Sleeping Beauty

You may wonder why I have posted all the precious pictures of Mattie Anne sleeping. Well we have really good news! Mattie Anne is sleeping through the night! I didn't want to say anything at first because who knew if it would continue, but we have gone all week! I know that doesn't mean that it will continue and she will never wake me up again, but I think it is a nice start. I started working with her on this last weekend. My book said that when she wakes up to wait a little while before getting her and see if she will fall back to sleep. We started that last Friday and after a few days she was waking up during the night but going back to sleep within 10 mins or so and the past few nights she has woken up but no crying! So, I guess that doesn't actually qualify as completely sleeping through the night...but really really close! This morning she woke up around 5:00 for maybe 5 mins and went back to sleep and I actually had to wake her up at 6:00! She is sleeping between 7.5 and 8 hours so that means I'm usually getting around 6.5 to 7. I am very happy with that, especially since I will be starting back full-time at work in the next week or two.

Pumpkin Patch

New Pictures Below!

We took Mattie Anne to the pumpkin patch! It was so much fun. We went with our new friends Andy and Sasha Peck. Andy took better pics and as soon as I get some those from him, I'll post them.

Last week was pretty uneventful. I went to work 4 days, still taking Mattie Anne with me. It didn't wear on me as much as I thought it would, but needless to say, I was looking forward to the weekend. Friday night we went out to eat with Clark and Rachel Richardson. We went to a nice Mexican restaurant; it was a lot of fun! Mattie Anne just tagged along and was very well behaved (she slept)! Saturday morning I had a baby shower for Sara Gordon, a friend from church. It was so nice! Then Saturday afternoon was our trip to the Weston Red Barn Farm! That is where the pumpkin patch is. They have an apple orchard and a pumpkin patch, but we pretty much went there for pictures of Mattie Anne!

Our jogging is going steadily, I don't think Matt hates it as much as he used to. I had to cut back a little bit because my knees started bothering me, we think it is from IT band syndrome...which is an over use injury. Pretty much we think I did too much too fast. I started jogging 2 weeks ago and I kept wanting to see how far I could go, well I went 3 miles for the first time probably since high school and was really excited and kept doing 2-3 miles depending on how much time we had (we usually have to squeeze it in). My knees would be a little stiff in the mornings, but nothing too bad, they never hurt when I jogged. Then last Thursday, we didn't have anything else going on and we had done 3 miles and I wanted to keep going just to see if I could do another. Matt stopped because Mattie Anne was getting a little fussy. I went another mile and checked with Matt to see if he cared if I try to do another, he didn't so I kept on trucking. I decided to stop after 5 miles, I was pretty happy with that because I don't think I had ever jogged that far. Well, the next morning my knees were a little more than sore and they continued to hurt when I jogged. I talked to Mrs. Brenda and looked up some of my symptoms and it seems that IT band syndrome is common especially when you over do it. So, I am going to try some stretches and cutting down a little bit. I guess best of all I have found something that I really enjoy. I think that it would be fun to train to do a half marathon. Matt isn't so excited about that idea but is willing to do it with me. I would love to start now but the training schedule is 16 weeks and that would be straight through the winter and I would rather run outside than on a treadmill. The winter in KC can be brutal (especially for us Mississippians) so I think at times running outside would be hard.

Funny story....
This morning I wasn't going to work because I had to take Mattie Anne in for her shots. I had already let them know at work that I wouldn't be in and possibly tomorrow depending on how Mattie Anne did. I set it up with the childcare center that she would start Wednesday. So, I got up this morning and got dressed, and I got the paper out that had the time of her appointment because I forgot to write the time on the calendar. Well, it definitely said Oct. 29 at 10:15. Today is the 22nd...I wrote it on everything wrong. I remember discussing with the nurse the time and day of the week that would be best, I guess that I thought we were talking about the Monday that she turned 8 weeks and she was talking about the Monday after she was 2 months. Oh well, I'm excited I have one more week to spend the day with her! I may even do some work at home this week so I can spend a little more time at home with her. Well, she is waking up for her afternoon meal, I better go feed her!

