I had planned on blogging on Tuesday, August 11th on my lunch break, but got caught up with work stuff and decided to do it the next day. Little did I know that I wouldn't be at work the next day...
My water broke at midnight on August 12th. At the time I literally just thought I'd lost control of my bladder and was peeing on myself. Seems stupid now, but I was half asleep and didn't quite understand what was going on. Every time I moved, my underwear got wet, so I finally called downstairs to Jeff and told him that I was pretty sure my water broke. I called the nurses station at the hospital just to ask their opinion and they told me to come in immediately.
Jeff and I ran around the house throwing last minute things in the hospital bag that we had just packed 3 days previously. Luckily I had a list that had a section for what to pack when it actually happened. I remember it took nearly a half hour because my brain couldn't process what was going on and I wanted to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything. I wasn't having contractions, so I wasn't in a huge hurry.
We left around 12:30 and got to the hospital somewhere around 1am. They put me in a gown and had me lay down in bed. They strapped on a fetal heart monitor and a monitor to track my contractions. They kept saying "you just had a contraction about 5 minutes ago, did you feel it?" No, apparently I didn't...I would continue to have them throughout the night, but not really feel them until close to 6am.
A midwife came in to exam me and said I was 2cm dilated, so they admitted me to the hospital. A doctor came in to take a sample of amniotic fluid so they could use it to test the baby's lungs. Needless to say, we never saw those results.
I called my parents at 2am and told them I was at the hospital and I'd been admitted. They immediately got up and booked a 6:30am flight. Jeff's parents quickly packed up a bunch of stuff and headed for the hospital as well.
I let Jeff get about 45 mins of sleep while I texted an emailed. I wasn't feeling contractions, just mild cramping, so there was nothing else to do! People would later make fun of me for this!
Somewhere around 6am the contractions started getting painful. They would start in my back and then move around to my front. I asked for IV drugs which they told me would last an hour. I put on my headphones and literally made it through 3 Daughtry songs before the pain came back with a vengeance. I was gripping onto the bed rails when the nurse came in and taught me how to breathe. Breathing does really help, you just have to remember to do it. My first instinct every time a contraction came was to start hyperventilating and freaking out. I remember thinking that I've never in my life been in a position where I was in pain and couldn't do something that would make me feel at least a little better. This pain wasn't going away! By 7am my contractions were around 2-3 minutes apart, yet even though I asked, the midwife didn't want to come in to check and see how far I was dilated. She was convinced it was going to be a long day of labor. I even told the nurse I felt the urge to push and no one really seemed to listen. Around 7:30am I demanded an epidural because the pain was so bad. The epidural didn't hurt; it actually immediately covered my entire left side giving me some relief. However it wasn't covering my right side so they had to roll me over to get the drug to 'drain' into my side. It never fully covered, but after about 1.5 hours did a decent job. My parents arrived somewhere around 8:15am, along with my aunt, Shannon and Jeff's parents who had been there since around 4:30ish. Around this time a new midwife came on shift and came in to see me. She checked me and immediately said "she's fully dilated, why hasn't she been checked?!" Yeah seriously! I'm not a doctor, but I do know that with contractions 2-3 minutes apart and pressure down under, that means it's probably time to have a baby!
The midwife decided I was progressing well, so she wanted me to labor down by myself and let it all happen naturally, so she left for a bit. I was able to visit with my parents and my aunt for a little while. Around 9:30-10 or so my contractions started slowing down a bit. They weren't as frequent or as intense, but I wasn't sure if I just couldn't feel them because of the epidural or what was going on. It was somewhere around 10:30am that the midwife checked and the baby's head was crowning. She wheeled over a mirror so I could see her head - insane! Since the contractions had almost come to a stop, she had the nurse put me on pottosin to try and get them to come back. I did get more and the midwife would have me push. Then it would go away and we'd just sit there and chat while we waited for another one to come back. Finally did one last big push and Olivia Jeanne Ryleigh was born at 11:16am on August 12, 2009. She was 4lbs, 2.84oz and 18.1 inches long.
