Before McKinna was born many of our friends and family would give us advise, tips, and in some cases fore warn us of what was to come.  Most of which where very valuable.  There are, however, somethings which we found out on our own that we think are pretty interesting.

1. Daddy knows how to get up from any position only using his ab muscles while holding the baby.  Look mom no hands.
2. Daddy knows how to pick up the remote control with his feet because he is holding the little munchkin and doesn’t want to disturb her.
3. It only took 2.5 weeks before McKinna taking a bath became a relaxing experience for both McKinna and parents.
4. Having a splash guard when breastfeeding would have been helpful for Erin when McKinna “exorcist” vomited all over her.
5. Murphy’s law rings true - the doorbell always rings when Daddy or Mommy are trying to take a nap.

I can’t believe that McKinna is 2 weeks old today.  Erin and I took her to the doctor for her two week checkup.  She weighs 7lbs now and is 21.25 inches which means she is growing perfectly.  We did experience something unique today.  Up until now she hasn’t had any problems riding her carseat.  This morning however, she threw a FIT when we got her in there.  So much so that we had to postpone going to the grocery store.  When it came time hit the road to go to the MD appointment she freaked out again, however once we were in the car and driving she was quiet as a church mouse.

Thank God.

Other milestones up to the point are:

• Sleeping in her crib in her own room like a big girl
• Staying awake for more than five minutes at a time
• Starting to smile during her sleep
• Loving her mommy and daddy more and more every day

McKinna is was officially one week old and boy has it been a busy one.  Not only did she meet her Mommy and Daddy, but came home to a new house, her own room, met her big sister Miss Cooper, lost the umbilical cord, had her first MD appointment, caught and got over conjunctivitis, and been on several car rides.  Wheww…no wonder she naps so much.

To celebrate, McKinna had her first “offical” bath last night.  What a milestone!!!!!  She acutally took it pretty well.  Erin and I were afraid that she would freak out being wet, but I think that the water was warm enough that she wasn’t too uncomfortable.  In addition, I think it stimulated her enough to wake up for awhile and just stare at Mommy and Daddy which was AWESOME.

Tuesday, September 9th 2008 will forever be the day the greatest adventure for Erin and I started.  It began at 10:15am, for what was 38 week appointment.  Dr. Tinker, OB/GYN extraordinaire, came and told us that Erin wasn’t progressing as far as we wanted her so we might have to wait until Erin was possibly 41 weeks pregnant before McKinna came into the world.  We were quite disappointed, but for good reason.  We wanted to have McKinna home with us SOOO bad.  However, we knew that God would bring her to us when she was ready and not a moment sooner.

Afterward we had lunch at Memphis Pizza Cafe’, our post appointment ritual, and discussed the rest of the week’s activities.  It was a LOOOONG ride back to work for both Erin and I.

To put it in perspective, we can barely wait to give each other presents on Christmas, by the 21st of December so you can imagine our short comings on having to wait for McKinna.  However, we both finished the work day and headed home.  It was business as usual back at casa de Wiles.  Erin went to bed a little earlier that night in hopes of making up for the lack of sleep from the night before, but I stayed downstairs to talk with my brother and finish up some stuff for McKinna’s site.  Around 9pm I decided to go to bed and talk with Erin for a bit.  I could look at her and see the exhaustion of everything in her eyes.

I closed my eyes and said the nightly Hail Mary and prayed for the safety and well being of Erin and McKinna and put the coming of the little angel in God’s hands.  Whatever He believed was the right would happen.  Not 5 seconds after I said, “Amen”, Erin leaped from the bed and ran the bathroom.

I heard her gasp and say, “Dee, you will never believe this.  I think my water just broke”.  After confirming that her water did indeed break, it wasn’t that difficult to confirm, we packed up what little ammenities that we would need at the hospital, hopped in the car and we we off.