More Pictures of the Pumpkin Patch:

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Life Goes On

Mattie Anne is 7 weeks old today. Just one more week before the dreaded shots! It is amazing how much she has grown and how alert she can be. She started rolling over, and of course, I missed the first time. I put her down in the craddle on her stomach and went into the kitchen to do something. She started to cry so I went to check on her and she was on her back! I put her back on her stomach to see if she would do it again and she did! This got me all excited so I got the video camera out, well by the time that I had the first roll filmed she had done it probably 7 times and was not happy about it anymore. So as you will see in the video, she is crying, but at least it is on video! Her other trick is standing...no not completely by herself, but pretty close! She has amazingly strong legs! She will lock them out and almost stand on her own, we just have to support her for balance. We will have to try and get that on video soon!






It seems like the question I am asked most is if I'm getting any sleep. Well, I am getting more than I thought I would! Since about 2-3 weeks old I was only having to get up once during the night. The past 2 weeks she has been sleeping between 6-7 hours straight! I usually feed her around 9 and she will wake up between 3:30 and 5:00 am. What is even better about this feeding is that she will eat for 5-10 minutes and go right back to sleep so I can usually get back to bed fairly quickly because I get up between 5:30 and 6:30 on days that I go to work. Then at the 6:00-6:30 feeding she will eat for a while and stay awake. This past week she went a couple of days where she would wake up at 2:00 and then every two hours until 10 and she was hungary! I assume it was a growth spurt because she has now fell back into her old routine. She pretty much stays close to her routine which is: 6:00 am, 8:30 am, 11:00 am, 2:00 pm, 4:30 pm, 7:00 pm, 9:00 pm, and then whenever she wakes during the night. Hopefully soon she will drop the night feeding and go from 9:00 pm to 5:30 am, I'll let ya know when that happens! BabyWise says that they can start sleeping through the night as early as 6-8 weeks but usually by 10-12. We will see when Mattie Anne chooses to do that! I feel that I'm lucky enough to only have to wake up once during the night!

I mentioned earlier that I was going back to work. I started 2 weeks ago, but only went in Thursday and Friday of those weeks. I am taking off today of this week but am aiming to go in the rest of the week, but nothing is etched in stone. Mattie Anne goes to work with me right now! I don't want to put her in daycare until she has her shots. She sits in her infant seat on my desk all day, the women in the office love it! She is fun to have around, and has only inturrpted a few phone conversations with fussing. Starting back part time and taking Mattie Anne with me is a really easy way to get back into the swing of work. It isn't as bad as I thought it would be. The mornings can be hetic, but once we get to work and get all set up it goes pretty smoothly and it is nice to be back around everyone at work.

Not much else is going on in our lives. Matt is doing his Physicatric rotation this month, not his favorite so far, but at least he doesn't have to work weekends. He was able to go to the Kansas City Chiefs game yesterday. He was invited to go with a man from our church who is a politician in Kansas City, so he sat on the 17th row for part of the game and in a box for the other part. Pretty good deal for his first NFL game!

Matt's parents (GP and BB) came into town last week. I felt lucky because I was able to spend all day with them and Matt had to work. The pictures of Mattie Anne in her red jogging suit (from Nana) are from when we went to the park jogging, isn't she adorable. Mattie Anne loves going jogging! Matt and I have started jogging regulary now. His parents jog regularly and when they were up hear they got me out jogging and I realized that I really like it. So, now that Mr. Bill and Mrs. Brenda are gone I make Matt jog with me. He isn't the happiest about my new found love!


Here are some pictures from GP and BB's visit!

