Yesterday Carolyn turned 1 week old. My Little Mouse will be asking me for the car keys before I know what's hit me!
Her umbilical stump fell off yesterday. She nursed on the left side for a good 15 minutes (she still hates the right side. We're still working on a mutually pleasing position for the right breast).
My Aunt Patti flies in today and tomorrow my Dad will be here. All of Carolyn's adoring fans are descending upon us. Poor kid is going to be so blinded by camera flashes she'll think the paparazzi have invaded our living room.
It's tough being that cute.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!
Carolyn had her first official appointment with her Pediatrician yesterday morning. *drum-roll please* Her jaundice levels are officially under control!!!!!!!! Her Dr. said he wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't dropped drastically between Sunday and Monday. She doesn't have to go back to the hospital for any more nasty heel-sticks. He said she's a perfect, healthy, beautiful little girl. (Not that I needed confirmation on the beautiful part).
She had her first sponge bath at home last night. She was not a happy camper and showed her angst by peeing all over her Mommy and Daddy. Once she was all wrapped up in her Bunny-Princess hooded towel all was right in her little world.
I know I've promised pictures. And I WILL post them. It's just been hard with all of the new things going on at home.
She had her first outing today. We took her to Toys R Us with us to buy a few baby items. I wore her in my Sleepy Time baby wrap and she loved it!!! She slept like a champion the whole time. Her Mommy loved it because I could use both hands to shop.
And now, I'm off to finish my breakfast (at noon) and hopefully grab a shower. Ahh, the simple joys in life.
She had her first sponge bath at home last night. She was not a happy camper and showed her angst by peeing all over her Mommy and Daddy. Once she was all wrapped up in her Bunny-Princess hooded towel all was right in her little world.
I know I've promised pictures. And I WILL post them. It's just been hard with all of the new things going on at home.
She had her first outing today. We took her to Toys R Us with us to buy a few baby items. I wore her in my Sleepy Time baby wrap and she loved it!!! She slept like a champion the whole time. Her Mommy loved it because I could use both hands to shop.
And now, I'm off to finish my breakfast (at noon) and hopefully grab a shower. Ahh, the simple joys in life.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
My Little Mouse
Carolyn Jane Lee-Sye was born at 8:16pm PST on February 17th, 2009 at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. She came roaring into the world at a scale-tipping 9lbs and 21" long. She entered the world telling everyone who would listen exactly how she felt about being ripped from her nice warm little world and brought into our cold, bright element. She was the most beautiful pink color you could ever dare to hope for. She has a good head of dark brown hair, what appear to be dark blue eyes, and the most beautiful face you've ever seen. (Not that her Mommy could ever be biased, right?)
So, the labor story.. We went in on Tuesday morning for the doctor to begin the induction process at 6:00am. We checked in and were taken to my labor and delivery room where they checked my vitals, hooked up the fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor belts, started my IV fluid line, and finally did an ultrasound to confirm that she was still, in fact, head-down. After they finished all of the prep work, they started my Pictocin drip to get us rolling.
I started having some very low-level contractions within about an hour of the Pictocin. Thankfully, I didn't really feel them at all. If anything, they felt like a tightening sensation. Chris had a grand ole time watching the monitors and telling me when I was getting ready to start a contraction. I think it made him feel like he had a role (kind of hard to be an active participant when you lack a vagina).
So, fast-forward to about an hour later, my nurse comes in to check my dilation and effacement... I really liked her until she went elbow deep and started pushing around. I was pretty certain she was going to come out of my throat. As I found out later, Labor and Delivery nurses are notorious for not being gentle when they check you. I seriously wanted to kick her in the face!
Around 9:30am my doctor came in to check my dilatation, I was about 2- 1/2cm at that point. So, he broke my water (I'll never look at a crochet hook the same again!!), upped my drip and told me he'd see me later. He also talked to me about an epidural which I was totally against at that point. He just kind of laughed and said okay we'll see how you feel about that later.
