OK, so first off I have to start with the funny things that 4 said while I was gone and a few things she said before I went in to have the baby.
Before the baby came I had been working really hard to get 4 potty trained. She was doing really well and even was going to school in her "real" underwear." One day after she got off the bus I asked her if she needed to go pee pee. She proudly told me, "Nope, I left my pee pee at school."
Later on that day I heard her calling out to me — she had had an accident and was yelling to me, "Mom, mom! My poop is out, my poop is out!"
The first day I was in the hospital my mom and sister were taking turns with 4 and she was really confused wondering where I was. Jessie was trying to explain to her that I had the baby. She didn't really understand and kept saying that the baby was in mommy's tummy. So Jessie proceeded to explain that the baby came out of mommy's tummy. 4 then exclaimed, "Oh, someone's gonna have to clean that up. Oh no! Oh no! Put it back!"
After about four days of being gone to the hospital 4 said to Jessie, "My mommy's lost so I can't go check on her."
While my mom and Jessie we taking care of 4 while Marc was with me at the hospital, she was dancing to her favorite music with her cousin B and danced up to my mom and sang, "Shake your birdie!"
When I came home for a few hours while Baby was in the hospital nursery still the phone rang. 4 pointed to it and informed me, "That's my mommy." (I called a lot to check on Marc and the kids so I guess that is what I became—the phone.)
Once me and Baby were home to stay I was trying to help explain everything to 4 so she would understand this whole "baby" thing. One of the things I was explaining to her was how Baby gets her food. I was nursing at the time and 4 pointed to the side I was nursing on and seriously enquired, "Is that cow broken?" (that's my favorite)
4 asks, "Can I pet her?" (She loves to rub the hair on her head. I think she learned this from petting the baby goats.)
And 9 is such a huge helper. He can hardly stand it. He always says, "She is so adorable, mommy. I just love her to pieces."
Each night before he goes to sleep he comes to inform me, "Mom, Baby is all taken care of. Everything's good." Then when I go in there I see that he has tucked her in carefully and arranged everything neatly around her cradle.
OK, here are some pictures:
Two days before we left the hospital—five days old
First day home with 13
9 just adores Baby
She opens her beady little eyes for 17
13 took this picture
This is the second day home — eight days old
9 wanted to show how smal she is compared to his hand...
Tiny feet
Below are 9, Baby and 4's feet
Her leg is about as big around as Marc's thumb—she is tiny
she came home at 4 ounds 13 ounces
She fits into Marc's cowboy hat!
She looks so much like 4!
Now, I put this part last in case people didn't want to read it, they can skip over it. But, I wanted to document all of it before I forgot. I didn't do this with 4 and wish I had. So here it is:
Thursday night the 22nd of October at about 9:30 pm I started feeling some faint contractions. The didn't really hurt but at about 10:30 they were getting closer together. So I thought I should go to the hospital so that they could stop the labor if, indeed, it was actual labor this time. Besides after going in that morning to the doctor and having him get after me for not going in the day before I thought I'd rather be safe than sorry.
So I wake Marc up at 10:30 and tell him to take a quick shower because we are going into the hospital. I call my mom while he is in there to ask her to come spend the night just in case we are in for a long night like we had been before or possibly having a baby. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be having the baby that night so I reassured her that it was "just in case." I hopped in the shower quick, too, because, well, I don't know, I just did. Anyway, after that we grabbed my bag and the baby's car seat, went down and told 17 that we were leaving to the hospital and that my mom would be there soon. Then we were off...
Before getting into the car the contractions really weren't painful or anything. In fact when I first got into the car I thought they had stopped and I was gonna be going right back in the house. But, sure enough they came, closer and more painful. It took about ten minutes to get to the hospital and I had two contractions on the way there. They admitted me through the ER and then I went up to Labor and Delivery.
Right off the bat I could tell I wasn't going to like the nurse who was helping me—just and inkling, I guess...