Cubs Clinch NL Central

The Cubs will open the National League Division Series on Wednesday against the NL West winners, the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Carlos Zambrano (18-13, 3.95 ERA) will start Game 1 for the Cubs against Arizona's Brandon Webb (18-10, 3.01 ERA), with Ted Lilly (15-8, 3.86 ERA) going in Game 2 on Thursday. The best-of-five series will shift to Wrigley Field for Game 3 on Oct. 6 and Game 4, if necessary, on Oct. 7.
The Cubs entered Sunday's regular-season finale not knowing who they would be playing because of the complicated Wild Card scenarios. All they had to do was wait and see if the Phillies lost, or the Mets lost or the San Diego Padres won. If one of those three things happened, the Cubs were headed to Arizona. The Florida Marlins obliged, and beat the Mets, 8-1.
This is the Cubs' first trip to the postseason since they won the division in 2003. That team was five outs away from reaching the World Series, when the Marlins rallied to take the NL Championship Series.
This is a new team, with a new look and new manager Lou Piniella.
"We've got as good a chance as anybody else," Piniella said. "We're going to have to pitch well, and we're going to have to get some timely hitting. We're built for the short term as well as the long term.
"We've got a veteran team here, basically, and we've got some pitchers in the rotation who can keep you in ballgames, and we have a strong bullpen to close things out," he said. "Really, what it amounts to is how well we hit."
Carrie Muskat is a reporter for MLB.com

Rub a dub dub

Mattie Anne finally likes bath time! You would have thought I was hurting her with her first bath (the picture and video below are both from that tragic event). The highlight of that bath would have to be when she peed on Nana! With each bath she has started to like it better and better. Well, last night we did something a little different, the big tub with me. It was so much fun and she loved it (and no peeing on me)! I think she liked the water better when I was able to hold her. I used the Bedtime Bath soap. If you read the bottle it says to add it to the water, well I figured I should use a little more because we were in the big bath tub. We had bubbles everywhere! It was hilarious! That stuff is better than bubble bath.

Mattie Anne Out On the Town

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Matt and I completely ignored the rules about staying at home with our newborn. We felt as though Mattie Anne should experience the city! Mattie Anne went to Jack Stacks BBQ, The Cheesecake Factory, Olive Garden, and Bo Lings all by the time she was a week old!

Mattie Anne and Her Grandparents

Mimi and GP, Matt's parents, meeting Mattie Anne for the first time.













Three generations of Safley's




















Mattie Anne with Nana and Papa, Katie's parents.

Leaving the Hospital

We left the hospital the morning of August 29th.


The dress Nana, Katie's Mom, (Mimi is Matt's Mom) bought her for her to wear home was a little too big. Who knew she wouldn't fit in newborn outfits! She didn't like the band on her head, you will notice it is not in any of the other pictures!







She didn't like the car seat either. She screamed all the way out of the hospital, which is not a short trip.









Here we are about to get into the car for the very first time! She had finally stopped crying by now!









Matt got to chauffeur us home!

Labor and Delivery

So I figured out how to add videos to the page, so I have now added those...Sorry if there are some redundancies between the written part and the videos!











Here we are at the hospital. This was my labor and delivery suite. As you can see, everything at this point was pretty laid back. Momma came with Matt and me to the hospital, but went home for a good night rest.

After I settled in, they started an IV and the Prostaglandin treatments. The nurse gave the first one around 10 pm or so. After that, I couldn't get up for 2 hours. They put the monitors on me to monitor Mattie Anne's heart rate. Matt found the need to video tape everything...including my belly with monitors on it. The second Prostaglandin treatment was at 2:00 am. I got a little sleep before this treatment, but not much after it. My contractions/labor started around 3:00 am much to our surprise. My midwife didn't think that the Prostaglandin would induce labor, but just help prepare for labor. The contractions weren't painful; they just prevented me from sleeping.

Here Matt is on Monday morning... He got a pretty good night sleep. I didn't wake him, I figured one of us should at least be rested and it wasn't going to be me. He got up around 6:00 am when the nurse came in to start the Pitocin (IV medication to induce labor). I was already having contractions but they were very small so this was to help move along the process. My midwife came in at 7:30 am to check me, I was 1-2 cm dilated and my cervix was thinning... They got us up and walking at 8:00 am, Matt pushed my IV pole and we started making the U shaped walk down the Labor and Delivery hall and over to the Mother Baby Unit. We walked for around 30 mins and then had to get back on the monitor. By now, I was feeling my contractions pretty well, starting to get a little painful.

