It's taken me a while to get to writing this story out. Part of that is of course having a new baby around and figuring out all that comes with that. The other part is that I wanted Matt to write this out with me. He can fill in a lot of the details because both Avery and I ended up needing a little extra attention right after the birth. Matt however is an extremely busy person, so I will do my best to fill in the stuff that he told me.
Disclaimer: this is going to be a long and detailed post..and there aren't any pictures until about half way through...be prepared!
Disclaimer: this is going to be a long and detailed post..and there aren't any pictures until about half way through...be prepared!
After the 10 weeks of bed rest and being worried that we were going to have a premie, I ended up going past my due date! My Dr. scheduled me to be induced on July 5th...which was one week and one day past my due date. At my appointment she told me I was 4 cm dilated and about 75% effaced, which is where I had been for the past 2 weeks, so it wasn't very significant to me. She stripped my membranes for the second time and told me that my bag of water was bulging and would probably rupture with a few good contractions.
That gave me hope! I hadn't really been having contractions unless we were going on a walk, but the minute we sat down they would stop. I decided I would do whatever I could to get some contractions started. I cleaned the house, I walked up and down the stairs as much as I could, I took them two at a time, I did lunges and squats around the house. Matt and I went on the longest walk we've ever been on around our neighborhood. My Dr.'s appointment had been on a Wednesday and I figured if something hadn't started by Friday, then I would be getting induced the next Friday.
Sunday we had dinner with my family, and then we stopped by Matt's dad's house on the way home to visit with some of his family that was there. When the subject came up, I just told everyone I was sure this baby was waiting to be forced out on the 5th. When we got home that night it was around 10:00 p.m. but we went on a short walk around our block twice because my feet were very swollen. Walking made them a little bit better. The second time around Matt decided we should do 10 lunges around every corner. I told him it wouldn't make any difference, but I would do it. Matt mocked my form, but seriously...doing lunges at 9 months pregnant is not exactly an easy task!
That night I woke up to go to the bathroom around 1:30 a.m.. It was taking me a while to get comfortable again and around 1:50 a.m. I realized it felt like I might be leaking a tiny bit. I decided to get up and check it out. The second I stood up I was pretty sure it had been my water. Then it became obvious that it was my water! The rest of this might be a little bit TMI so check out now if you need to..... but I decided to try and put a pad on before I woke Matt up, that way we could finish packing our hospital bags and go to the hospital. I was running around the room and the hall and turning lights on...Matt woke up while I was putting the pad on (which was completely useless). He asked if I was ok and I told him, "Yes, but my water broke, so it's time to go to the hospital, also it is green....so the baby pooped." He got up and came into the bathroom, he was so excited! I told him I was going to stand in the shower and he needed to finish packing the bags (seriously....standing in the shower was all I could do!!). I started having mild contractions while he was gathering stuff up. I finally found a giant pad and it seemed to be doing alright as long as I sat down.
I decided I needed to hurry and eat something since I had heard that once I got to the hospital I wouldn't be able to eat. All I ate was a bowl of cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, naturally). I was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. I also asked Matt to give me a priesthood blessing. I was excited and nervous, so I wanted a little extra peace getting through whatever was to come!
I decided I needed to hurry and eat something since I had heard that once I got to the hospital I wouldn't be able to eat. All I ate was a bowl of cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, naturally). I was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. I also asked Matt to give me a priesthood blessing. I was excited and nervous, so I wanted a little extra peace getting through whatever was to come!
We left the house around 3:00 a.m. I brought a towel to sit on in the car just in case. The drive to the hospital was surreal. I had a couple more contractions, but nothing too bad...just really uncomfortable.
Matt dropped me off at the doors to the hospital because there was no way I could walk from the parking lot. Someone has to let you in to Labor and Delivery, so I stood by the door pushing the button, but nothing happened. At this point water was leaking down my leg and forming a small puddle (giant pads are useless too). Matt came in the door about the same time that someone finally answered the call button. They let us in and started gathering information at the desk. I had told them up front that my water had broken, but they just had me standing there while they took their time...and water was still leaking down my leg, so after a minute or two Matt spoke up and said, "Her water is leaking down her leg forming a puddle." the nurse checking us in said, "Oh! I guess we should get you to a room then!" Thank heaven's for husbands! They took us to a room and had me change. Apparently bending over makes the water gush out more than just standing....the size of the puddle that I left while changing took three bath sized towels to clean up! The nurse asked me how much water I had when I had done my non-stress test a few days before. I'm not sure what units they measure the water in, but I know the lowest amount they like is 10 and the highest is 26....mine was 22. She mumbled something about "that will do it."
After they asked all the questions and got all the "check in" stuff done they checked to see how dilated I was. I was 5 cm and about 80% effaced. She said that I could have the epidural anytime. I was starting to feel harder contractions, and they were getting a lot more uncomfortable, but I had only been there an hour or so and didn't want to wimp out. I couldn't quite decide so Matt asked the nurse when people usually get it. She said it was better to get it before the contractions got so intense that I wouldn't be able to hold still....since you have to hold still for quite a while when they insert the epidural. I told her that I would go ahead and get it. My contractions were already getting closer together and more intense. Matt had been joking the whole time I was pregnant that he wouldn't be in the room with me because he was queezy around that kind of stuff. We had heard from several people that the epidural is the worst part to watch...so Matt bent down by the bed and held my hand and just kept his eyes on me. It was sweet! I was pretty uncomfortable while they were putting the epidural in....mostly from contractions...not the actual epidural.
We had called my mom and dad when we got to the hospital, so they showed up around 7 am. Time was flying by! Matt was nice and kept getting me ice chips with flavoring on them. My parents brought stuff to read, we all tried to nap a little. My contractions weren't being picked up on the monitors very well, so they were tossing the idea of giving me some pitocin around, but every time they checked me I had progressed more, so they decided that wasn't necessary. The one concern they had was that the baby wasn't dropping. They said sometimes this happens when the baby is "sunny-side up" meaning they are turned to come out face-up instead of face-down (which is the normal way). They felt for her soft spots and decided that she was facing the right way, and then they asked how big Matt and I were when we were born.....that didn't make me nervous at all ;) By 12:30 I was fully dilated and effaced, but because the baby hadn't dropped very far, they decided to have me wait to push. They call it "rest and descend" where they just let your body keep contracting and pushing the baby further down. By the time they checked with the dr and decided that I would officially wait an hour..it had already been almost an hour, so then I waited another hour (2 hours total). The baby had come down a little bit, but not as much as they would have liked. They decided it was time to start pushing and we would just see what happened.
It was very surreal to be pushing. I had watched a lot of "A Baby Story" on TLC (since I couldn't go to a birthing class due to bed rest, and you get to watch a lot of TV on bed rest), so I had seen it a lot....it was weird to actually be doing it myself! I couldn't quite tell when my contractions were happening, and the monitor still wasn't picking them up, so it was a little bit tricky knowing when to push. At one point they had me sit up to push, but that put stress on the baby, so then they had to have me lay down again and use oxygen.
I pushed for a little over an hour before they decided it was time to get the Dr. She was doing an ultrasound, and so it took her a little extra time to get down to labor and delivery. By time she got there the baby had gone back up a little bit. I was so exhausted and my epidural had started wearing off, even though I had been pushing the button to keep it going, I guess I hadn't been pushing it enough. Luckily I couldn't feel everything, but I felt enough to know I didn't want to be feeling it! Matt was holding one of my legs and at one point the Dr. had me stop pushing for a second, Matt said, "she had the cord wrapped twice!" The Dr. said, "That explains it," and unwrapped the cord twice before she had me finish pushing. Apparently the cord had kept her from dropping. The nurse mentioned to Matt that a lot of babies with the cord around their neck end up being born by cesarean because it's too hard to push them out. She told him that I an awesome pusher! Go me!
About a half an hour after the Dr. got there at 4:29 p.m. Avery was born!
I still remember that one moment when they lifted her up. The nurses exclaimed that she was a very long baby! I looked at Matt and he looked at me and we both got teary eyed. Matt got to cut the cord and then they passed Avery off to the NICU team that was standing by so they could suction her (because of the meconium that had been in my water). Matt grabbed the camera and ran over to take pictures (per my instructions from the beginning).
They had told us from the beginning that it would be good if she didn't cry right away because that would give them a chance to suction her before she swallowed any meconium. She was a great baby and didn't cry, but then they couldn't get her to cry. Matt was over asking if she was ok, the nurse said, "she has a good heart rate and she's breathing." I took that to mean things were fine! At that point my Dr. was asking me if I could feel what she was doing...and I totally could! So she had the anesthesiologist come in and give me a quick dose of something so I couldn't feel what they were doing. The Dr. was explaining to me that I had two tears, one was a second degree and the other one was very small, not even a first degree tear. In the meantime, they had coded Avery because she wouldn't cry (her first APGAR score was a 2), so a whole entire NICU code team had rushed in there. Matt had been taking pictures like a good daddy, and the nurse said, "You might want to move out of the way, it's going to get crowded." Then the code team rushed in.
I don't remember them coming in, but I do remember noticing them all in there. There was someone counting off time, and some people working on Avery. They finally got her to cry. Matt said the Dr. came in and said, "She's just being stubborn, we just need to make her mad." Then he flicked her heel a couple of times and she started crying. The weird part is I wasn't nervous at all. I knew she would be alright.
Because they had to code her, they had to take her down to the NICU, so Matt looked at me and asked if he should go (apparently he was noticing that things weren't going quite right with me, even though I wasn't aware of that at the time!), and I of course told him to go with the baby. Matt told me that the Dr. in the NICU looked at Avery for about 20 seconds and then said, "She's fine, send her back." The nurse gave Matt a signal to just sit tight for a second and once the Dr. left she told Matt that sometimes the Dr.'s forget there is a protocol they have to follow. She looked Avery over and documented some things, during their chat they discovered that this was the favorite NICU nurse of our friends who have had 2 premies at IMC. Small world!! She held Avery and told Matt to take a picture, then they sent it to our friend's.
When our friends got the picture they were so excited to see we met their favorite nurse, and then they were immediately freaked out that we were in the NICU! I believe it was at this point that Matt and the nurse brought Avery back to my delivery room.
While Matt was gone I started hearing my Dr. and nurses talking about the placenta and that it wasn't coming like it should. I felt so tired at this point I really didn't care. I knew the baby would be fine, and I knew the Dr. and nurses would take care of me....and all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Apparently what was actually happening was that my uterus had stopped contracting, so the placenta wasn't releasing and delivering. This also meant that the blood vessels attached to the placenta weren't closing...which is what normally happens when the uterus continues contracting to deliver the placenta. When Matt left the room with the baby Dr. Loewen had the umbilical cord wrapped around her forearm and was yanking (Matt didn't think that was normal...and of course he was right!).
I went to "sleep" which was actually me losing consciousness because I was loosing a lot of blood. I was in and out of it a lot. I overheard things, they talked to me a couple of times and I think I answered. At one point my whole body started shaking/shivering, which I knew was a side effect of the epidural (but it can also be a sign that the body is going in to shock). That didn't have me concerned, I overheard that my blood pressure was down to 60 over something...that didn't have me concerned. I heard the anesthesiologist yelling into his intercom that he needed the blood now! He was yelling about how he had told them last week they needed to keep blood stocked in Labor and Delivery, that didn't even have me concerned. From the bits and pieces I had overheard I gathered that the placenta not coming which had caused me to lose a lot of blood and I needed a blood transfusion, but that didn't really have me worried. For some reason I just knew that everything would be ok.
Once things got somewhat under control, I was sooo thirsty and I asked for water. A nurse got me some water and was helping me drink it, but the anesthesiologist took it away because there was apparently some concern that I might need surgery. I hated the lab person who came in to draw my blood to verify my blood type. She was asking me for my name and to verify all my information, but I was so out of it at that point I couldn't talk and I was so bugged that she was trying to make me talk.
At some point during the middle of the whole thing Matt and Avery came back in the room. I was still conscious enough at this point to hear that the NICU nurse was the favorite nurse of our friends who have had 2 babies in the NICU. She asked if we could do skin to skin, but Dr. Loewen said no, so the nurse said, "It looks like mom is going to be a while, lets give baby a bottle." She handed Matt a bottle, and he was able to bring Avery over to me so I could see her. I think this is the part where Matt said that the whole floor was covered in blood, and they had three huge bowls full of it. My parents had been out in the waiting room this whole time, and just before this they had heard someone come out and grab housekeeping and say, "Come get some of this blood cleaned up before the husband comes back." That was terrifying for my parents! I guess all housekeeping had done was wipe down the walls and cupboards..... Matt was trying to ask me if I was ok, but I couldn't get words out. I was trying to tell him that I was "just tired" and that I would be ok, because in my mind that's all it was, that and the side effects of the epidural, but when I tried to tell him I couldn't talk, and it made me breath extremely heavy and hard.
He overheard the anesthesiologist yelling into his intercom that his patient, "can't wait 20 minutes for blood, she's going to code in 2!" So that was terrifying for him. Apparently the anesthesiologist was also using some colorful language...which I don't remember hearing even though I heard that part of his conversation :) The nurse suggested that Matt take the baby upstairs to the nursery. He took Avery up to the nursery and took some pictures, but then he wanted to get back downstairs to me. One of the elevators was broken, which meant the other elevator was very slow, so he eventually tried taking the stairs, but you have to have a security badge to get to the first level on the stairs because they go out into the NICU. So he got to the second floor and had to run down the hall to another elevator or flight of stairs and then run out that building back to the women's and children's center. Poor guy!! He was so worried and just wanted to get back to me.
Matt came back for a little bit and things had started to calm down, so he went back to the nursery. They had started giving me blood and had cleaned me and everything else up. I was starting to gain more consciousness so they let my parents in and told them to talk to me. At some point someone had finally gone out to update them, and Matt had stopped at one point. When they came in I felt so bad that they had been sitting out there for hours. I was trying to figure out what time it was and what time Avery had been born. It was about 2 hours after she had been born. I told them to text or call Matt and ask if they could go see the baby! They went upstairs to see the baby and hold her.
Then they all came back down. Around 8:30 pm a nurse from the nursery brought Avery down to see us! It was time for her to have another bottle. They let Matt feed her, they still wouldn't let me hold her...apparently I was still too weak. Matt came and stood by me while he fed her so that I could see her. He asked me what we should name her. We had it narrowed down to Chloe or Avery. To me she just seemed more like an Avery....I had kind of been thinking that the whole day. So that's what I told him and he agreed.
They took Avery back to the nursery. Matt and my parents stayed with me until they came in to change my gown out and get me ready to go upstairs. Matt stayed with me and helped me roll myself and lift myself over the the new bed. Compared to the bed in labor and delivery this one felt like a fluffy cloud! Luckily it was the bed I would be using for the next couple of days, unluckily if you stay in any bed for too long it no longer feels soft and comfortable.
It was 10:30 by time I finally got transferred upstairs. The nurse explained they were keeping me in L&D as long as possible because I was currently her only patient, and upstairs my nurse would have several patients. This way they were able to more closely monitor me. Once I was finally upstairs they brought Avery into my room and I was finally able to hold her!
She was so precious and so cute! They give the baby a bath in the mom's room, so they had waited until I was up there to do it. It was fun to watch, and to hear her tiny little cries. My nurse helped me try to figure out how to breastfeed Avery....that did not go well at first...but that is a whole different story!
I was so tired, so we went to sleep for a while, and tried the feeding thing again later. Matt was such an awesome dad and took care of Avery all night. He had already been up the whole night before too! My mom came up the next day and just held Avery all day. This allowed Matt and I to sleep a lot! Matt's dad came by that afternoon to meet Avery. When he was getting ready to leave, Matt's Aunt Carol, Uncle Glen, Aunt Doris and Uncle Rick surprised us! They were really sweet and loved our little Avery! Our friends Matt & Caroline Klein came by that evening. Then Matt's sister Jenny came by. When it got dark outside we noticed that there were fireworks coming from Murray Park, so we dimmed the lights in the bedroom and watched the fireworks. We tried taking a few pictures with the fireworks in the background.
That night Matt was so sleepy he didn't hear any noises that Avery made. She was fussing quite a bit at one point. I was a little unsure about what to do, but I got her calmed down (looking back, she was probably hungry, but I didn't realize it!...rookie mistake).
The next morning Matt's Aunt Carol and Uncle Glen brought his grandparents over to meet Avery. Then later that morning his sister-in-law came and brought her kids to meet their new cousin. That afternoon we were getting a little anxious to leave.
We had told the nurse we wanted to leave around 3:30 or 4 p.m. They finally came in and started getting ready to discharge us. They let us know a little bit later that they couldn't discharge Avery. She hadn't pooped the whole time we'd been there. The pediatrician didn't want her going home until she had pooped. I was not excited about having to stay another day. Don't get me wrong, I needed to be at the hospital for a few days...but I was ready to be done. They were calling the pediatrician and trying to figure out what to do. They said if we could get a Dr.'s appointment set up for the next day, we could go home. Well the next day just happened to be the 4th of July....so it's not like many Dr.'s would be working.
We called our pediatrician's office, but they wouldn't be open the next day. The pediatrician at the hospital said we could leave if we could get an appointment at a Kid's Care office. Luckily in the meantime, the nurse had taken Avery to the nursery to see if they could "encourage" her to poop. They were successful!! It was so weird to me that I all of a sudden had to care about poop and pee. Avery hadn't peed since that morning, but they said we were ok to go home. If she hadn't peed by the next morning we would need to take her to the Dr.
We were finally released from the hospital and on our way home!
It was a crazy couple of days and it was so nice to have my mom waiting for us when we got home! Looking back I realize how out of it I was! I would definitely do it all again though, we love our little ladybug!
After they asked all the questions and got all the "check in" stuff done they checked to see how dilated I was. I was 5 cm and about 80% effaced. She said that I could have the epidural anytime. I was starting to feel harder contractions, and they were getting a lot more uncomfortable, but I had only been there an hour or so and didn't want to wimp out. I couldn't quite decide so Matt asked the nurse when people usually get it. She said it was better to get it before the contractions got so intense that I wouldn't be able to hold still....since you have to hold still for quite a while when they insert the epidural. I told her that I would go ahead and get it. My contractions were already getting closer together and more intense. Matt had been joking the whole time I was pregnant that he wouldn't be in the room with me because he was queezy around that kind of stuff. We had heard from several people that the epidural is the worst part to watch...so Matt bent down by the bed and held my hand and just kept his eyes on me. It was sweet! I was pretty uncomfortable while they were putting the epidural in....mostly from contractions...not the actual epidural.
We had called my mom and dad when we got to the hospital, so they showed up around 7 am. Time was flying by! Matt was nice and kept getting me ice chips with flavoring on them. My parents brought stuff to read, we all tried to nap a little. My contractions weren't being picked up on the monitors very well, so they were tossing the idea of giving me some pitocin around, but every time they checked me I had progressed more, so they decided that wasn't necessary. The one concern they had was that the baby wasn't dropping. They said sometimes this happens when the baby is "sunny-side up" meaning they are turned to come out face-up instead of face-down (which is the normal way). They felt for her soft spots and decided that she was facing the right way, and then they asked how big Matt and I were when we were born.....that didn't make me nervous at all ;) By 12:30 I was fully dilated and effaced, but because the baby hadn't dropped very far, they decided to have me wait to push. They call it "rest and descend" where they just let your body keep contracting and pushing the baby further down. By the time they checked with the dr and decided that I would officially wait an hour..it had already been almost an hour, so then I waited another hour (2 hours total). The baby had come down a little bit, but not as much as they would have liked. They decided it was time to start pushing and we would just see what happened.
It was very surreal to be pushing. I had watched a lot of "A Baby Story" on TLC (since I couldn't go to a birthing class due to bed rest, and you get to watch a lot of TV on bed rest), so I had seen it a lot....it was weird to actually be doing it myself! I couldn't quite tell when my contractions were happening, and the monitor still wasn't picking them up, so it was a little bit tricky knowing when to push. At one point they had me sit up to push, but that put stress on the baby, so then they had to have me lay down again and use oxygen.
I pushed for a little over an hour before they decided it was time to get the Dr. She was doing an ultrasound, and so it took her a little extra time to get down to labor and delivery. By time she got there the baby had gone back up a little bit. I was so exhausted and my epidural had started wearing off, even though I had been pushing the button to keep it going, I guess I hadn't been pushing it enough. Luckily I couldn't feel everything, but I felt enough to know I didn't want to be feeling it! Matt was holding one of my legs and at one point the Dr. had me stop pushing for a second, Matt said, "she had the cord wrapped twice!" The Dr. said, "That explains it," and unwrapped the cord twice before she had me finish pushing. Apparently the cord had kept her from dropping. The nurse mentioned to Matt that a lot of babies with the cord around their neck end up being born by cesarean because it's too hard to push them out. She told him that I an awesome pusher! Go me!
About a half an hour after the Dr. got there at 4:29 p.m. Avery was born!
They had told us from the beginning that it would be good if she didn't cry right away because that would give them a chance to suction her before she swallowed any meconium. She was a great baby and didn't cry, but then they couldn't get her to cry. Matt was over asking if she was ok, the nurse said, "she has a good heart rate and she's breathing." I took that to mean things were fine! At that point my Dr. was asking me if I could feel what she was doing...and I totally could! So she had the anesthesiologist come in and give me a quick dose of something so I couldn't feel what they were doing. The Dr. was explaining to me that I had two tears, one was a second degree and the other one was very small, not even a first degree tear. In the meantime, they had coded Avery because she wouldn't cry (her first APGAR score was a 2), so a whole entire NICU code team had rushed in there. Matt had been taking pictures like a good daddy, and the nurse said, "You might want to move out of the way, it's going to get crowded." Then the code team rushed in.
Because they had to code her, they had to take her down to the NICU, so Matt looked at me and asked if he should go (apparently he was noticing that things weren't going quite right with me, even though I wasn't aware of that at the time!), and I of course told him to go with the baby. Matt told me that the Dr. in the NICU looked at Avery for about 20 seconds and then said, "She's fine, send her back." The nurse gave Matt a signal to just sit tight for a second and once the Dr. left she told Matt that sometimes the Dr.'s forget there is a protocol they have to follow. She looked Avery over and documented some things, during their chat they discovered that this was the favorite NICU nurse of our friends who have had 2 premies at IMC. Small world!! She held Avery and told Matt to take a picture, then they sent it to our friend's.
When our friends got the picture they were so excited to see we met their favorite nurse, and then they were immediately freaked out that we were in the NICU! I believe it was at this point that Matt and the nurse brought Avery back to my delivery room.
While Matt was gone I started hearing my Dr. and nurses talking about the placenta and that it wasn't coming like it should. I felt so tired at this point I really didn't care. I knew the baby would be fine, and I knew the Dr. and nurses would take care of me....and all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Apparently what was actually happening was that my uterus had stopped contracting, so the placenta wasn't releasing and delivering. This also meant that the blood vessels attached to the placenta weren't closing...which is what normally happens when the uterus continues contracting to deliver the placenta. When Matt left the room with the baby Dr. Loewen had the umbilical cord wrapped around her forearm and was yanking (Matt didn't think that was normal...and of course he was right!).
I went to "sleep" which was actually me losing consciousness because I was loosing a lot of blood. I was in and out of it a lot. I overheard things, they talked to me a couple of times and I think I answered. At one point my whole body started shaking/shivering, which I knew was a side effect of the epidural (but it can also be a sign that the body is going in to shock). That didn't have me concerned, I overheard that my blood pressure was down to 60 over something...that didn't have me concerned. I heard the anesthesiologist yelling into his intercom that he needed the blood now! He was yelling about how he had told them last week they needed to keep blood stocked in Labor and Delivery, that didn't even have me concerned. From the bits and pieces I had overheard I gathered that the placenta not coming which had caused me to lose a lot of blood and I needed a blood transfusion, but that didn't really have me worried. For some reason I just knew that everything would be ok.
Once things got somewhat under control, I was sooo thirsty and I asked for water. A nurse got me some water and was helping me drink it, but the anesthesiologist took it away because there was apparently some concern that I might need surgery. I hated the lab person who came in to draw my blood to verify my blood type. She was asking me for my name and to verify all my information, but I was so out of it at that point I couldn't talk and I was so bugged that she was trying to make me talk.
At some point during the middle of the whole thing Matt and Avery came back in the room. I was still conscious enough at this point to hear that the NICU nurse was the favorite nurse of our friends who have had 2 babies in the NICU. She asked if we could do skin to skin, but Dr. Loewen said no, so the nurse said, "It looks like mom is going to be a while, lets give baby a bottle." She handed Matt a bottle, and he was able to bring Avery over to me so I could see her. I think this is the part where Matt said that the whole floor was covered in blood, and they had three huge bowls full of it. My parents had been out in the waiting room this whole time, and just before this they had heard someone come out and grab housekeeping and say, "Come get some of this blood cleaned up before the husband comes back." That was terrifying for my parents! I guess all housekeeping had done was wipe down the walls and cupboards..... Matt was trying to ask me if I was ok, but I couldn't get words out. I was trying to tell him that I was "just tired" and that I would be ok, because in my mind that's all it was, that and the side effects of the epidural, but when I tried to tell him I couldn't talk, and it made me breath extremely heavy and hard.
He overheard the anesthesiologist yelling into his intercom that his patient, "can't wait 20 minutes for blood, she's going to code in 2!" So that was terrifying for him. Apparently the anesthesiologist was also using some colorful language...which I don't remember hearing even though I heard that part of his conversation :) The nurse suggested that Matt take the baby upstairs to the nursery. He took Avery up to the nursery and took some pictures, but then he wanted to get back downstairs to me. One of the elevators was broken, which meant the other elevator was very slow, so he eventually tried taking the stairs, but you have to have a security badge to get to the first level on the stairs because they go out into the NICU. So he got to the second floor and had to run down the hall to another elevator or flight of stairs and then run out that building back to the women's and children's center. Poor guy!! He was so worried and just wanted to get back to me.
Matt came back for a little bit and things had started to calm down, so he went back to the nursery. They had started giving me blood and had cleaned me and everything else up. I was starting to gain more consciousness so they let my parents in and told them to talk to me. At some point someone had finally gone out to update them, and Matt had stopped at one point. When they came in I felt so bad that they had been sitting out there for hours. I was trying to figure out what time it was and what time Avery had been born. It was about 2 hours after she had been born. I told them to text or call Matt and ask if they could go see the baby! They went upstairs to see the baby and hold her.
Then they all came back down. Around 8:30 pm a nurse from the nursery brought Avery down to see us! It was time for her to have another bottle. They let Matt feed her, they still wouldn't let me hold her...apparently I was still too weak. Matt came and stood by me while he fed her so that I could see her. He asked me what we should name her. We had it narrowed down to Chloe or Avery. To me she just seemed more like an Avery....I had kind of been thinking that the whole day. So that's what I told him and he agreed.
They took Avery back to the nursery. Matt and my parents stayed with me until they came in to change my gown out and get me ready to go upstairs. Matt stayed with me and helped me roll myself and lift myself over the the new bed. Compared to the bed in labor and delivery this one felt like a fluffy cloud! Luckily it was the bed I would be using for the next couple of days, unluckily if you stay in any bed for too long it no longer feels soft and comfortable.
It was 10:30 by time I finally got transferred upstairs. The nurse explained they were keeping me in L&D as long as possible because I was currently her only patient, and upstairs my nurse would have several patients. This way they were able to more closely monitor me. Once I was finally upstairs they brought Avery into my room and I was finally able to hold her!
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| I can not believe I am putting this picture on the internet for all to see! My dad said my face looked like a basketball after all the fluids and stuff....he was not lying! |
She was so precious and so cute! They give the baby a bath in the mom's room, so they had waited until I was up there to do it. It was fun to watch, and to hear her tiny little cries. My nurse helped me try to figure out how to breastfeed Avery....that did not go well at first...but that is a whole different story!
I was so tired, so we went to sleep for a while, and tried the feeding thing again later. Matt was such an awesome dad and took care of Avery all night. He had already been up the whole night before too! My mom came up the next day and just held Avery all day. This allowed Matt and I to sleep a lot! Matt's dad came by that afternoon to meet Avery. When he was getting ready to leave, Matt's Aunt Carol, Uncle Glen, Aunt Doris and Uncle Rick surprised us! They were really sweet and loved our little Avery! Our friends Matt & Caroline Klein came by that evening. Then Matt's sister Jenny came by. When it got dark outside we noticed that there were fireworks coming from Murray Park, so we dimmed the lights in the bedroom and watched the fireworks. We tried taking a few pictures with the fireworks in the background.
That night Matt was so sleepy he didn't hear any noises that Avery made. She was fussing quite a bit at one point. I was a little unsure about what to do, but I got her calmed down (looking back, she was probably hungry, but I didn't realize it!...rookie mistake).
The next morning Matt's Aunt Carol and Uncle Glen brought his grandparents over to meet Avery. Then later that morning his sister-in-law came and brought her kids to meet their new cousin. That afternoon we were getting a little anxious to leave.
We had told the nurse we wanted to leave around 3:30 or 4 p.m. They finally came in and started getting ready to discharge us. They let us know a little bit later that they couldn't discharge Avery. She hadn't pooped the whole time we'd been there. The pediatrician didn't want her going home until she had pooped. I was not excited about having to stay another day. Don't get me wrong, I needed to be at the hospital for a few days...but I was ready to be done. They were calling the pediatrician and trying to figure out what to do. They said if we could get a Dr.'s appointment set up for the next day, we could go home. Well the next day just happened to be the 4th of July....so it's not like many Dr.'s would be working.
We called our pediatrician's office, but they wouldn't be open the next day. The pediatrician at the hospital said we could leave if we could get an appointment at a Kid's Care office. Luckily in the meantime, the nurse had taken Avery to the nursery to see if they could "encourage" her to poop. They were successful!! It was so weird to me that I all of a sudden had to care about poop and pee. Avery hadn't peed since that morning, but they said we were ok to go home. If she hadn't peed by the next morning we would need to take her to the Dr.
We were finally released from the hospital and on our way home!
It was a crazy couple of days and it was so nice to have my mom waiting for us when we got home! Looking back I realize how out of it I was! I would definitely do it all again though, we love our little ladybug!
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