I started having more intense contractions after he broke my water but still wasn't really in pain. Chris was really great and stayed with me the whole time and chatted with me about the baby, how I was feeling, etc. I could tell he was nervous because he was way more chatty than I was. Hard to believe, I know!!!
At 4:30 my doctor came back to check on me. By this point, I was having some menstrual-like cramps and some mild discomfort. He checked my cervix and deemed that I was 4cm at that point. As he left I heard him tell my nurse that I was starting active labor. I didn't think too much of it at that point. Within maybe 1/2 an hour, I was having some really serious and painful contractions. I was able to breathe through them for almost 2 hours. Then, they got so frequent and intense that I just couldn't get on top of them to manage the pain. Chris was looking more and more worried. I was super quiet during my contractions but I guess the color was draining from my face and my legs were shaking. So, we made the decision together that I needed to get something for the pain as it could go on for 6 or more hours and I needed to be able to focus when it came time to push. My doctor came back in shortly after I received the epidural and checked my cervix again. I made it to a very respectable 6cm before I asked for the epidural.
The epidural was heaven!!!!! It made things so much better!!!! I was able to rest and relax and just let my body do what it needed to do. It was so effective that I went from 6cm to 9cm in less than 2 hours. So, around 7, they called my doctor and told him I'd be ready to push sometime very soon. He came in, checked me, told me he was going to go do a c-section next door and he'd come back and we'd have our baby within the next hour and a half to two hours. My nurse came in and did some repositioning with me to help the baby come into my pelvis as much as possible so we wouldn't have to push much. She was NOT kidding when she said I'd know when it was time b/c it would feel like I had to poop a watermelon.
My doctor came back in at 8, and we started pushing her out very slowly.. To try to allow me to stretch to birth her with as little tearing as possible, etc. By 8:16, she was here.
That's when things started to go side-ways... Apparently, my pelvis is very short and my vaginal to rectal spacing is very small.. Thus, I am not built to have a 9lb baby. Carolyn pretty much destroyed me coming out. The doctor spent a good 30 minutes sewing me back up. While he was recreating what will someday hopefully be a vagina again, I was staring at my daughter in the warmer and just crying over how much I love her and how beautiful she is. I finally got to hold her and then my aunts came in for a few minutes before they took her to the nursery to evaluate her further....
I was supposed to stay in the recovery room for about two hours and then be moved upstairs to my room where Carolyn would join us. Well, I was bleeding more and more and they couldn't figure out where it was coming from or why so they decided to keep me downstairs for a couple of extra hours.. No problem... They told me Carolyn could come back into the recovery room as soon as they were done w/her in the nursery. I kept sending Chris to be with her in the Nursery and take pictures.. I knew I wasn't feeling right... I kept passing out/falling asleep and I'd wake up really disoriented... They kept coming in and checking me and still no answer about the bleeding except it was still there and they didn't know why. Eventually, they start whispering amongst themselves about a blood transfusion, they slam a shot into my hip to try to stop the bleeding. My epidural had worn off by this point so I felt every poke and prod... Around 12:30 they tell me that my Doctor is coming back to the hospital to look at me. I asked them if I should be concerned and they wouldn't give me a straight answer. At this point Chris is getting really worried but I keep telling him it's fine. I start to get pissed b/c I haven't seen Carolyn in almost 4 hours and I realize that things are not good. I kept thinking, "I need to know what's happening b/c if I'm not okay she can't grow up thinking this was her fault!!!!"
So, my doctor comes back in, takes one look at me and starts yelling at people. He wants to knock me out but the other doctor said she would need an OR to do that and there isn't time for that, etc.. So, they invert me, and start stitching and packing and suctioning me like crazy. All the while, I'm feeling EVERYTHING!!!! Long story short, Carolyn is the last baby I'll have vaginally.. I was bleeding out from a couple of places that she ripped on her way out. They ended up packing me and keeping me downstairs overnight. They checked my blood pressure every 15 minutes, drew blood every few hours, etc to make sure I didn't need a transfusion.
Finally, the next morning, I was able to move upstairs to my room and have my baby with me full-time!!!! I was confined to the bed for most of the day so it was really frustrating to not be able to change her diapers, get up when she cried, etc. Chris was really great though and took care of both Carolyn and me.
