"Oh. Muhmuh...I've never seen you wash dishes before"
"Muhmuh...I love you. Daddy...will you get me some milk?"
Nora has to be a pine nut because she's smaller than Amelia and Amelia is the peanut.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Nora's Arrival (warning: medical stuff...ewwwww)
After a long night of tossing and turning, my thoughts racing in excitement over what was to happen the next day, and wondering if everything I felt was actually -something-, morning finally arrived. We were so ready to meet Nora! It was precious to have a last night and morning at home with just Amelia. We dropped Amelia off at Grandma & Grandpa's house around 9am. We got to the hospital around 930am, and they were ready for us. Instead of sitting in triage before being admitted, the nurse took me right to my labor & delivery room. After receiving a phone call the night before from a nurse in triage wondering why Dr K had pulled my chart, and making me wonder what I was/wasn't supposed to say about our "secret" plan, I was relieved that the whole thing wasn't that big of a deal.
We got settled in our room, the nurse did the IV and we waited for Dr K. She attempted to break my water, but wasn't sure if it worked, so we waited again. In the meantime, they decided to start me on pitocin at which point I asked for the epidural. The epidural made a huge difference as I was having contractions the whole time we were there, and the water attempt had not helped (that was just about the worst thing I've ever felt). Dr K again attempted to break my water and this time was definitely successful. That, combined with pitocin, should've made things progress...but they didn't. Dr K and my labor & delivery nurse Janelle were both trying to position the contraction monitor, because it didn't look like anything was happening at all. Dr K left, and the nurse anesthetist left, and it was just Janelle and another nurse. Janelle had gotten me a bedpan, which was my first adventure with such a device. I sat up to use it and my vision went black. My ears rang and fuzzed, I went shakey all over and mildly panicked. I heard numbers being called out, and people being paged. The next time I could see, there were about 10 people in my room. The nurse anesthetist was injecting something into my IV, Janelle and Dr K were next to me saying something about the epidural. A cold washcloth was put on my forehead, and a bunch of people were watching some monitors. Dr K pulled up a chair, which was deja vu from when I had Amelia and she told me my bp was too high and we had to do a c-section. She explained that the black-out episode was not supposed to happen. She said "it seems we've had this conversation before...but this time it's because your bp dropped too low" (It had dropped to 80/50, whereas with Amelia my bp was 250/200 when she called it). It could be because of the epidural. But, most likely, it was from an abruption or from a "window" in the scar tissue from the previous c-section. Either way, it was time to call a c-section and be done with labor. With that, we were off to the operating room. Dr K called a somebody over to "take a look at this"...which I found out later was a "window" in the scar tissue that was about 5" in diameter and that Nora was trying to push through (Dr K said usually they're about 1"-2" and that this was the biggest one she'd seen). At 2:06pm, Nora was born! 4 weeks early, 8 lbs 2 oz, 19 inches long. When she came out, Dr K said "This one looks like mom!" because Nora had tons of black hair. Nora's first cries seriously sounded like a duck quacking, so someone said "congratulations, it's a duck!" She was doing a lot of premie stuff (breathing fast, with fluid in her lungs) so she went to the special care unit after I got to see her for a little while.
Nora spent 5 nights in the special unit, and finally we were released on Monday morning. She had graduated to a regular crib the night before. Luckily, even though I was discharged on Sunday morning, I was able to board on the floor Sunday night right across from the special unit. Nora had started out on a warming table (which is the most serious type of table since it's designed to allow immediate access to the baby by multiple drs/nurses) in the more urgent room, she had multiple monitors and an IV and was unable to drink from a bottle. Once her temperature stabilized, and she had expressed all the fluid in her lungs, she was moved to an isolette (which looks like an incubator). She was only in the isolette one night, Saturday, and during that time was moved to the less urgent room across the hall within the special care unit. That night her IV was also removed. Sunday was a very cry-y day for me. I cried when I saw Nora without her IV, and found out she was drinking from a bottle. I cried when Dr McIntosh (the ob on-call Saturday night) told me that I was staying admitted Saturday night (which was a relief because Nora was definitely not being released that night). I cried when I found out that there were definitely rooms available for me to board on Sunday night. Normally that much crying would make me cringe, but in this case they were all happy tears (including the ones I shed while on the operating table when I saw Nora, and the ones I shed when I found out Nora was being discharged on Monday).
