Settling in...

Fiona had her first pediatrician appointment yesterday, and it went quite well. At discharge from the hospital on Monday she weighed 5lbs 9oz, and she weighed in at 5lbs 14.5oz at the doctor's office yesterday. Our little piglet is almost 6lbs already!!!! She measured 18.5 inches in length. She's getting so big I can hardly believe it. (Meanwhile, everyone else in the world thinks she's miniscule, and a boy, apparently, but I WILL NOT start dressing her all in pink and  constantly put twenty bows in her hair... I digress...) I also cannot believe that she is nearly a month old. It seems so crazy since we've only had her home for less than a week now!!

She's adjusting well to being home. Brady is still her little guard dog. Any time either Dave or I check on her in her bassinet, he RACES over and looks in on her as well. He also sits under her swing when she's in there, and still does a bit of crying when she really gets to fussing. It's pretty cute.

The pediatrician told us to get her off the hospital scheduled feedings (at 10,1,4,7, repeat) and start feeding her on demand. We started that yesterday afternoon. I think it's more of an adjustment for us!! (Because we now have to learn to decipher her different cries,but that's all part of parenthood) She did well last night, sleeping for about 3.5-4 hrs between feedings, and we're quite happy with that.

We are also going to enroll in the Alliance program for Infants and Toddlers/Early Intervention at the suggestion of both the NICU nurses and our pediatrician.  They will assist us with anything we need with her being a preemie and help us to better understand the developmental progress we can expect to see.  It can be a little tough to decipher those with a preemie.  I don't really anticipate her having a ton of developmental delays, but one never can tell.  We are doing tummy time with her when she is alert and awake daily, and I'm not gonna lie, I think sometimes that she has freakish infant strength.  She can already lift her head when she's on her stomach.  She's not holding it up for very long, but I was surprised she could lift it!!  I'm also fairly certain that she could beat me in an arm wrestling match.  She's a tough cookie. 

All in all, we're really enjoying having her home and spending this time together as a family.

Thanks again for all of your love for our little girl!!

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow.... You're only a day away!!!!

Ok folks, we heard from the doctor this morning that as long as Fiona behaves herself today, she will be released TOMORROW!!!!   We are super duper psyched, and obviously not telling her.  Clearly, she is a baby genius that understands every word we say and if she so much as catches wind of this plan, we are sure that she will work her magic once again and we will just be moving straight in to the back room of the NICU because we refuse to be separated from her any longer. 

I cannot even begin to imagine what life will be like now.  I know that new parents are tired and are woken up multiple times in the middle of the night, blah blah blah.  Get serious.  MY BABY IS GOING TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM AS ME.  This is the most amazing concept ever imagined, and I swear if they change their mind I'm going black ops and busting her up out of that piece, and don't get in my way.

What I will not miss:
-Scrubbing in and gowning up just to touch my daughter

-The 70 million cords and wires that are constantly attached to Fiona

-The sound of her alarms when she desats or just gets angry.... Yes, she has what we like to call a "temper alarm".... her heart rate immediately shoots up over 200 and her alarm goes off when she gets mad  (I can't imagine where she gets that from....)

-Her isolette

-Someone else feeding my daughter before I arrive, even though I show up for EVERY FEEDING precisely on time

-The thought of her waking up and no one being there to love on her

-The drive to and from UPMC Mercy 10 times a day

-The parking ramp and the most annoying woman EVER that they got to record the message for when you push the button to get your parking ticket. 

What I will miss:

-Some of the nurses in the NICU that were just plain amazing and allowed me to sleep soundly at night knowing that my daughter was receiving the BEST care possible. 

Um yeah.... that's it.  :) 

We're just so grateful that this truly is about to become a reality and that we'll FINALLY get to spend some time together as a family.  We've been waiting for this for a very long time, and it's amazing that it's finally upon us. 

Thanks so much for all of your love and support throughout both past and present difficult times.  It's meant the world to us and we are so blessed to share this with all of you. 

xoxo

Ok, you can take her home! Just kidding, just kidding, just kidding, just kidding....

