Pictures

Okay, so I get it. You want more pictures of Mackenzie. So here they are :).

Getting ready for a bath, and not quite sure what to think about it.Ready for our first trip to church since she was born, isn't she just the cutest??

Merry Christmas! Aren't I pretty in my Christmas dress? Also, I think I'm stuck in the couch.. help?!?!?

With Daddy at the Christmas party, we make silly faces at eachother :)

Who is this weird hairy man holding me? But aren't I cute posing??

So there she is, my beautiful and a bit silly baby. She's started smiling this week which makes life so rewarding. She loves to make faces back at us when we make some at her. I woke her up the other day to feed her and she looked up at me, cooed and smiled. Ahh, that was the best part of my day, right there. I'm loving this mommy thing, well, except for when she wakes me up screaming- but I just feed, change, or hold her and it's all better. :)

finishing...

Okay, so Matt came in and hit post before I had the chance to finish it. She's now blissfully asleep (thank God) and I get a few seconds to myself. The last few days/nights have been wonderful. Although she's not sleeping more than 4 hours at a time, she is sleeping in her crib or on the couch by herself. YAY!!! It's nice to sleep in a bed again instead of the recliner which had been my bestfriend for about 2 weeks. My back is thanking me, although it still complains that she's heavy. She is over 9 lbs now and lugging that dead weight that bobbles it's head everywhere is trying on both the back and the arms. Ahh, guess it'll make me buff! grrrrr!! :)

We finally ordered our Christmas cards, so if you want one, send me your address and I'll ship one off to ya. It's got 3 pictures, one of all 3 of us with Santa, one with me holding her, and one with Matt holding her. Turned out cute actually.

How do you get the dog to stop trying to jump on her and the cat to stop trying to lie on her while I'm holding her? The dog's doing better with me, but when Matt's got her, he goes crazy. I'm afraid our dang 17 lb cat will squish the poor baby!!! :) haha, yeah right, he's scared of her so whenever she makes a sound and he's nearby, he bolts like lightning. Speaking of sounds she makes, she's cooing like crazy-it's so much fun! She also squeaks, so I've taken to calling her Bat Girl when she gets in her squeaky moods, which is when she gets really excited. Baby sounds are fun, albeit annoying at 3 am when I'm trying to sleep and she's going crazy in her sleep. Yes, my baby does talk (well, her version of it) in her sleep, just like her daddy sometimes does. Oh, I hope when she starts forming words that she knocks that off!! :)

Ooh! I'm gonna go have lunch. Food at a normal time- what a concept!! :)

Mommy-ing is EXHAUSTING!!

Ok, so I've been the HUGEST slacker on updating this thing, but you wouldn't believe how exhausting it is being a mom! It's more rewarding than I could ever express, but sheesh, would I kill for more than 3 hours of sleep in a row! Mackenzie's doing fabulously! She's grown 3 inches and gained 2 lbs in 5 weeks! It's crazy!! No wonder my arms are constantly exhausted! She's started this new thing last week where she screams unless she's being held. But we think *hopefully* that she's over it because last night after going to Matt's work's Christmas party she was pooped and slept in her crib-the ENTIRE night! (yay!) and has slept either in the crib or on the couch (her new favorite place) all day today. Might help that Daddy's been home too, though. brb, she's crying...

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving to all from all of us here in Arizona!:) I'm so thankful for all of you and your friendships, you mean the world to me and I want you to know how special you are!!

BABY!!!!!!!!

So, yes, it has happened. I'm a mommy!! :) YAY!! On Monday we went to our last dr appt and decided that on Thursday (the 8th) that we were going to start inducing me because nothing had changed and I was just basically done. However, since I had relaxed and knew that there was in fact an actual light bulb (instead of just a glimmer of light) at the end of the proverbial tunnel, little miss decided that she was ready to come on Wednesday morning. I woke up at 1AM and started having regular contractions from the get-go. I woke Matt up around 1:45 after I'd had around 6 contractions just to let him know that I thought something was beginning. So we waited another hour to see what was going on because the nurse told me that after having 5 contractions an hour for two hours in a row that it was time to come in. At 3 AM we called the hospital just to see what they suggested and the labor nurse we talked to said to come in when I felt uncomfortable. HELLO?!?!? Uncomfortable? How are contractions comfortable?? Silly lady. So we waited and they were getting closer together (they'd started out being between 3 and 8 minutes apart and when we left they were between 3 and 5 minutes apart).