While in the hospital, our families all visited...some on multiple occasions. My parents brought Amelia to see us everyday. Everybody was able to see Nora in the special unit, albeit one at a time. Dan Mahrle and his girlfriend Rachel stopped by. Mary came by a couple times. Tonni visited on Saturday. Tom, Kellie, Ava, Giovanna, Steve, and Juliana visited all at once. Everybody was so excited that Nora was finally here! And they all agreed that Nora was a beautiful little girl who was already very talented at keeping us on the edges of our seats. :)
We got settled in our room, the nurse did the IV and we waited for Dr K. She attempted to break my water, but wasn't sure if it worked, so we waited again. In the meantime, they decided to start me on pitocin at which point I asked for the epidural. The epidural made a huge difference as I was having contractions the whole time we were there, and the water attempt had not helped (that was just about the worst thing I've ever felt). Dr K again attempted to break my water and this time was definitely successful. That, combined with pitocin, should've made things progress...but they didn't. Dr K and my labor & delivery nurse Janelle were both trying to position the contraction monitor, because it didn't look like anything was happening at all. Dr K left, and the nurse anesthetist left, and it was just Janelle and another nurse. Janelle had gotten me a bedpan, which was my first adventure with such a device. I sat up to use it and my vision went black. My ears rang and fuzzed, I went shakey all over and mildly panicked. I heard numbers being called out, and people being paged. The next time I could see, there were about 10 people in my room. The nurse anesthetist was injecting something into my IV, Janelle and Dr K were next to me saying something about the epidural. A cold washcloth was put on my forehead, and a bunch of people were watching some monitors. Dr K pulled up a chair, which was deja vu from when I had Amelia and she told me my bp was too high and we had to do a c-section. She explained that the black-out episode was not supposed to happen. She said "it seems we've had this conversation before...but this time it's because your bp dropped too low" (It had dropped to 80/50, whereas with Amelia my bp was 250/200 when she called it). It could be because of the epidural. But, most likely, it was from an abruption or from a "window" in the scar tissue from the previous c-section. Either way, it was time to call a c-section and be done with labor. With that, we were off to the operating room. Dr K called a somebody over to "take a look at this"...which I found out later was a "window" in the scar tissue that was about 5" in diameter and that Nora was trying to push through (Dr K said usually they're about 1"-2" and that this was the biggest one she'd seen). At 2:06pm, Nora was born! 4 weeks early, 8 lbs 2 oz, 19 inches long. When she came out, Dr K said "This one looks like mom!" because Nora had tons of black hair. Nora's first cries seriously sounded like a duck quacking, so someone said "congratulations, it's a duck!" She was doing a lot of premie stuff (breathing fast, with fluid in her lungs) so she went to the special care unit after I got to see her for a little while.
Nora spent 5 nights in the special unit, and finally we were released on Monday morning. She had graduated to a regular crib the night before. Luckily, even though I was discharged on Sunday morning, I was able to board on the floor Sunday night right across from the special unit. Nora had started out on a warming table (which is the most serious type of table since it's designed to allow immediate access to the baby by multiple drs/nurses) in the more urgent room, she had multiple monitors and an IV and was unable to drink from a bottle. Once her temperature stabilized, and she had expressed all the fluid in her lungs, she was moved to an isolette (which looks like an incubator). She was only in the isolette one night, Saturday, and during that time was moved to the less urgent room across the hall within the special care unit. That night her IV was also removed. Sunday was a very cry-y day for me. I cried when I saw Nora without her IV, and found out she was drinking from a bottle. I cried when Dr McIntosh (the ob on-call Saturday night) told me that I was staying admitted Saturday night (which was a relief because Nora was definitely not being released that night). I cried when I found out that there were definitely rooms available for me to board on Sunday night. Normally that much crying would make me cringe, but in this case they were all happy tears (including the ones I shed while on the operating table when I saw Nora, and the ones I shed when I found out Nora was being discharged on Monday).