The next day, my doctor took out the packing, the catheter, the iv, everything else and told me that I could go home on Saturday if everything progressed as it should. Which it did for the most part. I was fine... Carolyn, however, developed her own set of issues. Apparently, she was faking us all out with her breastfeeding. We'd had some issues getting her to latch correctly but thought she'd been feeding enough. Turns out, we were wrong. She has jaundice (which most babies are born with.. but her levels keep going up not down). So, we're pumping breast milk, supplementing with formula in an attempt to get her peeing much much more. Now that we're home and on a schedule it seems to be going well. She's had to go back to the hospital twice now for heel sticks but we're hoping her first post-hospital check-up will go well tomorrow.
Other than that, she's a perfectly happy, healthy baby. She makes noises like she's swallowed a mouse so her Daddy and I call her Mouse. She loves to snuggle. She hardly ever cries. Everyone who has seen her says she looks like a baby-model.
I know that what I went through was pretty horrific but honestly, I'd do it all again, she's so much more than I ever dared to hope for. I never knew that I could love someone so much. It honestly feels like my heart could burst from all of the love I have for her.
I'll post pictures soon.
For now, I'm off to take a nap with my daughter.
xoxoxo
Nicole
So, the labor story.. We went in on Tuesday morning for the doctor to begin the induction process at 6:00am. We checked in and were taken to my labor and delivery room where they checked my vitals, hooked up the fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor belts, started my IV fluid line, and finally did an ultrasound to confirm that she was still, in fact, head-down. After they finished all of the prep work, they started my Pictocin drip to get us rolling.
I started having some very low-level contractions within about an hour of the Pictocin. Thankfully, I didn't really feel them at all. If anything, they felt like a tightening sensation. Chris had a grand ole time watching the monitors and telling me when I was getting ready to start a contraction. I think it made him feel like he had a role (kind of hard to be an active participant when you lack a vagina).
So, fast-forward to about an hour later, my nurse comes in to check my dilation and effacement... I really liked her until she went elbow deep and started pushing around. I was pretty certain she was going to come out of my throat. As I found out later, Labor and Delivery nurses are notorious for not being gentle when they check you. I seriously wanted to kick her in the face!
Around 9:30am my doctor came in to check my dilatation, I was about 2- 1/2cm at that point. So, he broke my water (I'll never look at a crochet hook the same again!!), upped my drip and told me he'd see me later. He also talked to me about an epidural which I was totally against at that point. He just kind of laughed and said okay we'll see how you feel about that later.
I started having more intense contractions after he broke my water but still wasn't really in pain. Chris was really great and stayed with me the whole time and chatted with me about the baby, how I was feeling, etc. I could tell he was nervous because he was way more chatty than I was. Hard to believe, I know!!!
At 4:30 my doctor came back to check on me. By this point, I was having some menstrual-like cramps and some mild discomfort. He checked my cervix and deemed that I was 4cm at that point. As he left I heard him tell my nurse that I was starting active labor. I didn't think too much of it at that point. Within maybe 1/2 an hour, I was having some really serious and painful contractions. I was able to breathe through them for almost 2 hours. Then, they got so frequent and intense that I just couldn't get on top of them to manage the pain. Chris was looking more and more worried. I was super quiet during my contractions but I guess the color was draining from my face and my legs were shaking. So, we made the decision together that I needed to get something for the pain as it could go on for 6 or more hours and I needed to be able to focus when it came time to push. My doctor came back in shortly after I received the epidural and checked my cervix again. I made it to a very respectable 6cm before I asked for the epidural.
The epidural was heaven!!!!! It made things so much better!!!! I was able to rest and relax and just let my body do what it needed to do. It was so effective that I went from 6cm to 9cm in less than 2 hours. So, around 7, they called my doctor and told him I'd be ready to push sometime very soon. He came in, checked me, told me he was going to go do a c-section next door and he'd come back and we'd have our baby within the next hour and a half to two hours. My nurse came in and did some repositioning with me to help the baby come into my pelvis as much as possible so we wouldn't have to push much. She was NOT kidding when she said I'd know when it was time b/c it would feel like I had to poop a watermelon.