We left for the hospital and got there around 6 am, got checked in and went up to my loverly delivery room. The monitors they put on your belly to check baby's heartbeat and to monitor the contractions are so uncomfortable. They are tight on the part of your body that you want NOTHING tight on. Dr Tedesco (my dr) showed up around 6:30 and checked me out, was only around 1 cm dilated so we just were starting the wonderful waiting game. Around 9:30 he came back in and decided to break my water to see if that would speed things up since nothing had changed. That didn't hurt or anything, but just feels weird!!! At noon, nothing had changed. I was getting frustrated and still in pain (coz even if nothing's changed, you still have contractions :( ) so they started me on Stadol (sp?) a pain med that made me loopy and pitocin (the medicine they use for inducements) to see if that could jump start anything. Nope, nothing still at 4 PM, so my dr decided that it was time for the epidural because I was biting pillows and almost crying I was in so much pain. The contractions were coming in bunches of 3 or 4 at a time and were getting more intense as time wore on. So once the epi took control (ahhh... the wonders of medicine) and I relaxed because I couldn't feel much they added even more pitocin to speed things up *hopefully*. But alas, at 7:30 when the nurse checked me out, I was barely 3 cm and she could feel something next to the head. She thought it was the baby's hand on top of her head so she went and got the dr to double check and nope, not a hand... it was her face. She was in a position called face presentation. As the day had worn on, she flipped to a posterior position then back to normal but when she was being pushed down the birth canal, her head decided that instead of tucking down like it was supposed to, her face would come forward, making it look like she wanted to kiss the world first. (she was nose/face first instead of the back of her head). This was the reason nothing was happening. You need to have the back of the baby's head pushing to make dilation happen and because it was her soft face instead of her hard head, I wasn't changing. And if we would have kept on that track, it could have possibly broken her neck or caused her spine to extend too far, so an emergency c-section was ordered.

In about 15 minutes I was wheeled into the operating room and had a baby about 10 minutes later. Born at 8:04 PM, she weighed 6lbs 14oz and was 18 inches long. Mackenzie Joanne Hecht, welcome to the world! I didn't hear her cry for a while (seemed like forever to me, but in actuality was more like 10 seconds) and when I did, I just started bawling. I have a baby, I thought. She is finally here, I'm a mother, and wow, I haven't felt this much love for anything or anyone before. It was more intense than my wedding day. So many emotions, all amazing ones at that as well.

I was in the hospital from 6am Wednesday until around 8 Friday night. We could have stayed another night, but I was feeling good and Mackenzie was doing wonderful and we all just wanted to be home, in our own beds. She slept okay that first night, or so we thought. From around 12 to 2 AM she was up every 15 mins or so wanting to be fed or changed or just because her passifier had fallen out of her mouth (we're using one to work on her sucking reflexes because I'm not breastfeeding this will help them to develop like they are supposed to-I didn't want to use one, but alas, things change!) or her hat had fallen over her eyes and she didn't like that. The next night she did the same thing, only it went on until almost 6am. However, luckily we have my fabulous mother here who took over Mack-watch :) halfway through the night so Matt and I could sleep. Last night was amazing. We realized that we hadn't been trying to keep her up during the day enough so at night she wanted to play. So we kept her up for as long as we could when she was awake and then at night she slept so much better. Woke up at 2 to feed and get a change and then not again until almost 7. Ahhhh.... soooo nice to get almost a whole night's worth of sleep only 3 days out of the hospital!!

Well, she's bout due for a feeding now, so I'm going to go feed my beautiful baby. Boy, motherhood is amazing.

better...

So I am feeling better; however, Matt isn't so lucky. He caught my nasty bug right before he left on a business trip to Orlando for 4 days. poor dude. But I don't feel too sorry for him becasue I've gotten a few phone calls from him since he left and when they're not stuck in classes (it's for a program that the company has been trying *unsuccessfully, I might add* to use for about a year now) they are wandering around finding "kick ass Irish pubs and awesome 80's live cover band clubs". Ahhh, how I love to hear him yell in my ear while listening to a Queen cover band sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the background.... that was sarcastic if you couldn't tell.

Saturday we went to a birthing class, hoping to learn something and perhaps giggle while doing silly breathing exercises. We got lots of info on POST birth but not so much on the actual birth process... which is why we went. Kinda annoying, actually. Then last night I go to the Wellness Center (the gym/learning center run by the hospital) to take a breastfeeding class so I have as much info as I possibly can. I get there at 6 because that's when the lady on the phone told me it would be, even though all the flyers I saw said it started at 6:30. But, I figured, better to be early than to be late and have missed 30 minutes of information. They had quadruple booked all the conference rooms and there was nowhere for us to go. So you have 6 VERY pregnant women wanting to know what is going on, why there is no teacher (who never showed up by the way) and where in the world we are supposed to meet. After being there for an hour and asking the front desk people (who know absolutely zilch except for how to scan a card and give people towels) like eight times what was going on, we all decided just to leave. I'm angry! :( I wanted information, dangnabbit! Oh well, guess I'll just have to ask the dr and look up la leche league to get more info. Se la vie (I don't know how to spell in French!)

