Bye Bye Bili!!!

Kate's bilirubin levels are going down! They were high-ish today, but lower than they've been this week. We got the official go-ahead to stop using the formula. (Daddy P probably ensured this was so by buying a huge case of it last night...) It'll be a relief to Daddy P's pinkie finger!!

Baby baby everywhere

Because my stomach was split open, we decided the trip next door to the crib might be a little much every night. Now, I am not really one for the whole co-sleeping thing. Not my bag. BUT, we bought a co-sleeper because getting out of bed has been harder than usual this past week. Kate has taken to it brilliantly and we've managed alright with it so far. On one hand I have found it so much easier to roll over and breastfeed her in the middle of the night without having to get up and move around much. On the other, I cannot wait to have the bed to ourselves again. So, it's working for now, but she better not get too used to it.



I also broke out the baby sling that Cece bought me today. It is soooo awesome. I can see how those nutty baby-wearing people get really into this. Kate being Kate she slept through the whole thing, but I'm sure she liked it.

Hospital Stay Part II

After we were out of surgery, Kate and Daddy P took care of the baby matters in the nursery, and they wheeled me off to recovery. I was joined by my family soon thereafter. (Daddy P will have to fill you in on his version of this story later.) We got to spend a little time together in the recovery room and not long thereafter they got me into our room upstairs. Kate stayed for a little bit, and we tried our hand at breastfeeding. It was a largely unsuccessful endeavor, and then they took her off to the nursery for more sticks and pokes. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see her for quite some time after that.

Kate stayed most of the evening in the nursery at that point because she was breathing too rapidly. We were told later that this is pretty normal for pre-mature babies (which is what they were considering her at 36 wks 5 days) because their lungs still have fluid in them so they work extra hard to get them dried out. Daddy P spent time in the nursery with her checking on her and making the nurse there feel really bad for me that I wasn't getting to see her. He was so effective at this, in fact, that the nurse brought her down to the room at 3am even though she wasn't "supposed" to. I got a chance to feed her before they wheeled her back upstairs and it went better than the first try. Oh, I forgot to mention that Daddy P was an *awesome* advocate for baby Kate, including making sure they didn't give her a bottle. Instead they fed her some formula via a little tube tied to the nurses' pinkie finger.

That night was pretty painful for me and I took advantage of the Percocet. I accomplished the goal of sitting up, which my brother-in-law told us was step #1.
We finally got her for good early that morning, and she spent the rest of the day with us.

Friday she met her Texas grandparents and her auntie Pam came by to see her and check on me. The lactation consultant came to visit and gave me some help (yay for lactation consultants!). Kate is very good at nursing though and pretty much taught me what I needed to know. Daddy P ran home for a shower and to take a nap but missed us so much he ended up coming right back as soon as he was clean. (He's so cute with her it just kills me.) I made my first small walk (to the bathroom, woo hooo!) and by the end of the day got all my tubes unhooked (sweet freedom). Even better, I got to take a shower!! The most amazing feeling! I saw my stitches in the mirror and got a little woozy, but other than that I was managing well.

That night we decided to have her room-in with us (which I felt was a brave move, but Daddy P strongly advocated for it and was willing to get up and bring her to me to feed her). Our doc encouraged us to take advantage of the nursery which would keep her but bring her to us to nurse, but we both felt that it was a little over-stimulating in that room for an early baby. We decided her little brain needed the dark and quiet of our little room to do some last minute development it was getting cheated out of.

For one reason or another (jaundice or her small size) she wasn't waking up to eat enough, so we were told to wake her up every three hours to eat. This I was not expecting. I thought that *I* would be the one she'd have to force awake to feed her. But nooooo. Every three hours we engaged in a crazy routine to try to wake her up. We tried turning the light on. Changing her diaper. Tickling her foot. Stroking her cheek, her back, her leg, her foot. Taking her clothes off. Putting a damp cloth across her cheek. She is a heavy heavy sleeper. It went much better than I had expected, largely due to Daddy P's wonderfulness and his ability to annoy Kate awake.

Little did I know that we would be getting less sleep that "normal" because one nurse or another would be poking in every hour. Daddy P was awesome in getting up to bring the baby to me, and managed to semi-sleep through most of the nurses' visits. I had brought ear-plugs (the one thing I would not be there without) so I was able to sleep through hall-noise and the nurses' checking on the baby.

Saturday we started supplementing my feedings with some formula. The nurse also had me pump to keep everything going, which was a fun activity to figure out. Between having a tube taped to my lady parts and then squeezing them I was feeling very much like a science experiment. Despite all these attempts, her bilirubin levels were going up and the doctor said we needed to keep monitoring her jaundice. I took a slightly longer walk down the hall (yay!) and was feeling a bit more mobile.

By Saturday night I was tired enough that with my ear plugs in I was sleeping through the nurses' visits throughout the night, including the visits when they were trying to check on me. Daddy P said that at one point the clinical assistant came over and began to pick up my arm to take my blood pressure and I didn't stir at all. Daddy P didn't think this boded well for Kate being able to wake me up. I was tapering of the heavy meds and just relying on Motrin, so things were looking good.

Sunday her bilirubin levels still went up a bit, but the doc was hopeful that they were topping out, and gave us the okay to go home. Every nurse and doc that day kept asking if we wanted to go home, to the point that I started questioning the decision. Were we ready? Did they know something we didn't?? I do want to go home. Please? Can I? So we went. :)

Kate's bilirubin is still high. She got poked again today, and we head back tomorrow. The doc has her on formula for every other feeding at this point, so Daddy P has been helping with some of the feedings graciously to let me sleep a little more. His pinkie finger is getting mighty sore I think. He said he had a new appreciation for what I go through.