While in the hospital, our families all visited...some on multiple occasions. My parents brought Amelia to see us everyday. Everybody was able to see Nora in the special unit, albeit one at a time. Dan Mahrle and his girlfriend Rachel stopped by. Mary came by a couple times. Tonni visited on Saturday. Tom, Kellie, Ava, Giovanna, Steve, and Juliana visited all at once. Everybody was so excited that Nora was finally here! And they all agreed that Nora was a beautiful little girl who was already very talented at keeping us on the edges of our seats. :)
Nora's Pre-Arrival
I'm sure this will have to be in parts because I've been so neglectful of writing all this stuff out lately (with good reason, I guess!)
It all started on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009. I'd been feeling yucky for a day or so. All day I'd had a hard time getting around at work. Once, at Rob's desk, I had to lean over to catch my breath and when I stood up I saw stars. I was slowly getting to the point where I was going to just go home sick. Around 2pm I finally decided to go home, however, my office all of a sudden got busy and I didn't end up leaving until 330pm. Rob dropped me off at home and I went right to the couch and laid down. He then went to pick up Amelia and to pick up dinner (chili and Greek salad from Apovini, my favorite!) While he was gone, I noticed that I was having contractions. I figured I'd been having them all day but since I was at work moving around, I hadn't noticed. I was doing the thing the doc says to do to get them to stop: drink lots of water and lay down. If they don't stop with that, then there's really something happening. They weren't terrible, but they were definitely there and every 5 minutes apart. I called Dr K's office and the nurse, Sue, told me to head to the hospital. Rob came home with Amelia, and I said we have to go. We got our stuff together, took Amelia back to my mom's and went to the hospital. Once we got there, we were in Triage first. The week before, at a doc appt, I'd measured 1cm dialated. When the nurse checked me this day, I expected to be 1. She said "Well, you're not 1" and the first thing I thought was "Oh great...I'm 0?" and she said "You're 4cm". I was shocked! I hadn't really felt anything terrible, so I never suspected I'd be at 4 already! With that, I was admitted and put on fluids to try to stop the contractions. Because I was 35 weeks, nobody wanted to stop it with drugs, and they didn't want to intervene to induce with either drugs or water-breaking. Consequently, I had to be pumped full of fluids, and painkiller (luckily!), and wait it out to see what would happen. After a night of contractions every 5 minutes (that were getting painful, btw), the fluids finally worked in the early hours of the morning and the contractions stopped. So, at 4cm and 25% effaced, Dr Smith sent me home with an Ambien to take a good nap and a shower. Also, I was now on bedrest for the time I was home which meant no work, and only necessary walking.
I'd only had ice chips all night, and once I was in the car I ate one bite of a banana and threw up that plus the Ambien. Even without that, I had no problem sleeping for 4 hours once we got home. I took a shower, and Rob went in to work for a couple hours to close up his desk. While he was gone, I started having contractions again. They were 5 minutes apart again. Dr Smith had said that she expected to see me at the hospital that night, and to wait until the contractions were 5 minutes apart and intense for at least an hour. When they started up again, they were immediately intense. I tracked them for an hour. I called the office and Sue said to wait another hour and head to the hospital again. The general rule is to go to the hospital when the contractions are 5 minutes apart. Mine had been 5 mins apart for 2 days! When Rob got home, we went back to the hospital. I was still at 4cm, and they got me hooked up to fluids right away. I spent the night at the hospital, again waiting for the contractions to either stop or progress on their own. Sometime in the early morning, they stopped and I was released later in the morning. Still on bedrest, we went home to wait for what happened next. From Friday through Tuesday, I had contractions off and on, of varying severity.
On Tuesday, March 10th, we went to my regular doctor appt with Dr K. I found out I was now at 5-6 cm dilated and 50% effaced. So...over the weekend, and without realizing it, I had progressed again. We were all a little nervous that I could be just sitting at home and Nora would just pop out in a surprisingly uneventful fashion (ie while sleeping! Like in my dream where I fell asleep at my desk at work and had the baby and woke up to my coworkers babysitting!) To avoid that, we hatched a plan where I would show up at the hospital the following morning, when Dr K was on, complaining of contractions. She would be ready for me to be there, and I'd be admitted so she could break my water and get things going. Rob and I were relieved and thrilled because we finally knew what was going on and wouldn't have to be nervous about my situation anymore. We went home, called everyone, and tried to get some sleep that night (which for me was pointless because I couldn't turn my brain off).
