Monday, April 28, 2014

Home

Paige is now one week old! Well, she will be in a little under 3 hours. Isn't she cute?


Being home has gone well so far. The girls are still in school all day so it's just Paige and I until about 5:30. Today is the last day that Dustin will be picking them up from school for me [their school closes at 5:15 and he generally works until 6:30] so I'll have to manage going there, dragging Paige inside, and bringing them all out. We made the decision to keep the girls home this summer to save some money, and I have already concluded that outings with out Daddy will be few and far between!


Speaking of sisters... they sure do love baby Paige! A little too much. Since they've been in school all day they haven't really had too much time to spend with her. Brooke had dance on Thursday night and then on Friday night Dustin took them both to a baseball game. When they are around her they both kind of "fight" for her attention. They have yet to find a way to look at her that they both find equal. Even in the picture above you can see Molly pouting because Brooke was singing a lullaby and she wanted to sing hers.


Paige can be very alert. Just ask her newborn photographer, who has the patience of a saint and spent 5 hours with us yesterday trying to capture pictures. I am pretty positive that Paige slept for less than an hour of that, and it was all in spurts.

I've spent most of the first week just holding her and cuddling her. Since she is my last, and I already know just how quickly babies grow up, I've been trying to enjoy every moment. I did have to leave the house on Friday to take her to a Pediatrician appointment on my own, and it made me realize I still have some healing to do, so I've been taking it easy. One week olds don't really have a schedule but she does okay at night. Last night she went in 3-3.5 hour spurts before needing to eat, and I actually woke up feeling rested. The first few nights were pretty rough.


I can tell that the "hormonal slump" is starting to set in. The adrenaline from birth has worn off, and now the emotional roller coaster begins. I have been on anxiety medication since the beginning of my pregnancy, so I've been curious to see how everything goes. The nurse told me that I might need a higher dose for awhile since my body has adjusted to what I am on now. It is worse at night so I always look forward to going to be and waking up to a new day.


Happy One Week, Paige! You are the perfect addition to our family. 


Thursday, April 24, 2014

Paige Taylor | 4.21.14


Paige arrived on Monday, April 21st. She is currently sleeping away by my side, making those soft little baby sounds I love so much. On to the birth story... If you want to skip the lead up and such, skip to the picture.

I had an appointment last week on Thursday, and the OB I saw that day checked me. I had been checked at the appointment two weeks prior and I was almost 3cm and 50% effaced so I was curious to know what progress I had made. I had been having painful contractions all week but not enough to do anything. He told me that I was 4cm and almost 100% effaced and asked if I wanted to go on my own or be induced. I told him that we were fine with an induction so he left the room to see when my specific OB was on call. When I left the room he said she was on for Monday and he would have a nurse call me to schedule the induction if she was comfortable with it.

The nurse called that afternoon and started with, "I doubt you'll make it to Monday..." and said my doctor wanted to induce me and they planned to start at 7am, but I needed to call at 6am to see if they had a bed.

Being able to plan for her actual birthday was kind of strange. In one sense, it was great. We had everything ready to go, a plan for the girls that didn't include throwing their schedule off in the middle of the night, and I was able to have a spotless house to come home to. In another sense, it was a little more emotional. I kept thinking of all my lasts and how quickly it was all coming to an end. If I had just gone into labor on my own there wouldn't be much time to think or dwell on things, but I had a whole weekend. I willed my body to make it to Monday as well because I really didn't want to be in the hospital on Easter.

Sunday night we dropped the girls off at Dustin's parents. Monday morning arrived. I woke up to use the bathroom at 4:30am and was wide awake. I watched TV until 6am and called the hospital. They had pushed back my induction to 9am, which suddenly felt like days instead of two hours. Dustin was blissfully sleeping and I woke him up at 7am to start getting ready. He was so calm and collected and I was practically jumping on the bed yelling "It's baby day!!" We loaded the car, did a few last minute things, and we were off! Dustin mentioned that he needed to take something to the bank at 9 so I had him drop me off at the hospital to check in while he did that. It was so strange passing L&D triage and being taken directly to a room.



Everything seem to start off so slow. There was paperwork to go over, information to enter in the computer, an ugly hospital gown to put on. At 10am the nurse tried to put my IV in and blew my vein, so she put a call in to IV recovery hoping they could do it better. They didn't come up until 10:30 and she had to put it in my hand, which is where no one wanted it, but oh well. My OB decided they would do pitocin and break my water together and see if that got things moving quickly. The nurse hooked up a small dose of pitcoin at 10:45 and then got word that my doctor was headed back into a c-section so we would have to wait on breaking my water. We decided to walk the halls instead of just sitting in the bed for awhile, since it helps pass the time. I felt some stronger contractions but nothing that was truly painful. I could tell the pitocin was doing something though.