So, as many of you may know, Fiona was born at 4lbs 9oz at 33 weeks and although they had prepared us for her to be on some respiratory support (nasal cannula/CPAP/ventilator) and/or could need some support for feedings, she came out and was like,  "Child PLEASE, I got this"  (Note the Chad Ochocinco reference.  You're welcome, Dave.)  She was feeding and breathing fantastically on her own.  They prepared us for her to stay in the NICU for approximately 10 days or so depending on her progress, but most likely until she would have been at 35 weeks.  She was right on schedule and really her most pressing issue was her body temperature, which wasn't shocking because she was such a teeny peanut.  She lost some weight after she was born, which was expected, and had gotten down to 4lbs 5oz, and slowly creeped back up to 4lbs 8oz.  She finally passed her cold stress test, and they put her in an open bed, and took her out of the isolette, we watched all of the lovely going home videos-- car seat and sleep safety, shaken baby/SIDS, infant CPR (thanks for the panic attack, NICU).  She passed her car seat test, and they set us up to "nest" with her overnight in a postpartum room.  This just means that we could spend the night with her and have the support of the nurses if we should need it throughout the night, before they discharged her and we took her home.  So, Saturday the 19th we did just that. 

Unfortunately, throughout the night I noticed that she was struggling with a terrible cough, especially between the 1am and 4am feedings.  I didn't sleep at all because I felt just awful for her and I knew something wasn't right.  The nurse/doctor came in at 6am to get her for when the doctor's do rounds in the NICU, and I told the nurse about the cough.  When the nurse came back after rounds at 10, she said that she hadn't heard her cough at all, but she mentioned it to the doctor. The doc then came to talk to us, and said that she was going to keep her for another day at least so that she was at least 48hrs in her open bed before discharge.  I again said something about the cough, and she said she would keep an eye on it, but that she might just have a cold. 

The next day it was apparent that she was coughing repeatedly and was becoming really pokey with her feedings and struggling with her body temp again.  They decided to keep her longer.  It wasn't for a couple of days that they decided to actually culture the snot they were repeatedly having to suction out of her nose, and when they did they discovered she has RSV. 

This put the entire NICU into a tizzy... it's a very serious respiratory virus for preemies, and it's highly contagious, so they had to put her in isolation and the nurses have to gown and glove to handle her and everyone has to wash their hands a bazillion times.  YUP, we're THOSE people. 

This was obviously very upsetting to us, and the literature they gave us was terrifying.  They also told us they haven't had a case of RSV in the NICU at Mercy for DECADES.  Fabulous.  Of course it's OUR child that has it.  It couldn't just be EASY, after all. 

This RSV has kicked our poor little Fiona's butt, but she has proven to be a real fighter.  She's been back and forth on various levels of respiratory support and feeding tubes, but she's stayed strong and is now looking like the worst is behind us and is on the mend, and we are more grateful than words can express.

As many of you know, Fiona is our miracle baby.  She was our fourth pregnancy, and decidedly our last attempt to have a baby.  Our first daughter, Kalista, was stillborn at 22 weeks.  We then had an early miscarriage at 8.5 weeks during our second pregnancy.  We waited 5 years and our third pregnancy was a molar pregnancy that resulted in uterine cancer. I had to undergo chemotherapy and then wait at least one year after my final treatment to even try getting pregnant again.  We waited over two just to be safe.  We had decided that we would try one more time, and if it didn't work, we would accept that it wasn't meant to be because we had been through enough.  

Thank goodness we made that decision, because that fourth pregnancy gave us our Fiona Claire, and she was determined to come out and meet us as early as she possibly could.  She has a fighting spirit and she's a survivor, and we are totally in love with her.  She's the best thing that ever happened to us.  Grateful does not even begin to express it..... Now if we could just take her home...  :)

A Child is Born

Not just any child.... our little jokester!!  She broke my water at 8:15pm on Monday March 7th and was born on Thursday March 10th.  That's right.... three days of labor.  She's stubborn, what can I say?  (I'm not surprised!!)  Let me tell you the story....

I'm lying on the couch in the perfectly textbook prego position on my left side, pillow between legs, watching an episode of "Deliver Me" (sweet irony) when my water breaks.  I panic, look at Dave and say "Ummm... I'm leaking and I'm pretty sure I'm not peeing my pants right now!!!!"  I run to the toilet in our basement (don't get me started on that...) and yup, for sure, I'm not peeing--definite water breakage.  Small heartattack ensues and Dave and I just stare at each other like "Holy crap, this is it, at 33 weeks!!!"  Repeat heartattack.  I call my doctor's office and they tell me to come straight to the hospital.  Guess we really should have packed that damn bag...

