Time flies when…

You don’t get any sleep. Wow! These last almost two weeks have been a whirlwind. Having a newborn is fun, stressful, rewarding, tiring, and most of all wonderful! Addilyn (Addie) has been a huge blessing to us. Our lives have changed tremendously for this tiny 8 lbs. person.
Addilyn is such a good baby. She nurses every 2-3 hours (sometimes more, sometimes less) and she sleeps for 1.5-3 hours at a time as well.
Lives change so much when you introduce a newborn baby into your life.
The fluctuation of hormones after delivery is horrible. The “baby blues” are a real thing, and even though I didn’t think I would every get them, I did. Three days after having Addie I had to get an IV reinserted. I am ok with needles and I usually watch when they stick me. Well I was so swollen from the fluids and not being able to move very well that the nurses were having a hard time finding a good vein to stick. After being stuck in the forearm and on the high part of my wrist my nurse decided to call someone else who was really good at finding a vein. (I was doing fine with the sticking and prodding) As the other nurse came in the room I got this overwhelming urge to cry. It was actually really funny. I felt the urge coming and I warned everyone in the room that I was about to cry for no reason. It only lasted about two minutes, but I couldn’t control it. I was even laughing while crying with everyone in the room. Of course the nurses are used to it since they work in the maternity ward. Sometimes  I cry for no apparent reason still. I was cooking dinner last night and just started tearing up and bawling my eyes out.
Another milestone: Addie lost her umbilical stump on Sunday night (5.19.2013). She is now allowed to have bathes and can do tummy time. As a first time mom I was expecting this horrible scene when it fell off. I was imagining a gush of blood and the need for gauze and Band-Aids. Of course this isn’t the case. As a matter of fact I almost didn’t even notice except when I was changing her the little piece fell out of her onesie onto the changing table.
It is so hard to believe that she is almost 2 weeks old already. We have a pretty good routine that my husband and I do. Around 9PM he takes over watching the baby. I begin getting small cat naps until he is ready for bed. I sleep and he comes in to wake me when she is hungry. He is a night owl anyways, so this works for us. Once he is ready for bed he brings Addie into the room and lays her down in the bassinet. Since having her I have become such a light sleeper that I wake up as soon as she makes a noise. This is great because it allows me to tend to her before she wakes my husband, however she is a very vocal baby and coos and mumbles in her sleep. Either way our routine is pretty great.
Did I already say that she has her Daddy wrapped around her teeny tiny fingers? Well he is. My husband affectionately gives nicknames to show his love. Well somehow our little Addilyn has been affectionately named: Pinker Pot, or Pot for short. I am not sure where he comes up with these names but he does.

Here is one more picture of Addilyn. She always sleeps with her arms up!
Well it is almost feeding time again so I have to go take care of Addie!
XOXO,
Jenna

