M^indefinitely : Happy Birthday Marilyn!

Today my Marilyn turns 5 years old!


5 years old! One whole hand of fingers!

Turning 1 year old!

Turning 2 years old!

Turning 3 years old!


Turning 4 years old!

It's been crazy looking through all of these older pictures of her, it was such a different life when she was little. She was so bald for so long, I used to massage her head and her hair follicles hoping that they would sprout up, and indeed, I think they just took so long to grow in because all her hair is is natural curl. :D

Here is her birth story that, once again, I had to dredge up from the depths of the Intranet to uncover. I had a lot more time on my hands when I was pregnant with Marilyn and when she was a baby so fortunately for her, much of her infancy and young toddler hood was well documented and remarked upon. It was such a transformational life occurrence for me and as my child has grown I have also been growing alongside her.

Marilyn is a lovely child. She is truly blossoming into such a wonderful little girl. I am amazed at how smart she is and truly how brightly she shines. This is the blog of which I am going to remark upon and compile things relating to my daughter, because this I feel, is the place in which to do so.

Marilyn's birth and infancy were a time of such chaos. After she was born she had jaundice for the first month and I even had to spend a weekend with her in the hospital. When she was 2 months old we moved into our first apartment and when she was 4 months old I started attending college full-time. She took her first steps at 9 months, spent 3 days falling all over, and was running everywhere after that. When she was 15 months old I became pregnant with Mallory. She was potty trained at 20 months old. At 2 years old she then had a baby sister. At 3 1/2 she was separated and by 4 years old, reunited. At 4 we moved once and then twice at 4 1/2. She got her first pets at 4, her kitten, Baby Princess Isa and our dog, Morticia. At 4 she started kindergarten!

What wonderment will 5 bring for her?

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7 1/2 months pregnant, I was a cute teen preggo

On September 3 I felt normal. I took a nap, ate some lunch, finally decided to catch up on my laundry. I was squatting (since bending down was nearly impossible) down to take clothes out of the dryer when I felt this gush. At that point I just figured it was a bunch of mucus so I wasn't too worried. I wasn't having any contractions so I wasn't freaking out. I went upstairs and changed my underwear and shorts (which were all wet) and figured that there was a possibility that my water had broken. I posted on JM and then when the second pair of shorts and underwear got soaked I figured that there was a 75% chance that it was my water...I had gone into false labor 3 times in the previous week so I wasn't getting too excited.
I called SO and informed him that I was "leaking". I called my doctor and she told me to head into the hospital.
I finished folding laundry while dripping and at around 5 p.m. we headed to the hospital.

The last belly shot I took before I went into labor

They hooked me up to the monitors and I wasn't really having any contractions. They checked me and I was 3cm dilated and 75% effaced and it was definitely my water that had broken. At 6p.m. they started me on pitocin. I had a slew of visitors until about 9 and my contractions felt just like icky period cramps.
They checked me around then and I hadn't really progressed too far. By then my contractions were really starting to get painful so they gave me something through the IV that made me feel wonderfully drunk and then I fell asleep. I woke up around midnight when the wonderful drug had worn off and my contractions were quite painful. I had been hoping to avoid drugs during my labor and delivery but I didn't plan on the pitocin or being hooked up to monitors the whole time either (BTW- I hate the automatic blood pressure cuffs) so I figured I had to be flexible with myself and just go with it. They couldn't give me anymore of the "wonderful drug" (it was a mix of two things) for another hour so I requested an epidural. Little did I know, SO had been watching the contraction monitor and right before I woke up told the nurse I'd be wanting an epidural- so needless to say it didn't take long for the epidural man to get there.

I got the epidural around 1 a.m. SO told me I was nicest to him during the whole labor when I was drugged up!

The nurse checked my progress at a little bit before 2a.m. and I was fully dilated and ready to push. We waited for my doctor to get there and I started pushing around 2:18. At 2:37 a.m. Marilyn Diana was born. She weighed 7 pounds even and was 19.5 inches long. She latched on right away and I was allowed to breastfeed before they took her to measure her or do anything else. SO cut the cord for her. I only had to get 3 minor stitches and had very minimal tearing.
I didn't particularly care for the epidural and if I could go back I wouldn't have gotten it. I itched terribly for the hour that I had it and my back is still sore from where they put the needle in.


Marilyn Diana- 9/4/2007- 7 pounds, 19.5 inches

Poring over baby name books...

In any case Marilyn is a very laid back baby. We were pretty sure on the name for months and then when she got here we decided that maybe Marilyn didn't suit her. She didn't have a name for the majority of the day and for a small part we actually called her Number Five. I still call her Squeaky because of the noises she makes.

So I was only in labor for 8 hours and I only pushed for less than 1/2 an hour!

Baby feet

Baptism

Sleeping with dad- All my photos
of that first month are filled with this pose...

At the hospital for Jaundice.

Silly faces

He was so excited at the time
because this was the only chance we'd ever
have to bathe her in the sink :D

Baby Smiles at her first park adventure!

My firstborns- Megan Michelle and Marilyn M.


Baby smiles! She had the prettiest blue eyes for the first 18 months until they shifted to brown

		And then I found these pictures and felt the need to include them somewhere. Both of my children practically have the same birthday (September 4 and September 1), they have the same initials (MDM) and even their middle names are very close (Diana and Dana) so it would only be natural to have practically identical hospital photos right? Besides that I didn't have much say so in my outfit and he just loved that shirt I thought this was pretty funny. The one of us with Mallory is one of my favorite pictures from that whole time because we look happy, and that didn't happen all of the time.