Welcome Madison Joy!

We are so excited that Madison Joy Heuker decided to join our group of friends this week! She came a bit earlier than expected--Lindsey went a week and a half late with Jonathan--Madison came a little over 3 weeks early (depends how you look at it--according to the doctors, she was one day shy of 37 weeks, but according to what Lindsey thought her due date was she would be 37 weeks this Saturday--Lindsey likes to make everything complicated--haha:), just kidding).
Lindsey had been fighting a nasty cold and thought that was the worst of her problems when she went in for her regular appointment Monday afternoon. Turns out Madison's heart rate was VERY high. Her doctor sent her to the hospital to get monitored where Madison's heart rate continued to be high--consistantly over 200. The decision was then made that since she was so close to being full term that the best thing for Madison's health would be to do a semi-emergency c-section Monday night. God sure was looking out for Madison having Lindsey have that appointment that day--the doctors don't think that her heart rate was high for all that long (although it's hard to really know) so it was good they caught it. Thank goodness for weekly appointments late in pregnancy! Shortly after she was born they did something to her (something medical, don't ask me:D) and her heart rate soon became normal. She is still in the NICU but is doing great! They are just monitoring her to make sure she is alright from the trama of having a high heart rate. She weighed in at 7 lbs 15 oz and 19"--pretty big girl for being born more than a few weeks early!! They don't really know what caused the high heart rate--could be from Lindsey being sick that it caused stress on Madison, but it could totally be not related to that too. There's really no way to know.
Lindsey and I were due 6 weeks apart. When I had Gibson 5 1/2 weeks early, Lindsey said, "Way to go, you just doubled the distance between our kids". Well, now they're just shy of 8 weeks apart--so pretty close:). Jonathan and Layla were due about 3 1/2 months apart but ended up being only a month apart since J was born late and L was born early. Funny how things work out! We got to meet Madison tonight and she is just beautiful! She already looks like her big bro, but in a girly way of course:). Joe and I realized that our trip to the hospital tonight was our first time being alone since Gibs came home--what a great date night:). Oh, and Jonathan had RSV last week (for the second time this winter, poor little guy), so he can't see Lindsey or Madison right now. Please pray that he gets better soon so they can be a family and pray that Madison can come home from the hospital with Darrell and Lindsey on Thursday. We are so thankful that everything worked out well (considering) for Darrell, Lindsey and Madison and are happy to welcome Madison into our group of friends:). Congrats guys!

We had to take turns seeing her tonight as their NICU allows only 2 people to visit at a time including the parents.

The nurses already found a way to stick a bow on Madison's hair, er, more like on her head:). Too cute!