Welcome Addilyn

She’s HERE!!!! We made it through 9 months of pregnancy, and now my precious beautiful sweet baby girl has arrived! This is our story: (be prepared it is a long one)
First I will show you a picture of this precious gift of God:
We had to be induced because of my high blood pressure and protein levels were showing possible pre-eclampsia. We waited until 40 weeks to start the induction to ensure the health of our baby girl and because my BP and protein wasn’t out of hand yet. At my 39 week Drs. appointment they gave me an ultrasound to check the size of her and to check my fluid levels. The ultrasound showed that she was going to be an above average sized baby. My Dr. was estimating about 9 lbs. My body was also not progressing towards labor as it should have been. I was not dilating nor effacing at all even at 40 weeks. Because of these “red flags” my Dr. suggested an induction.
Wednesday 5/8/2013:
So, 6AM Wednesday morning (her due date) we headed to labor and delivery to start the induction. Once we got to the hospital and got admitted I got hooked up to the IV and started fluids and started the waiting game for my Dr. to show up. He arrived around 8 AM to start my medication to start the contractions. About 8:30 AM I had my first contraction. It wasn’t painful just a tightening of my abs. My husband and Mom were in the labor room with me for a little while and my contractions were starting to come more frequently. Around 11:30 AM my contractions were coming every 30 seconds, but they weren’t extremely painful yet. They started picking up strength and becoming increasingly painful around 1:30 PM. The medicine was taking its toll on my body, but I had little change. By about 3:30 PM my contractions were painful enough that I needed to breath through them and I couldn’t talk during them, they were coming about every minute to two minutes.
At 6 PM my Dr. came in and checked me. I was only 1 CM and about 50% effaced. He was going to let me labor through the night and then break my water in the morning. That night my contractions were getting the best of me. By 9PM I was exhausted and uncomfortable. My nurse came in and told me that the doctor gave me an order for Morphine 10mg for pain over night and that I could take it whenever I wanted it. I got so upset from being exhausted and just wanting some relief from the pains of the contractions. My nurse assured me that I was doing good and that I could take a hot shower if I wanted to try and relax. I immediately jumped at that opportunity and got unhooked from the monitors and iv. The hot shower felt SO incredibly good that I stayed in there for almost 40 minutes. After the shower I was able to relax a bit and get some rest between contractions. I asked my nurse if I was allowed to take a shower again to help if I started getting restless and she assured me that I could.
After a few more hours of contractions and pain, I wanted another shower. My nurse checked me and I was at 2 cm and about 70% effaced. She allowed me to take another hot shower around mid-night. These showers helped me get through the night for sure! I didn’t sleep much that night but I could at least relax in between my contractions which were now about every 2 minutes. Nurse change occurred at 2 AM and my new nurse was informed that I could take a shower if I wanted. Over the course of the night I took two more showers and got through those long hours.
Thursday, May 9th, 2013:
At 7:30 AM my Dr. came in and checked me. I was at 3 CM and still about 70% effaced. He decided to break my water and get things going again.
Breaking my water was a totally new experience! It was gross and weird and strange all at the same time. It didn’t hurt at all, but it felt so GROSS! After he broke my water we learned that she had meconium in her fluid. This is the babies first poop. It is a normal occurrence for babies that are full term or close to it. There is precautions that they have to take to ensure that health of the baby though. Because the baby could potentially breath the thick meconium in during labor they started me on a flush. This is basically the same fluid as an IV, however it is inserted around the baby to help flush the meconium out and prevent her from getting it in her lungs. While they did this they also inserted monitors to track her heart rate and my contraction strength. So there I laid again for another few hours. After my water was broke my natural labor really kicked in and I was really struggling through the contractions. Around noon I was checked again and I was about 5 CM on the verge of a 6. My cervix was effaced except for a small area on the front, and our baby was low. She was low enough that the fluid that was supposed to be draining from the flush was not draining. The nurses had to manually drain the fluid to release the build up. The pain of contractions were starting to wear me out. I wanted to get some kind of pain relief. The nurse told me she could give me a shot of morphine to maybe “dull” the pain or I could get an epidural. The anesthesiologist also came in to tell me about the epidural. He started the paper work to make sure I was a candidate for the epidural. I decided to wait a little bit longer to get checked and then make my decision.
We started experimenting with different positions to get baby engaged further down and speed up dilation. At 2 PM I was checked again and was between an 8 and 9 CM! This was pretty exciting to me and it gave me a little extra energy to continue through the painful contractions. I labored down for another hour and started having the urge to push. My nurse came in to check me and I was at a 9 still but she let me push. When I pushed during a contraction I would dilate completely then after the contraction ended she would move back up a little and I went back to 9cm. At 4PM they checked me again and still no change. I started to get discouraged and the pain from the contractions were getting the best of me. I looked at my husband and told him that I couldn’t do it any more. I needed medicine.
The anesthesiologist came into the room in case I chose the epidural. Originally I didn’t want an epidural at all. I went into labor with the plan of maybe using an IV med or a pill, but not an epidural. Well after 32 hours of labor the thought of having all of the pain disappear sounded wonderful!
My husband and mom had to leave the room for the procedure. I was walked through the process first then was prepped. I will hold off on the actual steps of getting an epidural for the weak at heart, but let me say that epidural was the best choice I had made! It didn’t make my legs numb like I though, instead they just became very heavy. I could still move my toes and my feet around, but my legs were really heavy. The epidural took all of the pain from the contractions away. I could still feel the tightening of my belly, but the actual pain was gone. Once the epidural took effect they upped the Pitocin to try and get my contractions stronger. After a few hours my Dr. came back to check me.
Unfortunately I was still at 9 CMs and no more progression. At this point my Dr. gave me a choice to make. We could up the Pitocin even more and hope that my body will progress further and not stress out the baby, or we could do a C-section and reduce the risk of an emergency later. After a minute of discussion with my husband we agreed to go with the C-section. Even though the baby seemed to be handing the labor and contractions “Okay” we didn’t want to take the chance of beginning the high dose of Pitocin and stressing her out then needing an Emergency C-section.
My Dr. had to go do another C-section then it was our turn. At about 8 PM they were prepping us for our delivery of out baby. Again I will leave out all of the grueling details of getting a C-section, but every thing went great! At 8:44 PM little Addilyn Grace was brought into this world. They did her APGAR testing and she scored a 9/9 on the one minute and a 9/9 on the five minute test. They brought her around the curtain and let me see her beautiful face. We locked eyes for a second and there was instant attachment. She left my side with my husband and the Pediatrician to get testing done and to get cleaned up. I finished with my procedure and was moved to recovery.
I don’t remember much from that night due to the Dr. giving me medicine for the pain and to help me sleep. I didn’t get to breast feed the first night because of the medicine in my system. I remember briefly being wheeled to recovery and asking my nurse if everything went good. She said “yes” and told me to try to sleep. Well that was all she wrote. I was out like a light.
The rest of my hospital stay was dull. I had to wait and pass gas to eat real food which took three days!!! I was on a full liquid diet until Saturday night. The nurses helped me breastfeed, which went really well. Addilyn is a great breast feeding baby she had no problem with her latch and she likes to eat. 
Overall, my labor and delivery was a long painful process, but I am proud that I lasted 32 out of 36 hours before caving to a pain management procedure. Now to begin the healing process.
I am trying to adjust to having a newborn in my life now, but I will try my hardest to post at least once a week.

Here is one more picture of my sweet baby!