I passed my doctor around 11:45 and she said she was going to grab lunch real quick. I thought that was kind of funny but didn't say anything [now I know why, which I'll get to later]. We ended up back in the room at 12 thinking she'd be up soon. Did a few more laps, ate some ice chips. She came up at 12:45 to break my water. It was the first time I had been checked and she told me that I was almost 6cm and baby's head was low. She broke my water, which there was A LOT of, and that was an odd feeling. I texted our photographer my progress. I didn't want her to just have to sit in my room and do nothing!

The nurse was very adamant that if I wanted an epidural I needed to tell her right away. It was around this time that I got the idea they thought it would all go very fast, which was why my doctor went and ate lunch before breaking my water. It was also why the nurse had the entire room ready right before they broke my water. She had the delivery light down, the baby crib ready, and all of the equipment out. I didn't feel that way though since, surely, even if I was 10cm in five minutes I would push for hours like with Brooke and Molly. The contractions were almost immediate as soon as she broke my water. That did the trick! They were super painful so I made sure to tell the nurse to call the anesthesiologist and he came up at 1:15. My favorite person! Things went downhill from here. He did the numbing solution and then tried to put the epidural in but it was super uncomfortable and painful, which is normally isn't. It is so hard to describe the feeling of an epidural. Lots of pressure and nerve spasms! He kept asking where I felt it, left or right side, but it was so hard to decide. My pressure dropped to 60 something over 42 and I was sure I was going to pass out. The nurse was patting my face with a cold cloth and Dustin was holding a throw up pan in front of my face. He used more numbing solution and finally got the epidural in. My relief was short lived because it only numbed my left side.

My contractions felt almost worse now. My left side was numb but on the right I had extreme lower back pain and a sharp pain my pubic bone. My nurse, plus the charge nurse, came running in because baby's heart rate dropped with every contraction and they had to turn me. The charge nurse decided with my pain and her heart decelerations she must be sunny side up. I almost started crying. At 2:00 they had me push the button that administered more medicine into the epidural and they went to call him back up to fix it. He gave me a different medicine and I was numb in seconds. PHEW! Relief, finally. He left at 2:30 and they checked me.

7cm. Time to call our birth photographer in! She was already in the hospital so she was back in the room by 2:50. She put my wide angle lens on and we joked about keeping the windows wide open for the natural light [which we ended up doing]. In a minute or so I started feeling extreme pressure. My nurse was in checking on me because of the heart decelerations in baby and I told her. She said she doubted I was complete already but she'd check since I said it was so bad. She went to check me and her eyes got wide. She looked at me and said, "I can't even get my fingers in! She is right there."

I asked, "Does that mean I'm 10cm?" And she laughed.

She told me to hold still and she would get my doctor. Our photographer, Heathyr, got back in the corner and got a chair to stand on. Dustin stood next to her and by my side. Everything felt so confusing. The baby nurse was in there, my doctor came in to scrub up. I kept thinking, "WHY are they in here? I have to push for an hour or two, and then the doctor comes in!" They had my bed apart in seconds and my doctor was already asking me to push. It was hard to know when because my epidural had just been fixed so I was completely numb. I didn't even know if I was doing a good job. After three pushes she had me take a break. Then we started three more. During the third push she screamed at the nurse to get a vacuum. I didn't really have time to process that just that suddenly my doctor was telling me I needed to push again, and hard. She screamed that they needed the nurse back, and she came sprinting. Two more pushes and Paige was out. I think this was the number of pushes, but in all it was 10 minutes.



She was super purple. The doctor held her for maybe ten or fifteen seconds to see if they needed to put her on my chest or give her right to the nurses. She started crying and they handed her over to me. Later the doctor said that the cord was wrapped around her neck and she had stopped breathing, but I did a great job pushing her out quickly. I was still in shock that she was already here! AND she was face down. Another big surprise.

Our hospital does an hour of kangaroo care so Paige laid on my chest for that whole time, just hanging out. She kept sucking on her hands but I was in a horrible position for breastfeeding since I was on my back. I had a first degree tear, which is really nothing. The doctor worked on that. Heathyr came around to the other side and took pictures. Dustin came around to see her face. They put my bed up so that I could breastfeed her. Right at an hour they took her and did her measurements and such.

8lbs 1oz and 20.5 inches long. I thought she would be much bigger for some reason since we were almost to my due date.

They got her all bundled up and gave her to Dustin. Heathyr took a few more pictures and left, and then it was time for the nurse to get me up and cleaned and get my IV and epidural line out.

