The big day – Our baby girl has finally come!

Please keep in mind that this blog is my journal and I realize that this is world’s longest post, I do not expect that anyone will read it all but if you scroll down there is information on Addison and her condition.  We are so thankful for everyone’s love and support your prayers and kind words mean so much to us and we feel blessed to have so many people who love and care for us.  For the sake of getting this posted tonight I will have to leave some stuff out to add later but for now here it is

The last few days have been some of the most joyful and overwhelming days we have ever experienced but I guess it is best to begin…at the beginning, so here it is…

Wednesday morning, induction day and it is 2 am, I roll out of bed for a trip to the bathroom, surprised that this is the first time for the night and that I managed to sleep that long.  Back in bed, uncomfortable and anxious, my mind cannot be still.  It’s like Christmas I suppose as a child.  Finally at almost 4 am I am wide awake, uncomfortable and my tummy is aching for food.  SO up I get, now the day is REALLY going to be long.  I left things to do to get ready that morning so that I would not be going crazy waiting until noon which was the time they told us to be at the hospital.   While getting ready at 8am the phone rings and it is the hospital telling us they are ready and that we can come on down, so as quick as we could we finished getting Aiden ready for school and our bags packed.  After dropping Aiden off at school we arrived at the hospital about 9:20.  Once I was in my room they checked me and I was dilated to a 2 1/2 and 75% effaced.  At 11am we started pitosin, 12:20 my water was broken which was crazy!  With Aiden I had the epidural and so I never felt my water break, it truly felt like I was just peeing everywhere, a lot!  At this point I was dilated to a 3 and contractions were very consistent and getting stronger.  By 2pm I felt like I had endured as much as I wanted and contractions were getting so close and very strong so I asked for the epidural, I was now a 5 and 80% effaced.  After receiving the epidural my contractions slowed down a little and Addi’s heart rate slowed down also which made us turn the pitosin off and just rest for awhile.  We thought that things were slow going during this time but boy were we wrong, during the “rest” without pitosin I dilated 3 more cm, now being at an 8 and 95% effaced and a -1 station.  At 4:45 Dr. Ollerton came in and we started pushing, I was so exhausted from little sleep and so hungry so I was weak which made pushing a challenge (as if it is not already one) She was a bit stubborn but finally made her entrance into the world at 5:47pm. 

Addison Rae 7 lbs 9 oz 20 1/2 inches long

When she came out she was SO quiet I could not hardly believe it, she barely cried.  But mom and dad made up for it because we were so happy tears were a flowin’

Proud mommy!

My labor was great it was mellow and almost too easy going (not that it has to be stressful but you just expect it to be)  I did have the epidural however I never got completely numb and never pushed the button for more pain relief because I liked being able to move my legs and feet and I could still feel everything without being in pain.  It was amazing being able to feel Addison and being able to have control of my legs somewhat was so much better than with my labor with Aiden where I was just dead numb.  I also was very blessed to not have an episiotomy (with Aiden I had to have almost a full one!) So no stitches which means faster healing. I had 3 great coaches by the bed helping me through every push (Spee, Mom Kekel and Mom Coles) Spencer was pretty worried about passing out or throwing up but once Addi’s head was coming he forgot it all and was just in amazement so he was able to watch the whole thing.  After delivery Addi was having some trouble breathing so my heart was broken as they rushed her to the nursery to get that under control, she was gone for over an hour Once we were ready to move to our recovery room I got up and showered and then walked there myself, I was feeling so great (however, very tired)

Kaylee (my little sister)

My mommy

 

 

Aiden couldn’t keep his eyes, or hands off of her.  He was saying the most adorable things, I wish we would have been able to record every moment, but here is some…

I will add a video here later

With Daddy

During birth Addi got some battle wounds on her head, they went away quickly though.

Cozy and pretty in pink

The first 18 hours of Addi’s life were amazing we got lots of snuggle time and Aiden was able to spend some adorable moments with her.  On Thursday morning the pediatrician came to do a check up on her and this is where things got hard…

Dr. Cornish explained to us his concerns which included two things, one was that she had a heart murmur.  He talked to us about how a lot of new babies have them and they heal no problem but that they would be keeping an eye on it.  The other problem, our bigger one was that already she was showing signs of Jaundice.  Now I was not worried, I was a jaundice baby, Aiden was a jaundice baby, I just kind of thought no biggie.  Dr. Cornish started talking about blood transfusions and what not and I was a bit overwhelmed not understanding why he would go into all that detail, I thought he was telling us worst case scenario when Addi just had some signs.  Little did I know his concerns were very serious and her condition was also.  He ordered that some blood work be done and in those tests we were able to find out that Addi has what is called ABO incompatibility.  I have O+ blood and Addi has A+ blood, well my blood has antibodies that are made to fight A+ so somehow my blood got through the placenta and mixed with Addi and now those antibodies were attacking her.  This all makes the jaundice show up quickly and makes it rise quickly.  With Jaundice you get a score that says how many points your bilirubin is at, when Addi was born she immediately started gaining a point basically every hour which is why the doctor was so alarmed seeing her so yellow right after birth.  When the first tests were ran Addi was within a point of needing blood transfusions, which is why we are SO lucky that it was detected when it was.  Had we waited longer her points would have kept rising and we would have had to immediately do the transfusion, this is what we wanted to avoid.  I begged to nurse her just once more before she was taken and luckily she did well.  They took her to the nursery and put her under the photo therapy lights and I pretty much fell apart.  It was so hard to understand and accept my baby not being with me and being so afraid of her being ok that I could barely breathe or even begin to handle this. 