As soon as I get into my lovely hospital gown and get on the bed so that they can hook me up to their monitors I begin to inform my nurse—we'll call her, Betty— "The other two times I have been in to have my babies they can't seem to find my contractions on the monitors and then and hour later when I beg for them to check me they find out I am dilated to and eight and they start freaking out wondering why the contractions weren't showing up. So, let me warn you that my contractions are really low, because I have a tipped uterus. So instead of up here (and I point to the where she is placing the monitor which is well above my belly button) you'll pick up my contractions better if you place the monitor down here (and I then point to the area below my belly button where I am feeling the contractions)."
Betty, with her haughty err looks at me like I'm and idiot and says, "That's impossible, the contractions happen here at the top of the fundus." And she puts the monitor there, looks at the screen and says, "You're barely having contractions, these must be Braxton Hicks." I try not to slap her, and then ask her to check me and see if I have dilated anymore from this morning. She "ho hums" about it but finally checks me and says there is no change from this morning—I am still a two and 70% effaced. She says they will watch me for an hour and see what happens.
Now, when I first got to the hospital the contractions weren't painful but, over that next hour they began to become quite painful. I am trying to be a trooper as I lay there in pain. She comes in after about two hours instead of one and by then I am barely able to breathe through the contractions. She finally comes in, pulls out the paper on my contractions and says, "Your contractions aren't very hard and they are quite far apart. Maybe one minute each somewhere around seven minutes apart" I, again, wanted to smack her—she's telling me that my contractions don't hurt!!!! Aaargh!! I tell her that I have been timing my contractions and they are lasting 2 minutes and are four or five minutes apart. She just looks at me and gives me a half smile.... Aaaaaaaahhh!!! I don't like this woman!!! I am in a lot of pain and I am sure that I have made some kind of progress by now, and I am also wondering why they haven't done anything to stop my labor—apparently it is because Idiot Betty thinks I am a big whiner and am just having Braxton Hicks. I ask her to check me again and it almost looked as if she rolled her eyes—I was still a two and 70% effaced—no progress. I start to cry, if this isn't real labor there is no way in heck that I am going to be able to have a natural birth like I did for the others. Iam also crying because Betty is talking like they are going to send me home feeling like this—there is no way.
Betty tells me that she is going to go get the pill to stop my labor. I am thinking she means right away—but, I seemed to have forgotten who I was dealing with—I think another 30 minutes or so went by. We checked into Labor and Delivery at about midnight and it was 3 am by the time she got me the pill to stop the Labor. When she brings it in to me I am crying so I guess her heart softened a bit so she gave me a button to push once at the beginning of the contraction and twice at the end of the contraction. How the heck am I supposed to focus on pushing a stupid button when I am having horrendous contractions??!!!! Honestly!! But, amazingly I did pretty good at pressing the button because when she finally came back in she looked at my contraction print-out and informed me, "Yep, they are just Braxton Hicks--they are getting closer together and shorter..."
Does anyone have a bat??!!! Ya, that is because my contractions are now on top of eachother and I feel like the bottom half of my body is going to wrench itself from the top half. She begins to act as if she is going to send me home—satisfied that the labor-stopping-pill has done its job. I ask her once again to check me to make sure there is no progress before she tries to send me home in all my misery. She says in her sweetest-annoyed-to-no-end-by-this-patient voice, "Sweetheart, (I hate it when people call me that!) you haven't made any progress yet, I really don't think anything has happened." I beg her to check me one more time.
She does.
Then she leaves without a word.
???
I turn to Marc and ask him if he heard her say anything. By this time he has been by my side holding my hand and helping me breath through the "Not Contractions." He looks at me like he has no idea what happened either.
She comes back with a tray of stuff.
"So was there any progress? Am I dilated any more?"
"Ya, you're a four. You really didn't want to go home did you?"