Day of firsts

Daddy P was off today (yay!) and got to cart around his two favorite gals (I'm being presumptuous here, I know, but considering how many kisses Kate gets, I'm fairly certain about at least one of the counts being accurate).

First off, the doctor. Kate's first trip to see the pediatrician. He said she looked good, albeit yellow, and seemed happy with how she was doing. We asked all of our long list of questions (yep, we really came with a list), some of which we knew fell into the paranoid parent category, and others we thought were actually reasonable. I liked our doc even more for normalizing our worry, and even including himself in our paranoid parent category. Our question list included:

1) How are her hips? Mom and aunt have a history of hip dysplasia and seeing as she was breech for so long one of the docs from the weekend was worried about her. Our ped said that he thought a trip to the pediatric orthopedist would be a good idea, although he didn't see anything that looked concerning.

2) Why does she stop breathing?!?! Apparently, it is normal for babies to hold their breath. Freaks me out though.

3) Does a swaddle delay motor development? No, he said, nothing to be worried about.

4) This whole grazing thing -- eating for 20 minutes, breaking for 30 and then starting up again... Anything to do about that? Answer: Not really, she's tiny, and jaundice, so she has to be fed whenever she's hungry or even when she isn't.

5) She hiccups after EVERY feeding. Anything to do? Nope.

6) The lactation consultant at the hospital was adamant that her tongue couldn't reach as far as it needed to and she needed surgery. Neither of the two weekend on call peds thought it was a problem, and our doc didn't either, so we are going ahead without surgery. She sticks her tongue out and nurses just fine as far as we can tell. No surgery, thank you very much.

After all our questions were answered, we made our way on to our next of firsts...

The next stop was to get pricked at the lap to check on her bilirubin (jaundice). This was my first visit with her to get pricked (Daddy P had plenty of experience with this at the hospital over the weekend). Apparently, her jaundice is getting worse so we are supplementing with formula today and she has to be pricked again tomorrow to see how it worked. I have opted out of the trip tomorrow. Can't watch/listen to that whole thing again. Daddy P let her suck on his finger during the event to try to help her calm down. He said he now has a better appreciation for what breastfeeding might be like. I think his expression was: "she's quite a little sucker!"

We then had our first time of breastfeeding in the Target parking lot, and then shopping in Target. I desperately needed some new tops to accommodate all aspects of my new figure, so we made a quick stop of it.

Then she got to hang out at Texadelphia on the patio while Daddy P bought Mamacita a little snack and got me outside for some much needed fresh air.

Now that we're home, I'm beat and headed for a nap (Kate beat me to the punch on that one). Stupid surgery.

Backtracking

Let me tell our story now that I have a bit of time.

We arrived at the hospital on Thursday at 1:30pm to check in. We got lost on our way in the maze of the hospital but made it up to Labor and Delivery. We got checked in and settled. And then we waited. There was some emergency at my docs office earlier in the day so she was running late. As a result, we sat in our pre-op room (IV'd up, and ready to go) from 2pm until about 5pm. I took lots of random videos of Daddy P and he tried on his surgical outfit in the meantime. I tried hard not to think about knives and blood and focus on the fact a baby would soon be appearing from my belly!

They wheeled me in and had Daddy P wait in the waiting room until I was prepped. This was the not-fun part, and sadly what I would want to be totally different. So, in I go. And I warn the anesthesiologist that I have a slight mental block against blood, and I tend to almost faint. I say "almost faint" because everytime in my life I have gotten close I've thrown up all over. (Can you hear your English teacher saying "foreshadowing" in your ear?) Yeah, so, sure enough.

I sit and get my spinal block. They have me facing the nurse prepping the instruments for the doctor. A whole table of gauze. I close my eyes. Then they lay me down, and before I'm even down my feet are already going all pins and needles. As I am laying there a nurse is noticing a stain on her scrubs and trying to figure out if it is blood or some chemical or other. Another nurse says it looks like finger marks so it must be blood. I get dizzier. I warn the anesthesiologist of this. He tells me to breath more deeply on my oxygen mask. I wonder how this will not just make me lightheaded, but take slow deep breaths, trying to practice my labor breathing. Dizzier.

Now he realized O2 is not sufficient, and anti-nausea drugs go into my IV.

I'm trying to think happy thoughts. I'm trying to channel all my positive energy. Now I hear ringing....

Luckily, the nurse standing next to me hears me as I pull my oxygen mask down and peekly say "I think I'm (gag), I think I'm going (gag)" and grabs a container for me. Just in time. Nothing like being totally paralyzed from the tummy down and trying to throw up. More nausea drugs... Thoughts I am having:

"I am never doing this again."
"It's okay. I can do this. I'm strong."
"They are going to have to knock me out. I can't do this."
""Think positively."
"I'm going to choke and die."
"Breath through the feeling. In through the nose, out through the top of my head."
"I'm going to throw up."
"Where is Daddy P?!?!"

More drugs into the IV...

And finally, I am okay. They have me numb, shaved, and with a nice little line drawn where my cut will go... all just in time for them to let Daddy P come in. He said he was surprised that I was smiling when I saw him. He didn't realize how happy I was to see his face and what he had just missed!

The rest went pretty quickly for him. They worked hard to unwedge her from my pelvis (her poor little butt and lady parts were bruised from being wedged in there!), but then she was out! A couple more seconds and I heard crying, and Daddy P reported she was beautiful and gross looking (still covered in her white waxiness). They cleaned her up and let me hold her for a minute or two before whisking her and Daddy P away to the nursery. I then got to spend something like 40 minutes listening to the nurses and my doctor gab as they stitched me up.



More later on the hospital recovery...