Remember when we met all those years ago? We look like babies in this picture, maybe because we pretty much were.

For a long time it was just us two and we had some pretty amazing times and lots of laughs.

But then this Hooligan joined our party. We fell in love with her snorts and wrinkles.

And then we got hitched – to this day I love our wedding more than I ever imagined I would. It was awesome, mostly because I think we’re awesome.

Finally, we got another Hooligan. She doesn’t have as many wrinkles and she only sometimes snorts, but we love her just the same.

To the future!

Happy Anniversary, Barry!

So, we went out to dinner the other night.

Without Maggie.

Dinner was delicious, the conversation was fantastic and I really enjoyed sitting down to eat a full meal with My Man.  But leaving Maggie was more difficult than I ever imagined it would be, even though there were six (yes,six!) adults ready to care for her.  My parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle were all at my grandparent’s and Barry and I left Maggie for a whole hour almost….GASP!!

I found myself saying ridiculous things to my grandma about making sure Maggie was breathing and other first-time-mother type of things, as if my grandmother didn’t raise two of her own children and rock all of her grandbabies to sleep. I just couldn’t help myself.

I once read that having a child is like having your heart walk around outside your body. It is so true, even if you are going down the street for an hour to eat sushi with your wonderful husband.

It isn’t as if I’ll never, ever do it again, but next time I leave my baby I’m going to prepare myself a bit more emotionally so I don’t have to choke back my own tears as she fights sleep in the arms of another.

Because, man alive, I love going on dates with That Barry.

He makes me smile.

My dad bought a SUP and brought it to the beach and Barry, not being one to shy away from new water-related experiences, was thrilled to try to SUP for the first time.

After determining that the waves were just right and the cloud cover might go away, Barry opted to put down his surfboard and pick up the paddle and HUGE board to SUP.

I learned my lesson long, long ago not to knock the size of the waves at Neah Bay, or any other beach for that matter. For that reason alone I was so impressed with Barry’s ability to stay balanced and actually ride the board. Go, B-Mills!

After a while Barry came to shore and ditched the paddle, taking the enormous board out to surf on it. I tell you, that Man of Mine was born to be in the water!

He doesn’t really like it when I get all mushy about him on the blogosphere, but he looked suuuuper cute too.

No wonder we’ve got such a cute kid.

Last night as we were falling asleep I had to warn Barry that if he woke up and saw that there was a woman with a tattoo sleeping next to him not to be too alarmed – it was just me. I had affixed a big sticker on my arm as if it was a tat. It came from the rice candy box, you know those candies that have rice paper wrapped around them? Ohhhh…..they are so delicious it is a bit ridiculous.

I found myself at the grocery store last night to pick up some rice that we needed for dinner and I ended up coming home with a very random assortment of things, one being the tasty rice candies. I think it might be unsafe for me to go grocery shopping sans list.

Wait! I had a list, remember?  Rice. Anyhow, I came home with my treats and everyone was happy. After we put the Magpie in her jammies we spent a little bit of time outside enjoying the evening air. I’ve really missed the sun and the ease of being outside in the heat of the day. Oh, I digress.

Basically, we were sitting there re-hashing my grocery store trip and our daily triumphs and some sirens started to go off.

You’d think that Maggie bugged her eyes out when they started making noise, but you’d be wrong if that was your thinking. She started to bug her eyes out when Sydney made a bee line towards the noise.

Syd made it to the edge of her stoop growling and looking around with her bone hanging from her mouth. She stood there for a good minute before the bone tumbled to the ground and she took off around the yard barking her head off.

Barry  went back to staring at Maggie and Maggie went back to….well, being the cutest little nugget in the world. I went back to staring at my sticker-tattoo and eating the delicious rice candies.

Just another Wednesday night at HBHQ.

My husband is awesome.

Aside from a small duct tape malfunction, my husband spent the better part of yesterday being awesome.

Today he is still awesome.

Aside from the fact he didn’t get to train as much as he’d like – because he’s busy being an awesome dad – he spent the better part of today being awesome.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you what made him awesome the day before yesterday.

So, today was the day that my mom had been predicting that Miss Maggie Mae would arrive and since it was my mom making that prediction, I secretly felt like she knew something I didn’t. Thankfully, moms can be wrong and Maggie is here and I’m not welcoming a May Day baby.

