Kangaroo Care

Today was the first day of Kangaroo Care! And Ava was wide awake when I went to visit her!

Baby "Wren"

Alright, I actually prefer this method for keeping progress on Baby "Wren" and will probably switch to using this blog again :) So, I now have a blog for Emily and baby "Wren".

So, let me start by saying THANK-YOU to everyone for your prayers and positive thoughts! At this point, she is a normal preemie who was born at 29 weeks and 5 days. It seems strange to say a normal preemie, but so far she has done everything that is classic for 29 week babies, so that is a good sign and I am thankful that she is doing so well.

At this point, this poor baby girl, STILL DOES NOT HAVE A NAME. Yes, I know everyone thinks that she needs a name and so do I, but I keep looking at her and just keep throwing names out the door...hahahaha! Though Em has settled on a name and is pretty insistent on it, so she may win out :) The only reason I may let her is because she was also the only person who was correct on the sex of the baby from the very beginning, especially considering most people thought she was really a boy!

Let me tell you "Wren's" Birth story in this post:

On Sunday morning, I woke up at 6:45 am with extreme back pain and hip pain, but thought it was just me having slept wrong on my back and hips, plus I had had a busy day on Friday and could have been suffering from that still :) So, I got out of bed, went to the bathroom and when I came back to lay in bed, I realized that I was having contractions with the back pain. The pain would start in the center of my back and radiate around the hips to my front. So, at this point, I am still pretty calm, and just thinking it is normal Braxton Hicks contractions, so I get some water and start drinking it. I also start trying to switch positions. These are all things they tell you to do when you have BH contractions, and nothing was working. So, I start to get into more pain and realize that these are not stopping, so about 45 minutes later, after having 15 of them during that time, I call the doctor. Dr. Muasher calls me back immediately listens to what I am saying and basically says, why don't you come in and we will just get you checked out and see what is going on. So, in we go to Labor and Delivery. I must say trying to round up a 4 year old to go to the hospital is like trying to herd cats, yes I am comparing Em to an entire herd of cats!

At this point, I am not standing a lot more and I notice the contractions aren't as bad, but I am having a lot of pressure just standing there. So, into the car we go and off to the hospital I go. We arrive at the hospital at about 8:30 am and get up to Labor and Delivery Triage. They get me connected to all the monitors and my doctor comes in and sees that I am in fact contracting and then decides to check me. I am 1 cm dilated and my cervix is super soft at this point, so she tells me that I will be in the admitted over night, so they can stop my contractions and then hopefully the next morning I will be able to go home for bedrest.

So, they start giving me steroid shots (which by the way HURT like nothing else) and start me on IV fluids and antibiotics, because there is always worry of infection when early labor has started. They take my blood and my doctor comes back and says that she wants to run some cultures to rule out infections. As she is doing this, she then asks me, "Has your water broke?" I respond with not to my knowledge. And she tells me she thinks it has. So, she is going to run that test also. Well, sure enough my water had broke and when she comes back she tells me that it has broken and that completely changes everything. So, she tells me that unfortunately I will be in the hospital until the baby is born so they can monitor me. The risk of infection becomes high at that point and that the next 24-48 hours will be the most critical to stopping the labor and for her to stay in and not get an infection. I of course have NO IDEA when my water broke and everyone keeps asking me, but there was no gush, there was no constant leaking, there was nothing, so I have no idea if I had been walking around for awhile with it broken, or if it broke when i started labor, or whatever. So, I get moved from Labor and Delivery Triage to Labor and Delivery.

Once in labor and delivery, my contractions have stopped thanks to two shots of terbutiline and I am just laying in bed hungry, since I haven't eaten since 9:30 pm Saturday night! My doctor comes in and tells me that about 12 pm I can go ahead and get transferred up to HRP (high risk pregnancy floor) and I will be able to eat lunch up there and that will be my new home until baby comes. Now, of course right before that happens, my contractions start again and so that means another round of terbutiline shots (which do cause your heart to speed up and at one point my heart feltl ike it was going to POUND out of my chest because of it) and they tell me I am going to be kept in Labor and Delivery overnight at this point and will hopefully be moved tomorrow. So, still no food for me. During this time, I feel little contractions, but around 5 pm, the contractions become hard again and the back pain is back. The nurse comes in about 15 minutes later and I tell her what is going on, and she calls the doctor. Then, she said the words I will never forget! She says," Has the doctor talked to you about a c-section and getting this baby out?" Me, "No, not at all." So the poor nurse has to tell me this and then tells me my doctor will be there shortly. So, I immediately fall to pieces and a million thoughts travel through my head going from, no she is too little to come and that i am not ready for this and she needs to stay in there.

Dr. Muasher comes to my room and says, "Rebekah I think we need to get this baby out. I think you have a possible Chorio infection and we need to get her out. She checks my cervix again and it hasn't changed at that point, but she tells me that I feel really warm. and she wants to get the baby out" So, the chaos starts. At this point, it is about 5:30 pm and then I start meeting different doctors, in comes Anesthesia, more nurses, they ask if the NICU doctor had come to talk to me and I said no (which is probably better honestly) and then by 6 pm, I am getting wheeled into the OR and being prepped for a C-Section. I am told by my doctor what she will be doing and that hopefully she will be able to use the transverse cut to get her out, because then i will be a better canidate for a VBAC if I ever choose to have more babies, but if she has to do a classical cut (horizontal) then I will always need a c-section for any future babies. She does tell me that she may need to do the classical because the baby is so small.

So, back to the OR room, I am in just complete shock that this is going to happen and I just remember looking at the lights and just feeling like I was in a dream and it wasn't really happening. So, I get my spinal block and immediately cannot move and they lay me down and wait until everything is dry to begin the surgery. My anesthesia nurse keeps checking on me and I literally feel like I can't breathe and it begins to make me more nervous. The nurse tells me it is ok and but raises my bed just a little so my head is up. At some point, I start to smell a very strange smell and they keep saying there will be pressure and tugging and there is. But the pressure is mainly because this guy starts putting pressure on your chest and squeezing down as the baby is coming out! It hurts and I start to feel really uncomfortable. So, at this point I hear that she has done a classical incision and that the baby is about ready to come out. I hear my doctor talk to her and then she is gone and over with the NICU nurses that were waiting for her. I can't hear her at all, but they don't seem too rushed and they bring her over to me before she is sent down to the NICU and she looks sooo tiny! They tell me what they are going to do, though it doesn't really register in my head, and then she is gone. I am now just hanging out in the room with the doctors who are finishing everything up and start shaking uncontrollably, which again is normal i hear!

I am completely out of it for the rest of the night, just not completely with it, but I get updates on how the baby is doing and that she is ok and will be put on medicines for her lungs to develop and fully inflate, and that she is forgetting to breath, but that is completely normal for her at her age but she did really well on her apgar test, 5 and a 7. Em came back that night after I was settled in my recovery room, and she was very upset that she didn't get to see her baby sister (as I of course had been talking about how she would get to see baby sister after she was born! Never expecting a NICU baby) and so I have been constantly explaining why she can't see her, and she doesn't like any of those explanations :) The NICU nurse did give me, a diaper, a hat and a blood pressure cuff of Baby Wren's to bring to Em and they are TINY!

Will post pictures and more updates soon! Thank you for your love and support!

Spaghetti lover :)

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I was trying to leave to go grocery shopping and she threw a fit over brown shoes. So I went and sat down and she fell asleep. Great now I don't know how long to let her sleep for ;)

Beautiful weather

75 degrees and enjoying the weather :)

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Yes the sunglasses are upside down :)