Emily, Erin’s parents and my mom met us there.  The initial prognosis from the nurse was that it was going to be LONG night.  It didn’t matter to Erin and I because we knew that our precious gift was on her way.  Barring any complications McKinna would be born on September 10th 2008. After some initial examinations they moved Erin to the “birthing room” (237) where we stayed until McKinna arrived.

DAD TIP:

BRING A DOWN SLEEPING BAG, THE COUCHES ARE HORRIBLE.

There was a lot of waiting, beeping of machines, blood pressure taken, and iced chewed.  Finally around 1:30pm September 10th, it was Erin and I alone in the room and she was 5 centimeters dilated.  She and I fell asleep right after that.  I was woken up at 3pm with Erin telling me that she was 10 centimeters dilated and that we were about to have a baby.

Nine minutes later McKinna Claire Wiles was born.  6lbs 9oz and 20.5 in long.  Holding her for the first time brought a wave of love over me that I have never felt before.  Our blessed angel was here.

Erin and I still can’t believe that McKinna came on the day when medically the chances where so low that we would have greater luck winning the lottery.  I have to remind myself of rule #1 of the UB Rules…things end up how they start out.  We got pregnant with McKinna a lot earlier than expected so why would she not come early as well?

We are at day 2 of being at home and so far so good.  We are still adjusting to the constant blur between day and night, night and day, but it is slowly getting better.  Finding the routine that works for mommy, daddy, and baby are KEY.  Erin and I are close to finding ours, however I have a feeling that once we get used to it, McKinna will throw a kink in it.

I have added a few more videos to the site and have about 10 more to go.  It is a slow process so please bear with me.  If you have any pictures please email them to me so that I can post them.

We would like to thank EVERYONE for their thoughts, prayers, blessings, general goodwill, food, wine, M & M’s, and laughter.  It has been a tremendous help to Erin and I.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family Erin and I would like to introduce life’s start attraction, McKinna Claire Wiles.  Born Sept. 10th, 2008 at 3:09pm CST.  Pictures express more than I could possibly write.  Mommy is doing AWESOME.  More pictures and videos to come over the next few days.

View the latest pictures.

This has to be the longest two weeks ever.  We have waited 9 months so one would think that waiting two more weeks wouldn’t be that big of deal, but Erin and I have never been so anxious in our lives.  Sometimes we will sit in McKinna’s room talking and try to answer the following:

Who is she going to look like?  Is she going to have hair?  Will she know my voice when she hears it for the first time?  What will her first word be?

It is the uncertainty of the future that I believe is so exciting.  What will the future hold for not only McKinna, but Erin and I as parents?

All we have to do now is wait.

Receiving and purchasing gifts for McKinna is always a fun little adventure.  Though the presents are for her opening them is 3/4’s of the fun.  However, having to return ANYTHING to Babys R Us or Target is a royal pain.  They have the worst return policies we have ever run into.  The latest misadventure came yesterday when Erin and I tried to return a duplicate gift back to Babys R Us (Wolfchase Location).   What should have been a 10 minute task turned into an hour of what exemplifies the lack of corporate efficiency in this country.

We went to the counter and explained the situation: duplicate gift that was purchased online and we didn’t have a gift receipt, but it was on our registry.  First, the lady couldn’t locate the item on our registry and then alluded to the possibility that we wouldn’t be able to return it.  After getting the manager involved he said that the product wasn’t in their inventory database at all even though it was purchased from their company.

Mind boggling.

Finally, after 35 minutes of haggling with four different employees who couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag, they were able to lookup some inventory number and locate our purchase in their system.  Unfortunately, they were going to give us $7 less than what was paid for online because they had marked it as a clearance item.  So we had to argue that point.

At long last we got everything straightened out and took our gift card to purchase the two items that we really wanted which are a M and a W wood letters.  Guess what??? They where sold out of both those letters.  Can you believe it?!

Erin is going back to the other location to see if they have her initials.

What a misadventure!!!!