnant and wouldn't be able to fly with him.

Beware, this next section will be LONG:

That was the trip from hell let me tell you....I HATE DELTA AIRLINES WITH A PASSION! I left Idaho Falls around 4:45 on November 28th (about an hour behind schedule), after dealing with some "less then friendly" personel, and arrived in SLC too late to make my connecting flight due to weather. This was no problem as I was simply bumped to the next flight to Portland and my boarding passes showed that I would still be able to make my connection to Anchorage at 10:50 from Portland. So I sat around the SLC airport for a few hours and then boarded the flight to Portland. We were all aware that all the flights were delayed for about an hour due to the weather, which was still fine. But, we then proceeded to spend almost two hours on the tarmack because our de-icer truck ran out of juice (just my luck). I finally made it to Portland at around 10:35pm and I was all excited because I was gonna make my flight!!! NOPE. The plane left at 10:05 instead even though my boarding card for that flight clearly said 10:50pm. Needless to say I was very upset. I went to talk to the personel and they simply ignored the fact that they gave me the wrong boarding card! I NEVER WOULD HAVE BOARDED THE PLANE IF I KNEW THE CORRECT TIME! No way would I have made it! Then they tried to make me collect my bags....yeah...I'm 8 months pregnant with three 50 lb. boxes. So I refused and they finally agreed to send them on to Anchorage without me. They "put" me in a hotel and had to send me back to SLC the next afternoon because there were no more openings on flights to Anchorage from Portland or SLC till two days later. They then refused to give me a hotel for the next night and I would've been screwed if we didn't have some awesome friends living in the SLC area that I could stay with. So I waited around with them for another day and a half, was driven to the airport, and was the only one in the security line! My only break! But then they tried to make me go through the new x-ray machines even though it was VERY obvious that I was pregnant. I refused and had the pat down even though they assured me it was a perfectly "safe amount of radiation". Bull, they don't know squat about the amount of radiation. This was also about my 4th time having to go through stupid security. I finally made it on my plane (redeye) and had a horrible seat in the very back isle, but I didn't care because I just wanted to be home! I got to Anchorage very early the next morning, went to a hotel, and then flew back to Valdez...FINALLY! I was an exhausted mess! Then I found that my luggage had been slightly less then destroyed in the traveling process! I even had some shoes missing from one box that had been horribly re-taped! I was pretty much treated like crap by everyone I had to deal with except one lady. I can't believe people are that mean to pregnant women traveling alone!

Needless to say I wrote a scathing email to Delta about this experience and they SOOOO kindly gave me a $50 travel voucher for my future travels. Yeah...like I'm ever going to fly with them again. Then a few weeks later I look on my credit card account and they CHARGED ME FOR THE HOTEL IN PORTLAND!!!! I was so ANGRY! Lee called and complained and they completely wrote him off. He explained that we understood they aren't responsible for weather delays, but they are responsible for boarding me on a plane that they knew very well wasn't going to make it in time for my connection. So I had to pay for my hotel room when they clearly indicated that it was on them......GRRRR. That's enough ranting about Delta......I hate them, enough said. It's just very surprising that I didn't have a complete breakdown being as hormonal as I was.... I was just too tired.

So....on to better things :) We had our baby girl on January 3rd!!! She was being pretty stubborn because we were doing everything we could to have her before the 1st for tax reasons :) I was actually due on the 9th, so she was still a week early. It was a pretty lengthy experience :)

Another long section:

My water broke on January 1st around 9pm. I was relieved because within the last two weeks I had swollen to roughly the size of a baby whale :) I started having mild contractions and we ended up going to the hospital to get checked around 11:30 or so when they were about 7 min. apart, but not very regular. I was only dilated to a 2, but my water had definitely broken so they wouldn't let me leave or induce me. I was kind of mad I had to stay there, but oh well. So the doctor said he'd start pitocin after 24hrs if hard labor still hadn't begun. It didn't... I had super irregular contractions that varied in strength, and the hospital monitor couldn't get a good read on them. My body was pretty much doing nothing the way it was supposed to. So I had to stay in "mild" labor for another whole day.

They finally started the pitocin after I got an epidural on the 3rd around 2pm. After the epidural I was so exhausted that I just crashed! A little after 5pm I was at 10cm so I started to push. My baby had still not dropped at this point. So, we had to wait for her to drop, her head to cone, and for my muscles to move out of the way...all the while I'm having to push. The doctor said that I had too tight of muscle bands that the baby had to push through, so I was in for a rough time...YAY! :) I also wasn't allowed to have any more pain meds at this point as the machine still wasn't reading my contractions correctly. They needed me to be able to really feel when I needed to push. So, after 2 1/2 hrs of pushing, she was finally here, and SOOO Beautiful! I can't believe how much we love that little girl! Lee was such a trooper for the whole ordeal, MUCH better than I thought! He doesn't typically do well with blood and stuff :)

Now Addison is almost 11 weeks old and is so fun! Those first few weeks were pretty rough, she hated nursing so that only lasted for 3 weeks. She had her days and nights completely mixed up, so I was pretty tired (Lee sleeps through her cries :) She is also the most gassy little thing ever so she had belly aches a lot. We've switched her to a sensitive formula now and she's so much better! She's grins constantly and is starting to squeal and giggle, it's so cute! She can't roll over yet, but her head is in the 95th percentile so she does good just to get it off the ground! :) She's such a beautiful little blessing and I can't believe how much I love her more and more everyday.

I turned 24 three days after Addie was born, and dropped 20lbs of water weight....still a long way to go but I'm glad to be done being pregnant for hopefully at least a couple of years :)

Sorry for the long post, but it's been too long with too much going on!! Here's our little angel :)