It all started on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009. I'd been feeling yucky for a day or so. All day I'd had a hard time getting around at work. Once, at Rob's desk, I had to lean over to catch my breath and when I stood up I saw stars. I was slowly getting to the point where I was going to just go home sick. Around 2pm I finally decided to go home, however, my office all of a sudden got busy and I didn't end up leaving until 330pm. Rob dropped me off at home and I went right to the couch and laid down. He then went to pick up Amelia and to pick up dinner (chili and Greek salad from Apovini, my favorite!) While he was gone, I noticed that I was having contractions. I figured I'd been having them all day but since I was at work moving around, I hadn't noticed. I was doing the thing the doc says to do to get them to stop: drink lots of water and lay down. If they don't stop with that, then there's really something happening. They weren't terrible, but they were definitely there and every 5 minutes apart. I called Dr K's office and the nurse, Sue, told me to head to the hospital. Rob came home with Amelia, and I said we have to go. We got our stuff together, took Amelia back to my mom's and went to the hospital. Once we got there, we were in Triage first. The week before, at a doc appt, I'd measured 1cm dialated. When the nurse checked me this day, I expected to be 1. She said "Well, you're not 1" and the first thing I thought was "Oh great...I'm 0?" and she said "You're 4cm". I was shocked! I hadn't really felt anything terrible, so I never suspected I'd be at 4 already! With that, I was admitted and put on fluids to try to stop the contractions. Because I was 35 weeks, nobody wanted to stop it with drugs, and they didn't want to intervene to induce with either drugs or water-breaking. Consequently, I had to be pumped full of fluids, and painkiller (luckily!), and wait it out to see what would happen. After a night of contractions every 5 minutes (that were getting painful, btw), the fluids finally worked in the early hours of the morning and the contractions stopped. So, at 4cm and 25% effaced, Dr Smith sent me home with an Ambien to take a good nap and a shower. Also, I was now on bedrest for the time I was home which meant no work, and only necessary walking.
I'd only had ice chips all night, and once I was in the car I ate one bite of a banana and threw up that plus the Ambien. Even without that, I had no problem sleeping for 4 hours once we got home. I took a shower, and Rob went in to work for a couple hours to close up his desk. While he was gone, I started having contractions again. They were 5 minutes apart again. Dr Smith had said that she expected to see me at the hospital that night, and to wait until the contractions were 5 minutes apart and intense for at least an hour. When they started up again, they were immediately intense. I tracked them for an hour. I called the office and Sue said to wait another hour and head to the hospital again. The general rule is to go to the hospital when the contractions are 5 minutes apart. Mine had been 5 mins apart for 2 days! When Rob got home, we went back to the hospital. I was still at 4cm, and they got me hooked up to fluids right away. I spent the night at the hospital, again waiting for the contractions to either stop or progress on their own. Sometime in the early morning, they stopped and I was released later in the morning. Still on bedrest, we went home to wait for what happened next. From Friday through Tuesday, I had contractions off and on, of varying severity.
On Tuesday, March 10th, we went to my regular doctor appt with Dr K. I found out I was now at 5-6 cm dilated and 50% effaced. So...over the weekend, and without realizing it, I had progressed again. We were all a little nervous that I could be just sitting at home and Nora would just pop out in a surprisingly uneventful fashion (ie while sleeping! Like in my dream where I fell asleep at my desk at work and had the baby and woke up to my coworkers babysitting!) To avoid that, we hatched a plan where I would show up at the hospital the following morning, when Dr K was on, complaining of contractions. She would be ready for me to be there, and I'd be admitted so she could break my water and get things going. Rob and I were relieved and thrilled because we finally knew what was going on and wouldn't have to be nervous about my situation anymore. We went home, called everyone, and tried to get some sleep that night (which for me was pointless because I couldn't turn my brain off).
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