They couldn't bathe her until she had two temps about 98 degrees, and that didn't happen until about 6:15. We had thought the girls would be there by then but they hadn't arrived yet. Jena, Wes, and Bayleigh came around that time... just in time for her to be done! Grammy and the girls came a little while later. It was all chaos for awhile and then everyone left and the check ups slowed down and we were finally alone for the night.

The first night is generally peaceful so I tucked Paige onto my chest and cuddled and loved on her. She slept well at night but the nurses actually don't prefer that and woke me up to feed her. We had random visitors through out the day and Grammy brought the girls back so we could take some pictures and they could hold her more.





The second night was chaos, as expected. Paige wanted to be fed pretty consistently from 9pm to 3am. I had been awake for 22 hours by the end and was starting to hallucinate, so I didn't even want to hold her. I raised my bed up high and put my hand in her crib to calm her.




Wednesday we just sat around and relaxed and waited to go home. I LOVE being in the hospital but by the end of 48 hours we were getting bored and were ready to get out of there. They did the 48 hour blood test at 3:30 and we left just before 5!



Welcome to the world Paige! You are oh so loved by mommy, daddy, and your big sisters!

Thursday, April 10, 2014

38 Weeks!


Pregnancy: 38 weeks

Weight Gain: I still don't know EXCEPT when I went in yesterday she said I hadn't gained anything since the week before, so that is pretty good considering how much babies gain toward the end.

Sleep: The worst part of pregnancy at this point. With my SPD I generally wake up in pain and it is excruciating to get out of bed to use the bathroom. I also end up on my back every hour or so and that wakes me up.... on top of false labor contractions. I honestly think sleep deprivation with a newborn around is easier, haha

Gender: Girl

Name: Paige Taylor

Feeling: Pretty good except for at night.  My face is getting really puffy and my eyes are basically slits for parts of the day. It is getting harder to get around so I spent more time than usual sitting or laying down. My belly also gets in the way all the time now. I've lost all depth perception where it is concerned.

Health: I've had several blood draws recently due to low platelets. IF they choose to not return to a normal number by delivery, I cannot have an epidural. EEK! I need to start mentally preparing for that now.

Belly: Growing. :)

What I am looking forward to: Sleeping on my belly.

What I miss: Being able to bend forward with ease. Even using the restroom can be an issue.

Overall I feel pretty good and if she decides to stay in until her due date, I think the next two weeks will still FLY BY. The days sure have been recently. Brooke and Molly have been home this week which has been fun but, man, they keep me busy. My house is consistently a complete mess, my stress level is raised, and we are cooped up! They will be staying home with me this summer. HELP!



Friday, April 4, 2014

37 Weeks + Thoughts



Pregnancy: 37 weeks


Weight Gain: ???

Sleep: ROUGH. I wake up a lot. Sometimes it is before of pregnancy, and other times it is something like.... the dog wants to get on our bed even though he knows he isn't allowed, or the battery in the smoke alarm died, or a child feels the need to tell me they are using the potty.

Gender: Girl

Name: Paige Taylor

Feeling: Sore. Every time I walk I feel like she might fall out.

Health: Blood pressure is still up and down but we've been able to manage it, thankfully.

Belly: I swear it grows a half inch a day. She dropped so it is also lower... and generally in the way.

What I am looking forward to: Walking with out looking like I spent 9 hours straight on a horse.

What I miss: Feeling like myself. Don't get me wrong, I love being pregnant, but toward the end a woman just wants some parts of her body back!

OKAY. Now on to some thoughts on labor. 

Brooke came at 36w4d. Molly came at 37w1d. I am 37w1d today. Of course, a lot of people are starting to wonder if I've had the baby yet just because of my history. Sometimes I even wonder if I'm having this baby. ;)



The thing with the early births is that they both came in completely different ways, so there is no way for an OB to look at me and say I just happen to birth babies early. With Brooke my water broke and they had to use pitocin to start my labor. With Molly I went into actual labor and they broke my water at 10cm. 

Either way, everything at the end is a mind game. It's like the beginning of pregnancy where you think you could be pregnant but you are not sure because the symptoms can also match the "time of the month" symptoms. At the end everything just feels uncomfortable. I've never gone past 37 weeks to know if the feelings are normal, or if they are signs that labor is imminent. Therefore I don't have much of an answer for when labor might start.

I do know that no matter what, she'll be here in less than a month. And if she does choose to stay nice and comfy inside of me until April 25th, time will still fly by. 

I had an appointment yesterday and I am 3cm and 50% effaced, so that is less progress I have to make once labor does start. :internet high five: