Wow...Where to even begin. It has been such a whirlwind these last 10 days that I cant even remember what day it is. All I can say is I am so thankful to be home and I know that we will get in the swing of things soon. This can only get easier right?
I know many of you have been waiting to hear my side of the eventful week so I am going to do my best to recap it for you guys. Thank you to Dan for giving updates while I was in the hospital! That was a Huge Help :)
Day 1: Friday, April 22, 2011
What a great day. I spent the morning at my friend Ali's classroom hanging with a bunch of 5 year olds and taking adorable photos of them. Then I headed to the studio for a maternity sales session with a client of mine who is having twin boys. Evening ended with a nice walk with Dan around the neighborhood a yummy dinner and then we were planning on watching a movie. Looking back it was a pretty hectic day as I had been only doing about one big activity a day or I would be too tired. Thinking I might have over did it a bit? Hmmm. Also this weekend was going to be our "pack the bag" and "figure out where we go at the hospital" and any other things we needed we were going to take care of. My 36 week appointment was supposed to be Monday and I will admit I was very nervous for it (ironic now). I guess Lily had other ideas for us...Like pack your bag in 5 minutes...Its time to go to hospital! ha ha! Dan and I had went upstairs to put some cozy pj's on for our movie night when my water broke. It was about 9pm. At this point I had zero contractions just my water broke. I started freaking out a bit but Dan kept his cool while he called the Dr. Thankfully my wonderful Dr Barrett was on-call for the weekend. I was so nervous about not getting her and was so relieved she would be there. Dr Barrett told us to head to the hospital....Dan got everything together (umm...my water was leaking so I wasnt much help at this point. oops. Luckily Dan is amazing!) On the way to the hospital I was pretty much in shock. There was no way I was being sent home without a baby....SO SCARY! I was also nervous at how early we were (4 weeks). I know babies can be fine even earlier than that but you still worry.
Hospital....
We checked into the hospital about 10pm friday night. I have no idea if I was dilated yet and they wouldnt check since my water had broke. But they got us in and all hooked up to the fancy crap (sorry...was not thrilled) and started monitoring my contractions. I kept asking how long it was all gonna take and I know no one actually knows but I still kept asking! ha ha. They offered me a sleeping pill which I declined (thank goodness). How they heck they thought I would sleep who knows? Dan was able to get a little...there was not a chance I would have slept with our without the sleeping pill. About 3am my Doctor checked in and I was dilated at 4. She suggested getting the epidural then if I was going to have one. As much as I did not want it my contractions were hurting so bad and were pretty much on top of each other that I broke down and said okay. After several attempts at placing the epidural who knows what happened. IT DID NOT WORK! Even a different person came in to try and add more meds...Ummm....I FELT EVERYTHING. Wow. Thats all I will say. Thankfully my labor progressed super fast. There was one point when my nurse said I just "checked" you (dilated at 5 at that point) and there was no way I was at 10. Well...I proved her wrong. Was at 10 and was already trying to push. I needed to get that thing OUT! It was HURTING! ha ha ha ha!
Day 2: Saturday April 23, 2011
7:13am Lily arrives. 61bs 4 oz 19.5 inches long. Dan says I was a trooper. I dont remember much other than needing ice chips like crazy, squeezing his hand to death, Pain and closing my eyes. I just wanted it to be OVER. I had a little bit of a scare as they could not get my bleeding under control. Thankfully my doctor stayed calm so I didnt worry but Dan was scared (he tells me after the fact). She worked her magic and got me taken care of. Then the next thing I know my daughter is being taken away from me. I sent Dan with her and once I was all stitched up it hit me. I called my mom (who was at the airport and on her way) crying as I didnt know what was happening. It all happened way to fast.
Dan returned with the news that Lily's oxygen saturation levels were low and she needed to be hooked up to oxygen. Luckily it was not a c-pap (I think that is what they call it?) but just regular oxygen..not forced. This was the ONLY thing that was wrong with her....however it meant that she was going to have to stay in the NICU until she could keep those levels up. Until someone has had a child in the NICU you can not even begin to understand how it feels. I can only say I am so thankful she had such a short stay compared to a lot of babies who have to have a visit to the NICU.
The moved us to a different room after the birth and on the way we stopped at the NICU so I could actually hold my little girl for the first time. I cried. Seeing her hooked up with tubes was really hard. They also had to put an IV in her that made me upset. I know it was all to make her better but no one likes to see that happening.
Day 3/4: Sunday/Monday
A blur. Well I guess the rest of the week was pretty much a blur as well but these two days were pretty bad. I was of course in the hospital and was not discharged until Monday afternoon. I was trying to recover but still see Lily whenever I could. The NICU is not just down the hall from where I was. Instead it was quite the adventure to go visit. I had to be escorted in a wheelchair...take two different elevators and finally arrive at NICU. I think this was one of my most frustrating parts of the experience. I also hated leaving her but "sitting" all day in NICU was not helping me heal either. I was pretty miserable. My mom stayed with me in the hospital which I am so thankful for. I did not want to be alone and the sleeping "cot" for my guest was not fun. Dan would have stayed but he was pretty thankful to go home and get to sleep in our bed. Mom saved the day :) Having visitors was quite the challenge as well. I felt bad but there was no cell phones in NICU and that is where I was spending most of my time. Then IF someone wanted to see her we could only have 3 total people in their at a time. Which meant my mom or Dan had to leave. We finally got to the point where we just told our visitors to wait till we got home. This was obviously not the experience I was hoping for but it was the experience we were given.
Monday was the most heartbreaking day of my life. Having to leave the hospital without my little girl was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I was thankful for a shower and my bed but that was about it. Oh and I guess I was thankful that Lily was being watched over 24/7 so I knew she was at least in good hands. Didnt change how I felt about leaving her there but I tried to think of the positive.
This post is feeling very long and overwhelming. Not sure how many of you will actually read through the whole post :) So I am going to stop here and will continue the rest of the story soon so check back.....
~Whitney