So this week, next week, and the following (until the 31st) I will be helping at our church's annual Pumpkin Patch. I miss living somewhere where you can go to an *actual* patch and get punkins and drink cider and just have a fabulous time (aka greenbluff). Instead what we have here is a truckfull of pumpkins were delivered and sit in our church's front area (not a yard coz there is no grass :( ) on pallets. However, I do get to read silly pumpkin stories and have fun with 2nd grade and younger kids. Makes me miss working with them on a daily basis. But I'm still working on my degree-just taking a break till January- and this helps me get more excited to be a mommy too! :) I know she won't be poking around in punkin patches any time soon, but I can still think of the future and smile, right? :) I'll take some pics of the fun punkins that sadly don't get homes until the end, you know, the ones with lumps and the gords and the ones I always pick! :)

:(

35 weeks pregnant + being sick=no fun at all... especially with a baby shower coming up this weekend... and that means a mother-in-law and her sister and brother (matt's aunt and uncle, who are totally awesome)... anyone know of anything i can take other than sudafed and acetaminophen? i can't breathe and i sound like a man... i do not like this!

baby update:)

So I'm officially 8 months pregnant now! How crazy is that? Just 8 more weeks and my little angel will be here. I'm so stinkin excited that it's crazy. We had a dr appointment on Thursday and he said that I'm growing fine and gaining enough weight (which has been an issue for me throughout this whole pregnancy) and that it seems as if she is doing well. She did kick him when he was measuring me though, which was kinda funny. We registered at walmart.com so that if we get something as a duplicate or we change our mind, we can return it in town instead of having to drive the 2 hours to Vegas or 2 1/2 to Flagstaff. Her room is painted, pink and brown with teddy bears, will post pics soon. It turned out really cute, now we're just working on decorations because the pink is just a little overwhelming. (Silly Matt decided to paint the ceiling too)

Last weekend (as in the first weekend in September that's not Labor Day) we flew up to Spokane for Mark Olson (Molson)'s wedding. It was so much fun and so great to see all those we did. I miss that crazy town and more that I knew it, I miss GREEN!! There is some here and we do have trees and grass in our yard, but it is so sparse in the rest of town that it makes me sad. But all in all it was a good trip, minus the 4 1/2 hour late planes that didn't get us home until midnight Monday evening. I want to go back now and hang out with good college friends and their hubbys/wives and those that aren't married too :). I want to see EVERYONE in one place again, let's just go back to college, okay? The place where I could run across campus to see my loved ones, instead of having to go across states, countries, and even the world to see them! Ahh, how life changes. Can you believe it's been two years since everyone graduated (well, minus me, but that's a technicality) and six since we lived in HobJob (which is no more :( sad) and met as freshmen? Wow, how fast and amazingly life has changed.

On the plus side of living in the desert, it's finally under 90 during the day and cool at night which is perfect weather for me. I just need some rain, and not the crazy monsoon stuff either. I also need my mommy, my Onca, my Clairb-forever friend, my ADD, my misc roomies, late night chats until we fall asleep talking, and Pizza Pipeline cinnamon stick thingys. :) But I live vicariously through blogs and myspace and facebook, so that does help a little. I just wish I could talk to you all more! Here's to happy lives, splendid Septembers, and phone calls that will happen soon :).

after a while...

Sorry for the long hiatus, life has been crazy and when I'm not busy, I'm usually sleeping :). I want the 2nd trimester back where I had energy and wasn't so sleepy all the time. But alas, it's all for her:). So, yes, it is a girl. For her name right now we're on Makenzie Joanne Hecht. What do you think? Spellings might change, who knows, they're just theories anyway until she's born. We started decorating the nursery this past weekend. As much fun as painting a room can be, we had a HORRIBLE time trying to get lines straight when the walls are textured. Every special tool they had at WalMart or Home Depot that we tried didn't work :(. Taping didn't work too well either. Then combining the two worked okay, but there still wasn't too much success. Lots of touch up work will have to be done. Oh well, and I can't do most of it since it's up high and I'm not supposed to get on ladders or high chairs or anything tall anymore. (Guess I'm too front-heavy and will tip or something :)) We had a chair rail (the wooden divider that's about 1/3 of the way up the wall (looks like moulding usually) that was already up so we decided to do a chocolate brown on the bottom and a medium pink on top (and Matt decided pink belonged on the ceiling too). Then we will sponge paint teddy bears about every foot or so alternating pink/brown on the opposite colored wall. Does that make sense? Oh well, if it doesn't when we are done I'll post a picture of it. It's going to be cute! I'm excited.