So much is happening this month: I’ll celebrate my first Mother’s Day as a mom, two of my best friends (Erin & Lara) are having babies, and we’ll do our first trip up to Camp Janet, etc.

I’m happy to welcome this month with all the newness that Maggie brings, never again will May be the same now that Maggie Mae is here!

Yahoo!

A precaution.

I could take that.

Kurt, the nurse from the Special Care Nursery, came to our room and introduced himself to us and explained what would be happening over the next few hours – an IV and antibiotics started for Maggie.

Barry and I walked with Kurt and Maggie across the hall to the Special Care Nursery where they hooked our little girl up to a line of antibiotics to help fight something she may or may not have. After Maggie got settled into her little corner area of the nursery I had a long conversation with her about why she was in the nursery – making it clear that in 48 hours we were going home and that she most certainly did NOT have an infection.

hospital stay (Video: click to see HB + Maggie in our little corner of the nursery. I was blog posting from Barry’s phone, go figure!)

As the 48 hours crept by Barry and I took shifts staring at our little package and got to know the nursing staff – again, I have a new perspective of what it means to be a nurse – . The nursery closes for one hour every 12 hours for the nursing shift change and we spent this time either napping or showering since staring at Maggie was not an option during the shift change.

Our families came by and took turns coming into the nursery to hold Maggie since only one person could be in the nursery at a time with either Barry or myself present. Since I looked at this time as a precautionary measure, I was able to function fairly well. The nursing staff was on the bandwagon of “Maggie’s going home in ____ hours!”

Overall the stay in the nursery was a blur and I’m fine looking back on that time with cloudy vision – I didn’t want to get too comfortable there and certainly didn’t want Maggie to either. Having a machine beep every time she moved to a strange position was not a noise I wanted to become immune to.

Long story short – because this is already a long story – the blood culture  came back negative, our baby girl is hearty, healthy and just perfect.

After an additional 48 hours in the hospital we were able to break her from the joint and take her home!!!!!

Best feeling ever.

Shocked isn’t even the best word to describe how Barry and I felt a we walked down the hall to our hospital room – the room that was meant for us to go through a life changing experience in, the room that was meant for us to greet our daughter, the room that we’d spend hours in awaiting the arrival of something that we made together.

Apparently we lucked out with the room because it was the corner suite that is typically used for twins to be born, staff members use it and people request it. It was huge and had a sweeping view of Lynnwood – lucky us! In the distance you could look and see the mountains if the cloud cover was just right.

Since my water had broken and we weren’t sure how long it had been the concern was that there was only a short amount of time to get Maggie out before the risk for infection became a concern. So, much to my chagrin, pitocin was started to get my body to start laboring again.

At this point we met our nurse, Teryl, as she came onto her shift. She was cheerful and made sure that we were comfortable. Phone calls had been made to our parents and siblings and people were on the way to the hospital. Brian, hearing that we’d been checked in, left work immediately and came to hang out with us. He came in and sat and talked with us as if it were normal for me to have contractions in between bits of nonsense conversation.

As I stood beside the bed and waited for each contraction to come Barry was next to me making me laugh and rubbing my back, feeding me ice chips to ensure that I’d get through each one. As the drugs kicked in the contractions did as well and boy, they hurt! I kept trying to describe to Barry what they felt like and each description seemed to contradict the previous one, so I stopped.

My body decided – or maybe it was the pitocin – that it didn’t want to give me a break in between contractions, which made for long contractions and short,short breaks. By this time my mom had arrived at the hospital and was in and out checking to see my progress and also going to HBHQ – where Barry’s parents were – to check in on The Syd.

After a couple hours of standing by the bed contracting, I transitioned into bed and proceeded to have the most awful contractions yet. Up until this point I’d been able to listen to Barry and focus, but suddenly the pain became unbearable and difficult to withstand. I was 5 cm dilated and the idea of breathing through the pain to get to 10 cm really didn’t sit well. Yelling, crying and trying to breathe did nothing to soothe the pain that embraced my body. Four contractions in five minutes….oh, the pain.

I decided to get an epidural.

Barry and I had talked at length about this choice over the last months and, although not ideal, after feeling a few hours of labor pains, it suddenly seemed like a fantastic option. While we waited for the anesthesiologist  the conversation was minimal, as Barry held onto my hand and coached me through the painful cramping.

