Introducing Miss Maggie

Well, here's the story....I had my 39 week doctor appt. on Nov. 6. Dr. Matthews was worried that Maggie was breach so sent me for an ultrasound. Sure enough she was breach. Dr. Matthews explained my options. She said that I could have a c-section or try for what they call an external version where they attempt to turn the baby. I opted to give that a try first. Dr. Matthews then asked if I could be at the hospital the next morning! If they flipped Maggie they would induce. I immediately started making phone calls to get things arranged. Grant's parents were able to head down Thurs night to be there for Ellie in the morning and then my mom would leave early Fri. morning. Grant and I had no idea what would happen come the morning.

We checked in to the hospital Fri. morning, Nov. 7th and Dr. Lane came in to see if he could flip Maggie. After 5 min. we had success! I was given a pill to start the induction and then we began the long wait. The hours passed and there was very slow progress. I finally had to have the epidural at around 6:30 pm. It didn't work. All it did was make my right leg go completely numb. The dr. came back to try and correct it and it worked for like 2 hrs and I was able to get some sleep. However, I woke up to severe contractions and a numb right leg! Maggie was still up high and it was going to be awhile, but no relief in sight! Nov. 7 turned into Nov. 8 and I was exhausted! The mid-wife, Sally finally came in at around 1am to try to get me to push the baby down some. Little did I know that she was just going to go ahead and have me deliver all at the same time. I was still in hopes of some kind of pain relief! Anyway, as painful as it was (and people in Charlotte probably heard me screaming) at 1:34 am Margaret Thompson Shanks came into the world. She is perfect and beautiful and in the end that is what matters! She weighed in at 7 lb. 3 oz. and 21 inches long. She looked so teeny especially compared to Ellie, who was the same length, but weighed 8 lbs. 5 oz!

Ellie came to visit the next morning and meet baby sister. She was so excited and just kept saying, "baby" and wanting to hold Maggie. She has adjusted fairly well. She has had a few fits since we came home, but gets so excited when she sees Maggie. We are so blessed to have our two girls and are looking forward to all that is to come!

Halloween Week

We had a busy Halloween week! The Sun. before our church, Long's Chapel, had a trunk-or-treat fall fest. Ellie started to get the hang of trick-or-treating. We then were surprised with an inch of snow during the week! My first October snow! Ellie wanted to play in it so Grant brought some in for her to play with, but she could not understand where it went when it melted. She kept saying, "more". On Halloween her daycare trick-or-treated all the stores down Main St. Ellie would break in front of all the kids and walk up to the person with candy and hold her bag open until they put candy in it. Then she would look in her bag to make sure they gave her something! It was so funny. They had a party that afternoon and Ellie wanted all the balloons to play with. Halloween night we had a get together with some friends to eat and take the kids trick-or-treating. We live by a neighborhood that closes off its' streets for Halloween and the fire dept and police dept even come out and hand out candy. There are around 1000 kids out there and houses decorate, etc. Ellie's friends Nelson, Henry, and Will went with us. It was a very fun and busy week for us all!

Now we are just trying to get everything ready for Maggie's arrival! We will know tomorrow if we are going to induce next week. I will update when I know.