In other news, Matt and I celebrated our one year anniversary on Sunday. Holy cow, I can't believe it's already been a year. Things have gone by so fast. If you would have asked me 18 months ago where I thought I would be now, in no way would I have ever said in Arizona, married, and in my 7th month of my first pregnancy. CRAZY!!! Life changes so fast, sometimes so unexpectedly. I am so glad that I have had Matt to support me and keep me crazy through it all! :) (coz you know Matt, he doesn't keep anyone sane- hehe)
I cannot believe how lucky I am to be married to him. Every single day I am reminded of more reasons why he is absolutely amazing. I made a list of 50 of my top reasons for loving him and gave it to him for his anniversary present. I thought it was pretty clever. There were more in my head, but I decided that I'd stop at 50 because well, that's the number I picked :). He is looking into getting me a massage (if we can find someone in town that can do pregnancy massages) for his gift to me. But I agree with what he said-getting the nursery ready for our family was probably the best way to spend our anniversary, together and excited. I truly do feel blessed and so dang-narbin lucky to be married to him!!

Well, that's about all from here lately. Tomorrow I have another OB appointment, they're every 2 weeks now, so we'll see how things are going. They feel good. She is moving like crazy, but not as much the past 2 days since Matt's been in Tuscon and she just loves her daddy already :). But I'm going to go finish painting the letters so here's hoping all you are doing well!!

finally...

I know it's been almost 2 months since my last post, but you wouldn't believe how busy life's been. Being pregnant still wears me out on a daily basis-this whole second trimester being easier on your body is bologna!! Yesterday Matt and I went out to lunch with Ty at Quizno's and after eating only 3 bites of my sandwich I got sick. No fun at all, especially when you don't get to the bathroom on time and well, yeah... :(. I felt icky the rest of the day and was feeling better today until about half an hour ago for some reason and now I'm boiling hot and can't seem to cool down no matter what I do.

However, on the very positive side, each and every day I am feeling the little peanut moving more and more!! And Matt's been able to feel it as well. It is a completely indescribable feeling and is so amazing that you can't understand until you feel it yourself. I can't believe I'm already halfway through my 5th month!! Over halfway done!! :) I'm gonna be a mommy soon!!!

Two weeks ago I went back to the glorious northwest for my grandmother's 85th birthday and father's day and a baby shower. It was an incredible week that was so busy it was over before I knew it. Thank you to all who came to the shower, I hope you had fun and enjoyed yourselves, I know I did! :) Sometimes I just step back and realize what an amazing family I do have. When people fly in from all over the world (my cousin lives in Ireland, me from AZ, and others from OR and WA) just to be with Grandma Sally on her 85th birthday it boggles my mind. She is such an amazing woman that I can only wish to be as loving a mother and good a friend as she is in my lifetime. I love my Grandma more than anything, she is amazing!!! My mother takes after her in so many ways that I hope I continue the love and acceptance that they both have shown to myself and countless others in my life.

I'll post a picture of the belly (as it is in fact getting larger-and annoying at times :)) as soon as Matt takes one of me :).

thanks and stuff...

I just wanted to give a HUGE thank you to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday. It was really hard being away from my family and my friends for the first time, but having a husband kinda helps that fact :). Over the weekend he took me up to the Hualapai Mountain Lodge. It is so nice up there. Just about half an hour away and it's a totally different feeling. There are pine trees and mule deer (sooo HUGE-they're actually elk) and it's about 6500 feet up and so the air feels cleaner and it's like 15-20 degrees cooler up there. That part was nice coz our air conditioner is broken :(. We took the dog with us and just had a really nice relaxing time. When there is no computers, no TV, no phones, and Gretchen forgets her books all you can do is relax. Which we both EXTREMELY needed at that point. I just wish it could have been more than one night up there :). Maybe we can make it a bi-monthly trip or something... hmmmm, might have to talk to the Tato about that (that's his new nickname for himself, Matato but I just call him tato).

It's beating!!

So we had our 3 month exam today (me and the baby) and were able to hear the heartbeat. Oh, what a neat, amazing, breathtaking sound. It's real. I have a live, real, living human growing inside of me. It sounded a lot like a mix between strong wind and a soothing ocean wave crashing. Wow. It was like 5 hours ago and I'm still flabbergasted!! :) Really brings this whole thing a lot closer to home. I'm gonna be a mommy!!!!

daddy's rock!