At 10:00 am, it was time for another walk. This walk was a little more eventful. We began our U walk and as we approached the complete other end of our U walk and are about to turn around and walk back, I get a funny feeling and then before I could get "I think my water just broke" out we here a huge splash! I have heard many stories about people's water breaking and most women who's actually broke on its own say that it was just a trickle of water, kind of felt as if you peed on yourself. Well, if I'm supposed to compare it to peeing, I would have to say that my completely full bladder, feel out and splashed like a water balloon. It wasn't a little fluid, it was a ton! Trying not to exaggerate I would say at least 2 liters. So now, we have a problem, a huge wet spot on the floor...total hazard. Matt goes to tell a nurse that my water just broke and there is a mess to clean up. Then we have to walk all the way back to our room. I am completely soaked! The front and back of my gown and my slippers are completely wet and I have to walk down a very full Mother Baby Unit, very embarrassing! But not as embarrassing as the pharmacy delivery guy that I had to yell at to not step in the huge puddle I left on the floor, it wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't the same guy that delivers to the Cath Lab... Where I work! I hope I looked bad enough that he didn't recognize me! The one thing that is helping me from being really embarrassed is keeping in mind that we are on a floor were many women walk during their labors, so this isn't the first time it has happened. Well, when we got back to our room, we let my nurse know about our excitement, she came in and said that this never happens! She has never had a patient that had her water break while walking. She said they always joke about it but it never happens. Well, I definitely don't want to fit into the typical mold! So for the rest of my hospital stay, I was the girl whose water broke in the Mother Baby Unit!

Well the water breaking and the increasing of the Pitocin was getting my labor moving along. My contractions were getting painful. My midwife came in around 11:30 am and checked me I had progressed to 2-3 cm, and she said that I could start thinking about pain control. I thought I could handle it a little more before I got an epidural. As the contractions got stronger and stronger, it was obvious I was in back labor. I felt all of my pain in my lower back. They say that back labor is more painful than regular labor, I don't know, back labor is the only labor I've experienced. Around 1:30 pm, I met my favorite doctor of the day...my Anestiologist! I felt so much better after my epidural. I had instant pain relief! After that, I was good to go; I didn't care how much longer it took! Here is a picture of me with the socks that Jon got me from India. I could barely move my legs after the epidural, hence the weird positioning of my legs. Notice the smile on my face; this is probably the first smile since that morning! Labor progressed much faster after the epidural. My midwife came in at 5:00 and I was 5.5 cm! I was feeling much better because I was able to get some catnaps.

Around 7:00 pm, I started feeling allot of pressure, I had progressed to 9.5 cm. Finally at 8:00 pm, I was 10 cm and could finally start pushing! After 30 min of pushing, Mattie Anne arrived at 8:33 pm!



Matt's first time holding Mattie Anne!

Mattie Anne Safley weighed 5lbs 13oz and was 18 1/4 inches long.

Hospital, Here We Come

Last pregnant pictures, right before we left for the hospital.

About to go into the hospital. I asked Momma if it was normal to have this much luggage, and she said yes...

So, I guess one good thing about being induced is that I have good pics of our going to the hospital experience! We checked in at Saint Luke’s at 8:00 pm on Sunday, August 26th, 2007. My last meal was Taco Bell, which I started craving as soon as it was suggested. I ate it on the way to the hospital because, of course, I was running late.

We went to church Sunday morning, Matt went to help Rachel with some schoolwork and Momma and I went to Wendy's for lunch. We then went to get pedicures. I also got my eyebrows waxed...who knows when I would have time to do that after Mattie Anne arrived! That took most of the afternoon, the pedicure people really made sure our toes were dry before they let us leave. We waited 30 minutes! We met up with Matt and went to Sam’s for snacks for the two that could eat while I was in labor...totally unfair. Why we went to Sam's I don't know because we still have snacks galore! After Sam's, it was back home for a bath and getting everything else packed up. I guess that all took a little longer than I planned because of course we were still rushed for time leaving. Don't worry, we checked in on time!