Introducing Baby: And Life Ever Since!

It’s hard to believe it’s been three weeks since I went into labor with my baby girl. Time has flown by, and at this point we are basically just in survival mode! But I wanted to take a minute and post about the new addition to our little family.

It was 6:00 in the morning and I was laying in bed, 35 weeks pregnant, getting ready to get up and go to work when all of a sudden I felt a ‘Pop!’ and I thought to myself, was that what I thought it was? And before a second could pass, I got the answer to my question – my water had broke. I dashed into the bathroom and stood in the bath tub, unsure where to go from there. After a few minutes, I woke up my husband and said, “Um, hun? My water just broke.” His eyes shot open from a deep sleep as he said, “Seriously?”

From there it was a whirlwind as we quickly took our showers, grabbed our pre-packed hospital bags, and timed my contractions. My husband ran around frantically grabbing random things he thought I might need while laboring at the hospital and shuffled through our birthing class papers for instructions on what to do.

After about an hour, we headed to the hospital as contractions were about 5 minutes apart and getting stronger. The thought crossed my mind, ‘I wonder if we have time to stop at Starbucks’ but then the thought passed as a strong contraction came on and I had to breathe my way through as we sat in morning commuter traffic…

Eventually we got to the hospital around 8:00AM and got checked in, got the monitors all hooked up and the doctor finally came in around 9:00AM, ran a quick ultrasound and found that the baby was breech. She asked if I knew what that would mean, and I answered that I knew what I didn’t want it to mean. The prep for an emergency C-Section was then scheduled for 9:45AM.

After the doctor had left the room, in walked my mom who also works at the hospital. She’d gotten the okay to come into the surgery with me and my husband and thank goodness, because I was so anxious!

It was cold, and very intimidating as we walked into the operating room. I was beyond nervous thinking about how I would be completely awake through a major surgery where they would be cutting me open. But before I knew it, they were numbing me up and we were beginning the process. It wasn’t long before I heard a high pitched cry and up above the curtain came a beautiful, unhappy baby girl. Cue the tears, I sobbed. After a swift kiss to the forehead, they took her off to get weighed and measured. She was 5 pounds 14 ounces, and was considered a ‘late preemie’.

She ended up having to spend a couple days in the NICU because she was early and small. They hooked her up to little monitors and a heat light, and she had to stay in there 24/7 which killed me. Especially since, after a c-section, I was essentially immobile for a while and unable to go see her until later that night when I decided regardless of pain, I was going to go see her.

The next few days flew by as every couple hours, my husband would gently hoist me out of bed and into a wheelchair (which was so much more of a painful process than it actually sounds), and then head down to the NICU to feed baby girl. We were both discharged 4 days later, where we would go from not sleeping at the hospital to not sleeping at home! 🙂

Our Life Since

As I mentioned before, the following weeks have flown by. It seems like the day is now just measured by ‘What time did she eat last?’ and ‘When does she need to eat next?’ We have to wake her every 3 hours to feed still, so it’s a matter of changing, feeding, pumping, and repeat. But she is doing great and growing quickly!

Well that is all I have time for right now! I will try and post more frequently as things settle down here 🙂 But I can’t guarantee anything!

Hearts,
Sarah