 

While under the lights Addi has to wear these awesome glasses to protect her eyes. 

After several hours in the nursery we were visited by Kari Wood, a neonatal nurse practitioner (such a sweet and wonderful woman)  She began to explain to us what was going on with Addi, why it was so serious and what they were going to do.  In this moment I was told that my baby was being moved to the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit)  We were not going to be able to hold her which also meant I would not be able to nurse her.  This killed me, and then it got harder. Kari also informed us that Addi would more than likely be staying in the hospital after we were discharged and that her best guess would be for at least a week, knowing that it could be more and it could be, though most likely would not be less.  After she left the room I really just thought my entire heart had stopped beating, I cannot even describe the pain emotionally, it was so intense that I physically hurt.  Every pore in my body felt like it was being stabbed by needles and I could hardly bear what I needed to understand. 

They had to get an IV into Addi but were unable to locate a vein that was working, they even tried through her head. So they ended up having to go through her umbilical cord.  While setting that up they also set up a tube to an artery, so that if needed we would be ready to do the blood transfusions.  This was actually a good thing since they would be doing blood tests every 3 hours, having the IV in her allowed them to take the blood without poking her each time.

Addi’s spongescicle.  She had some crusties around her mouth so the nurse cleaned it with this flavored sponge and some water, it was funny.

Mommy and Daddy

Addi’s home in the NICU

 

Addison has had and will have a lot of wonderful people taking care of her, here are some of them…

Jessica

Barb and Jenny (a student attending BYU)

Kim- Taking Addi’s blood for a test

We still have so many pictures to add here, and I know we won’t even be able to get pictures of everyone that cares for our baby girl, but we sure feel lucky to have her under such great care.

No children under 14 can be in NICU so that left Aiden off the list.  I was not ready to even try to explain to him that he could not see baby Addi, I knew he was going to have a hard time understanding this.  While in the hospital we were able to visit Addi in the NICU but were only able to touch here, we could not hold her and she could not nurse.  I was dreading that Friday was coming and they were going to send me home, without my baby girl.  I was not even sure how I was going to cope with this and did not know how I was going to go home and be a mommy to Aiden with this weight on my shoulders.  Friday inevitably came and we had to say goodbye to our angel, it was a hard goodbye even though we knew it would just be temporary, we did get some good news this night that I could hold and nurse Addi the next day to see how she would do. 

Today came and I was nervous, they prepared me for the fact that Addi might not be alert and that the lights and all the treatment make her very lethargic so she may not respond or even nurse.  When I got there at 11am we woke her up and she was wide awake, smiling and being so sweet.  She nursed like a champ, she is defiantly a great nursing baby.  This was her first time getting to have food aside from her IV since she went into special care and she guzzled and gulped so quickly.  As soon as I was done nursing she had to go right back into her lights, but I cannot even express how much joy I felt to hold her, to kiss her, to smell her, to just be so close to her.  I stayed for the next two feedings at 2pm and 5pm which Spencer came to see her during also, so he was able to sneak in a quick hug and hold before putting her back in her “tanning bed” Her bilirubin score was a 13.8 when we left her and they changed her blood tests to every 8 hours.  When I am not with her in the night they will feed her the milk I have pumped and I have to pump every time I would normally feed her, so every 3 hours I have a date with the breast pump. I hate it, it is so awful holding bottles and having your milk squeezed into them, you feel like a cow being milked. 

With her tests they do we want her points to go down, unfortunatly this is not happening.  However, they are staying stable she has stayed between 12-14 going up sometimes and down others. We want it to get under 10 and to stay there for awhile and once she gets her points down we also have to be sure that everything else is going well and then she would be able to come home.  We might have to do some photo therapy with the lights at home but at least she would be home.  While we do want her points to come down, staying stable is great also, as long as she does not go up we feel comfort.  The older she gets the higher the points go for needing a blood transfusion, so when she was born her points were right at the mark of needing one and even though her points are not changing, now that she is almost 4 days old her need for transfusions is going down because she would have to be at 20 points now before we would need to do them.

Right now all I can do is be so thankful that she is being so well taken care of, that this was caught as early as it was, and that I am able to nurse her at least for now.  We have worked out a schedule that will allow me to nurse her from 8 in the morning until 8 at night, it will be a bit crazy but hopefully it will work out.  We are going to stay at my mom’s house in cedar hills, since the drive is a little easier.  Each morning I will get to the hospital at 8am to feed Addi, after that I will drive back to my mom’s to get Aiden and take him to school, then back to the hospital to feed at 11am & 2pm. I will pick Aiden up from school at 3:30 and go to my mom’s to eat a quick dinner, then back to the hospital to feed Addi at 5pm and 8pm.  Spencer will put Aiden to bed and come to the hospital so that he can see Addi at her 8pm feeding, it will be a lot of work but hopefully it will only be for a short while.  I know it probably seems crazy to do all the running around getting Aiden to and from school but I am trying to figure out how to still be a mommy to Aiden through all this.

As for her heart murmur they are going to keep watching it and if they do not notice improvement then a cardiologist will look at her then.

I am going to leave this post for now to add and change later, I know you are probably thinking…how is there more? but there is   We love you all!!!!!