"Pppfffth!" I am thinking. I even told her that the contraction monitor wouldn't tell her anything unless it was down more. Aargh. She comes over to start getting me ready to have a baby with all that stuff they do. She moves the contraction monitor down and says to me with a sweet smile on her face, "Well, I finally figured out where your contractions are." Gee wiz lady—you're really smart!!!!
So little funny part: While everyone is rushing around getting things ready, Marc is right by my helping me through the contractions. He leans over my face helping me to do the breathing and through my contractions I tell him, as sweetly as I can, "Honey, you need some gum." We all started laughing. I told him it was in my purse and he then joked and said, "Honey I can't find it, can you come over here and get it for me?" Ha!! I laughed as hard as my body allowed me. I needed to laugh after all the stress.
So my contractions were giving me no break and by now, it was about 3:30am so I asked them to check and see if I was dilated any more. I was a seven! The urgency raised and everyone was rushing to get the doctor and get everything ready for a premature infant to be delivered soon.
I begged for an epidural because the pain was so much more intense than I ever remember with 4 or 9. They said it would be about ten or fifteen minutes before the epidural guy could get there. The contractions were intensifying and I was having to got from yoga breathing to the whole "he hee hoo" thing that makes you feel like a dog, but it was the only way to focus myself away from the pain. Marc was the best labor coach ever and was right there with me reminding me to breath and encouraging me and telling me I was doing a good job.
The doctor was there, everyone was trying to get everything ready. The epidural guy came rolling in after what seemed like an eternity. I asked the doctor to check me before I got the epidural.
He checked me.
Then he looked around at everyone and said, "We are ready to deliver this baby. She's a ten."
I figured no sense in the epidural now, so now it was just a matter of trying not to push until they got the pediatrician there to be with the baby. I tried to wait as long as I could but the urge to push was too strong. So at 3:54am Baby was born. The doctor said, "She sure doesn't look 6 weeks early." She was pretty big for that early and weighed 5 pounds 7 ounces.
We were told that we should plan on her being in the NICU for four weeks and possibly being transported to another hospital. I am being told all this while they are still trying to get her stabilized there in the room. She had muconeum so they had to make sure she hadn't swallowed any of it before she breathed. Finally I heard her cry. They let me glance at her for a moment before taking her to the NICU. Marc was in there with her taking pics and video and I just laid there on the bed waiting for my blood pressure to regulate before they could let me get up.
After about three hours I was finally able to see her. She was perfect. I still felt like I was dreaming that I had her so early.
She was only in the NICU until 7pm that day. She was doing so well they released her to me in my room to be checked on by the nurses every so often. What a blessing.
On Sunday just before both of us were to be released she turned pale purple in my arms while I was nursing her! All to familiar a situation, as this same thing happened with 4. I am thankful we found out before we left the hospital. They kept her there another four days and I was able to stay in my room there as a guest so that I could be with her and nurse her.
It was really hard on the kids having me gone so long. And for the two younger ones, they couldn't even grasp the concept that there was actually a new baby that had joined our family. Of course 9 understood but, I think the absence was starting to concern him.
Marc held the fort together with a lot of help from my mom and Jessie. And he was still able to come visit me and Baby once in a while.
I am glad to be home. Baby seems to be doing well. She is on an apnea monitor and oxygen and two different medications. It is a little bit of work but, it is so nice to be home. We are lucky to be home after only a week in the hospital with a preemie.
This is my favorite!
4 with her baby sister at 11 days old
She was so proud and excited to have her picture taken while holding Baby
Just cute in blue... She is 4 weeks exactly in this picture
I had just bathed Baby and she was crying after we got out so I was comforting her.
Here is a few shots from the party on Sunday.
Chelsea and Baby—Chelsea just can't get enough of this girl.
Marc and his sister, Amy
Baby in her candy cane outfit—I think my mom got excited for Christmas... or candy canes...
Here's a good example of her cross-eyed look,
Love this one... Jessie with 10... too cute!
Here they are coloring the gift that little M gave him.