The anesthesiologist  came to our room looking like he was fresh out of high school and remarked to us that we got the best room. By this time he arrived and set up shop I was more than ready to have some of the pain dissipate . I felt somewhat wimpy, but also knew that continuing on in the state that I was in wasn’t ideal for me.

Hunkering down with Barry holding my hands and the young doctor behind me – Nurse Teryl was busy re-doing my IV – I proceeded to be still long enough for the good doctor to poke a scary hole in my back. Of course the epidural didn’t kick in right away, so I continued to contract and Barry continued to feed ice chips into my mouth.

Eventually the epidural set in and I was, again, back to feeling like I was myself again, still feeling the contractions, but not in pain. Hallelujah! Around this time Barry’s parents made an appearance along with my mom, Flip was still at home mowing the lawn and would head down later in the evening. Alison Krauss and The Dixie Chicks played quietly in the background as we waited for things to speed up.

Speed up they did – Nurse Teryl had to leave and Trish became our new nurse. Trish is a large, blonde woman that is in the line of work that she is meant to be doing. She was AMAZING. All the nurses were amazing, but Trish basically delivered my baby and did a bazillion other things that I never imagined nurses would need to do.

The doctor  came and checked on me again and announced that I was 7 cm dilated, which meant that Baby Miller would soon be with us! Dr.Rogers looked at me and told me to rest up because I had a marathon coming up and she was going to go rest up and she’d see me soon.

Jump a few hours and a few more pop ins from the moms – and eventually Trish informed me that it was time to push. She also informed me that – TMI alert – having a baby is a lot like pooping a pumpkin. I have never pooped a pumpkin, so I really had no frame of reference, but in case you are wondering, I think this was a pretty good description and thought of it frequently during the next hours.

We turned up the music and started the rhythm and routine of pushing, relaxing, eating ice, pushing, relaxing, eating ice. During this time Barry was unbelievable – feeding me ice, letting me push against him in every way and encouraging me with sweet words and numbers. At one point we labored in a position that would mean that Maggie could torpedo out onto Barry’s body – after being in this position for  quite some time Barry quietly announced that his leg was falling asleep and needed to move. I wonder if his leg was really asleep or if he just didn’t feel like catching Maggie on her arrival.

Pushing, pushing, pushing for three hours and no Maggie. Ugh. Trish and Barry kept telling me that I was close – whatever that means…I just knew that I didn’t have a baby in my arms and I felt like I was pooping a pumpkin. (Sorry, but it’s true).

At one point Barry looks at me and says, “Uh, oh. Uh, oh! She’s got Flip’s bald spot!”

I was mid push and really wanted to laugh, but at the same time didn’t find it funny that my baby might have the same male pattern baldness that my father has been walking around with for decades.

With hours slipping by and we said goodbye to April 19th and hello to the dreaded 4/20, I was ready to be done pushing. My doctor arrived after Trish called her. Dr. Rogers informed us that Maggie needed to come out soon and that she might need to use extra help getting her out – and she wasn’t going to use a vacuum.

If necessary, she’d use forceps.

So, I started a different post today all about how last weekend I spent my time convinced that a baby was not on the horizon. Go figure that I’m unable to finish the post today because that very, very cute baby has appeared in my life (lucky me!) and time has slipped away.

Our families have been so amazing – the door revolves and they arrive with food, smiles and arms to hold Maggie. Friends have reached out and are waiting patiently – we thank you for your patience. We know you too want to meet Miss Maggie and your time will come.

Tonight Barry’s parents are here and tomorrow will be the Great Grandparent Summit for my side of the family. It is all overwhelming, but in the very best way possible.  Maggie has already made so many people so happy. Imagine that. Three days old and already putting smiles on faces.

The take-away for me today is that when I awake and say I’m going to do something, it is okay if it doesn’t necessarily get done if I’m happy, Barry is happy and our little girl is happy.

And believe me, we’re happy.

There is so much to write about and so many pictures to share.

We finally made it home today – phew!

Barry’s dancing around with Maggie attached to his chest listening to our iPod on random.

We are so in love with this little girl.

So strange that Today is Thursday and we’ve got a sweet little thing to smooch on because on Monday I was certain that I still had another week of being enormously pregnant.

I need to go watch the dance moves that Barry’s busting out with Maggie. Syd and I are great audience members.

Tomorrow I’ll write about how our week started out….