They prepared me in advance that she would be taken immediately over to the heating lamps to be examined by a doctor from the NICU. She tested 9/10 on her APGAR and the doc did a full exam before letting Jeff cut the smaller part of the umbilical cord. They wrapped her up and let me hold her for about 5 minutes before they had to put her in an "incubator" and take her to the NICU. They stopped in the waiting room so everyone waiting there could meet her.
It all happened so fast and Jeff went with her to the NICU. So I was left alone with the nurse and the midwife getting stitches for the natural tear I had. I was actually alone for a really long time afterwards since Jeff was with the baby. I couldn't even process what had happened, just 24 hours before I was having a normal day at work.
Shortly after my parents came in to see me and then all of our visitors. About a half hour later they wheeled me in my bed to my post-partum room, but they stopped in the NICU so I could visit her. I only remember bits and pieces of it, but I do remember saying that she had such big feet and such long legs!
I spent a good part of that day going back and forth to the NICU by wheel chair. I needed sleep so bad, but just couldn't. My parents and Jeff's parents brought me some fries from In and Out Burger and Jeff a burger. That night at 6pm they brought him and I a "celebration dinner." Cheese manicotti (it was ravioli even though it said manicotti lol) with asparagus, rice pilaf and chocolate fudge bundt cake. We also got some martineli's so we could do a toast. It was really sweet!
The next day we spent in and out of the NICU. I decided I wanted to be discharged so I could shower in my own shower and sleep in my own bed. I needed to get some rest and get everything ready for her to come home. They initially told us she would be there 5 days, but over the course of those 5 days it changed, depending on who you talked to. Every day we'd get up, get ready, go to the hospital and sit with her for a good amount of the day. I cried at least 2-3 times a day because she couldn't come home. I dealt with breastfeeding Nazi's, social workers, physical therapists, ten different nurses, a bitchy head-nurse and several doctors that all brought me to tears. (I mean, not only did this all happen so suddenly, but then I couldn't take her home, which I'd never planned for, so it made it that much harder to process.) By the end of the 5th day it became frustrating. They wanted her to eat more, but everyone was feeding her differently and everyone had a different opinion on when she should come home. On Tuesday, August 18th, 2009, my mom and I settled in for another long day at the NICU. Olivia had just come off 24 hours on the bili-lights and we weren't expecting her to come home for at least 2 days. Suddenly her doctor comes up and asks if I know how to feed her and then asks if I want to take her home. "Cause if you don't feed her, she'll be back here."
So at 2pm on August 18th, we brought Olivia home! The first few days were stressful. We knew she had to eat to gain weight so she wouldn't have to go back to the hospital, but there were times when she wouldn't eat more than 15cc and I would just cry. She was 3lbs, 14ounces when we brought her home and they wanted her at her birth weight by her 2 week mark. At her first follow-up appointment they told us we had 6 days basically to get her weight up. I talked to a friend and co-worker who had preemie twins and she suggested a formula called Similac Neosure that was 2 extra calories per serving along with more protein and vitamins to help promote weight gain in preemies. So without consulting her doctor I made the decision on Friday, August 21st to switch her to this formula. Within 2 days she began thriving. She continuously ate more and more and by her 2 week follow-up she had gained 9 ounces and weighed 4lbs, 8.2oz - she surpassed her birth weight.
Today, August 28th, she's now eating around 2oz (60cc) almost every meal and is noticeably putting on weight. It's been an emotional and thrilling 2.5 weeks; our latest challenge are these late night feedings every 3 hours. Jeff goes back to work next Wednesday which is really scary, but it's just another step in this new journey for us both.
Olivia is an amazing baby. She's so sweet, so calm and so alert. It's a joy to be her mommy! More blogs will come with our many adventures during this time in our lives!
Cheers!
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