We get to the hospital and they hook me up to the monitors and check me.  Yup.  3cms dilated and having contractions about 4 min apart.  Fantastic!  They take a swab to make sure that my water has, in fact, broken and it's confirmed.  This lunatic is in labor, and also in total denial.  LOL.  I was completely resisting it and if they would have let me stand up, I would have thrown a full on temper tantrum over it.  The doctor decides to put me on IV fluids to see if it will slow down my contractions a bit, but anticipates that I will deliver the next day sometime.  I'm admitted to a labor and delivery suite and told I'm just supposed to wait.  They won't do anything to accelerate my labor because I'm so early, but they won't do anything to stop it since my water already broke.  The IV fluids did their job to slow my labor and my contractions changed to about 10 min apart.   Over the next two days, they kept me on IV antibiotics and each doc said the same thing... My body will decide when it's ready.  I would either go into active labor or develop an infection in which case they would accelerate the labor and help me deliver.   At least I had a few days to come to terms with the fact that my vagina would never be the same.... 

After two full days of my labor just hanging out in the early stages and not quite ever getting and staying in "active" labor, the docs then prepared me for the extended visit.  They decided that since I was so early, they were going to just try to hold me out as long as they possibly could as long as I wasn't showing any signs of infection.  Dave, who had been sleeping at the hospital with me the previous two nights, decided to go home and sleep with Brady and go to work the next day, if I wasn't going to deliver.  The nurses decided to let me get a good night's sleep for once and since I was done receiving fluids via IV, they unhooked me from the IV tower and also from both the contraction and fetal heart monitor.  Ahhhh... freedom!! :)

Naturally, Fiona took this as her cue to shake things up a bit.  I woke up at 4am and went to the bathroom and when I got back into bed at 4:04 I had a major contraction.  Oooh... that was not pleasant.  Hmm, I should probably write that down and keep track of these bad boys since I'm not on the monitor anymore....  4:10- another one.  Recorded.  4:16-  this kind of sucks.  I better text Dave and ring the nurse, just in case cuz these HURT LIKE HELL.  4:21- These are pretty regular, no text back from Dave.. I better call him.   I said to him that I was having contractions and they weren't the same and could he please come and be with me...  I also might have mentioned that he could take a shower and grab some work clothes because I wasn't sure if this was actually going to happen. 

The nurse came in and I told her I was having contractions regularly that were very uncomfortable.  I showed her the styrofoam cup I had diligently recorded them on, and then promptly asked if I could take a shower.  She laughed right in my face, and said, "Ummm, no.  You need hooked up to the monitor immediately. I'm going to let Dr. Rapkin know you're contracting."  Oh great, so I can't take a shower, it's been three days since I shaved, and the young male doctor is going to deliver my baby... fantastic.  >:/   OMG this hurts like no other, who cares about the shower. I'm over it.  I tell the nurse that if these keep up, I'm going to need drugs.  STAT.  OMG, they are coming harder and faster as I am hooked up to the monitor.  She asks if I'm having the urge to push.  I say no.  I have another contraction that makes a liar out of me. The doc shows upand checks me.  I'm 9 and 3/4cms dilated.  Umm hi.  Where the F*#@ is DAVE?!  The doctor then becomes concerned because Fiona's heartrate is not responding well to the intensity of my contractions.  It becomes crystal clear to me that there are going to be no drugs involved in this delivery, and I am now clinging to the rails of the hospital bed as if my life depended on it and trying to breathe.  (This is the point where I literally want to punch that stupid woman who taught the Preparing for Childbirth class in the face because there is NO FORM OF BREATHING that would even begin to help) The nurses and doctor are trying to put me in different positions to help the baby's heartrate. They put me on oxygen.  Nothing is working.  They give me a turbo shot to slow the contractions down, and I'm trying to "blow off" the urge to push.  They are now calling Dave because getting this baby out is now an urgent matter and it's time for me to push.  He's at home, letting Brady out, taking his sweet time (because I sort of told him he could).  They tell him I'm 9cms and I'm pretty sure he probably had a heart attack.  Did I mention that the Liberty Tunnel is closed nightly from 10pm - 6am?  FAIL.  Needless to say, Dave walked in the room when her head was 3/4 of the way out, and I pushed two more times and she was here at 5:25am.  (Note the time:  first contraction to delivery = 1 hr 20 min.  She wasn't messing around) 

Notice that I skipped all of the gory gory traumatic details about the pushing, stitching, and me begging for it to be over and swearing like the worst cliche that I couldn't do it.  You can thank me later. I was seriously traumatized after the fact, given that we held her for about 20 seconds before they whisked her away.  The next time we got to see her wasn't until after 11am, but it was so worth the wait.  :)  She's so amazing in every possible way.