My doctor came back in at 8, and we started pushing her out very slowly.. To try to allow me to stretch to birth her with as little tearing as possible, etc. By 8:16, she was here.
That's when things started to go side-ways... Apparently, my pelvis is very short and my vaginal to rectal spacing is very small.. Thus, I am not built to have a 9lb baby. Carolyn pretty much destroyed me coming out. The doctor spent a good 30 minutes sewing me back up. While he was recreating what will someday hopefully be a vagina again, I was staring at my daughter in the warmer and just crying over how much I love her and how beautiful she is. I finally got to hold her and then my aunts came in for a few minutes before they took her to the nursery to evaluate her further....
I was supposed to stay in the recovery room for about two hours and then be moved upstairs to my room where Carolyn would join us. Well, I was bleeding more and more and they couldn't figure out where it was coming from or why so they decided to keep me downstairs for a couple of extra hours.. No problem... They told me Carolyn could come back into the recovery room as soon as they were done w/her in the nursery. I kept sending Chris to be with her in the Nursery and take pictures.. I knew I wasn't feeling right... I kept passing out/falling asleep and I'd wake up really disoriented... They kept coming in and checking me and still no answer about the bleeding except it was still there and they didn't know why. Eventually, they start whispering amongst themselves about a blood transfusion, they slam a shot into my hip to try to stop the bleeding. My epidural had worn off by this point so I felt every poke and prod... Around 12:30 they tell me that my Doctor is coming back to the hospital to look at me. I asked them if I should be concerned and they wouldn't give me a straight answer. At this point Chris is getting really worried but I keep telling him it's fine. I start to get pissed b/c I haven't seen Carolyn in almost 4 hours and I realize that things are not good. I kept thinking, "I need to know what's happening b/c if I'm not okay she can't grow up thinking this was her fault!!!!"
So, my doctor comes back in, takes one look at me and starts yelling at people. He wants to knock me out but the other doctor said she would need an OR to do that and there isn't time for that, etc.. So, they invert me, and start stitching and packing and suctioning me like crazy. All the while, I'm feeling EVERYTHING!!!! Long story short, Carolyn is the last baby I'll have vaginally.. I was bleeding out from a couple of places that she ripped on her way out. They ended up packing me and keeping me downstairs overnight. They checked my blood pressure every 15 minutes, drew blood every few hours, etc to make sure I didn't need a transfusion.
Finally, the next morning, I was able to move upstairs to my room and have my baby with me full-time!!!! I was confined to the bed for most of the day so it was really frustrating to not be able to change her diapers, get up when she cried, etc. Chris was really great though and took care of both Carolyn and me.
The next day, my doctor took out the packing, the catheter, the iv, everything else and told me that I could go home on Saturday if everything progressed as it should. Which it did for the most part. I was fine... Carolyn, however, developed her own set of issues. Apparently, she was faking us all out with her breastfeeding. We'd had some issues getting her to latch correctly but thought she'd been feeding enough. Turns out, we were wrong. She has jaundice (which most babies are born with.. but her levels keep going up not down). So, we're pumping breast milk, supplementing with formula in an attempt to get her peeing much much more. Now that we're home and on a schedule it seems to be going well. She's had to go back to the hospital twice now for heel sticks but we're hoping her first post-hospital check-up will go well tomorrow.
Other than that, she's a perfectly happy, healthy baby. She makes noises like she's swallowed a mouse so her Daddy and I call her Mouse. She loves to snuggle. She hardly ever cries. Everyone who has seen her says she looks like a baby-model.
I know that what I went through was pretty horrific but honestly, I'd do it all again, she's so much more than I ever dared to hope for. I never knew that I could love someone so much. It honestly feels like my heart could burst from all of the love I have for her.
I'll post pictures soon.
For now, I'm off to take a nap with my daughter.
xoxoxo
Nicole
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