So my dad has been here for the past week. It's insane, having so many people visit in such a short time, but so fun as well. It's been a blast having him here, not stressful at all. I love my daddy so much and miss seeing him often! Yesterday we went to this great little town called Jerome. It was a copper mining town back in the day (the mine closed in 1953) and is built litterally into a hillside. It's insane!! It took almost 45 minutes to drive 12 miles to the town from Prescott. (say it like biscuit-prescit, not pres-cott :)). It was all windy and straight down from the road to the bottom of the mountain. Heights have never bothered me before, but this dangnabbin baby seems to be mixin lots of things up! Whoo.... had to stop twice coz I almost got car sick, but luckly it was almost and it didn't happen. The most fun part about the trip was Chuck.He's a burro (or donkey-whichever you want to call him). He was guarding the old ghost-town part of town when we drove up there. He was in the middle of the road and Matt drove right up to him, rolled down my window (yes, MY window) and then here comes Chuck (that's what I named him) to my window, sticking his HUGE head through it looking for food. I was nice enough to share my apple slices that I'd cut up for the trip with him which made him VERY happy and VERY friendly! He walked along the car with his giant head in the window while Matt drove.



Today Matt and Dad worked in the backyard all day. Since all Arizona houses are walled in by block walls instead of fences, all we see out the back door is cement bricks. So we're putting a little flower garden in part of the backyard. It's going to be really neat. Matt bought some stones to trim the edge and then the flowers will be about a foot and a half off the ground in a raised bed. Purple and yellow flowers make Gretchen happy :).

Well, next Monday, the 30th, we go in for my 2nd doctor's appointment. The 3 month check mark! Yay! Should be able to hear the heartbeat and possibly see the baby in an ultrasound. I'm excited!! We're not sure if we're going to find out the gender yet or not, we'll decide when that choice comes in the office I guess. Most of the sickness part has passed (yay!) although I'm awfully tired. And I'm tired of being tired! Ah well, the joys of pregnancy! :) I just wish I had clothes that fit since I'm in the awkward stage of being almost too big for my normal clothes and too small for as my mom calls them "the fat lady clothes" or maternity wear. Elastic everything kinda scares me to be honest though :). Well, it's time for the old lady to hit the sac, so goodnight everyone! Be prepared for dreams next time as they have gotten crazier (which I didn't think was possible!)

vegas and school

The last week was a blast having Megan here. Things went really well and she seemed to have had a good time. I forget how awesome and amazing my little sister is sometimes, but being with her just reminds me even more. And how crazy she gets sometimes-esp with a lot of Bud Lite in her :).

Today I have my first tw0 exams for my online schooling. I'm nervous, but not too nervous. Haven't studied too much because they're on Health (so easy that I passed the preassessment with 98%-not worried) and English (always a good subject for me, so just doing some brush-up work to make sure I do well). I'm just not sure how into this whole online schooling thing I really am. I guess we'll find out when I get my results. It's harder than I thought to keep myself on track-especially when I've been so focused on the whole baby thing. But now that I'm feeling better (no sickness for a week and a half now-YAY!!) I think I can go into this head on and do the best I can. Which is freaking awesome, by the way. :) Gotta think positive, right? Well, I'm off to do some more last minute studying-wish me luck!!

It's True!

So, I thought my first post in this lovely world of blogginess would be an official announcement. Matt and I are expecting our first child! :) We are soooooooooo super super happy and boy I cannot wait for another 6 weeks of morning sickness. (Which by the way, is the WORST thing you can call it-it's not in the morning, it's after food, after seeing food, after smelling food, after turning on your side, after coughing, so basically LOTS of the time). We're due (hehe, I like that, "We're"-he's not puking or nauseous or getting chubby or having sorness where soreness does NOT belong, but he's due too) on November 10th. In about 11-12 weeks we will be able to find out what the sex is (not sure if we want to yet or not though). We're just hoping for someone happy and healthy and cuter than ever! (once all the yuckiness is removed though :)). Just thought I'd put this official (since we got official word from the doctor today-although I've known for almost a month now, Matt didn't want to tell anyone until the doctor said it was true. But anyone who knows me, knows that things this big won't stay secrets for too long-and it hasn't :). So if you could please just pray for me to get through this crazy transition on my body (and sore throat from revisiting previous meals) and for the baby to be healthy and for Matt not to go too crazy around me, we'd really appreciate it :). Thanks!!