Brown and Pink Polka Dots : One week old

Its hard to believe Lydia is a week old already! I have been trying to sit down to blog all week... but it has been rather busy around here. I am going to try to take this day by day. Be warned I am going to tell her birth story so if birth grosses you out I would skip to Thursday :)

Wednesday: Wednesday morning Jilli decided that we all did not really need sleep at our house and woke up at 4:45am and would not go back to sleep. This was rather challenging as I could not eat or drink anything so I was hoping to sleep in to keep my mind off the no food while massively pregnant thing. Brent and I split shifts and he slept for an hour and I hung out with her and then he took her for an hour so I could sleep. We needed to be at the hospital at 10 am. On the way there Jilli fell asleep! We got all checked in and up to the room. The did all the pre-op questions and started my IV. The anesthesiologist came in and we talked for a minute. I was really grateful that she had heard of the different things in my medical chart (my doctors don't even know what some of my health stuff is because they have never encountered it since a text book in collage). Once I met her a lot of my nerves were calmed. They then took me down for surgery. They wheeled me in and Brent was in the hallway. They did my spinal. The anesthesiologist said it went in really well (well her comment was that she likes tall women lol). My epidural with Jilli did not go in well so I was very happy with how well the spinal went. The mood of the OR was very calm and we were all joking around. The doctor came in and said to tell me if I felt anything and I had no idea she did anything and then she said that based on whatever she just did I was very numb. They did the first part and then Brent came in. The anesthesiologist was amazing during the surgery! She kept asking me what I needed and what she could do. They pulled Lydia's head out and she was screaming! The wiggled her own shoulders out! The doctor was laughing. She then went over to get cleaned up while they started closing me up (she had an APGAR score of 9). The doctor she I had a lot of scar tissue in there, much more then she expected so she took some time to clean that up. I could feel pressure and pulling but it was not painful. As soon as Lydia was born Brent went over by her and then after a couple of minutes he came back over by me to check on me. They then brought Lydia over to him and she promptly puked all over the place. Lydia had pooped inside and then pooped on her way out and then pooped again while they were cleaning her up. At the same time something was up with me and the doctor said I needed a shot of something so as Brent brought Lydia over so I could see her they stuck a shot in my arm. For the rest of the surgery Brent and Lydia sat next to me which was really nice (For Jillian they took Brent and Jilli out of the room within a couple of minutes of her being born so I was in the rest of the surgery alone) It was nice to have them both by my side for the rest of surgery. Once the surgery was over they moved me back to the hospital bed and then they put Lydia on my chest and wheeled me back up to the OB floor. They do c section recovery in your hospital room at Lakeland which was really nice. As soon as we were back in the room I was able to nurse her. She thought biting was more interesting. After close to an hour they sent the lactation consultant came in. She was giving me a couple of tips and I without warning puked all over the place. I don't handle meds well so I was not surprised that I puked. After a little while longer Jilli was allowed to come into the room. She was really nervous at first but eventually started to adjust. We took quite a while just the four of us and then contacted the people that we knew wanted to come and let they know it was ok to come visit. The rest of the night we had visitors that came to meet Lydia. After people left They stood me up for the first time and changed my sheets (they cleaned everything up as best they could from my puking while I was laying in the bed, but I needed new sheets). While they changed my sheets they took Lydia for a bath. That first night she nursed off and on all night.

Thursday: My parents came up and my brother brought my grandma up. We spent most of the day just hanging out. Lydia was checked out by the ped on call for the first time. She had started choking some after eating and she did it while the ped was checking her out (the ped's eyes got kind of big) She told us to keep an eye on it and to let Lydia's regular ped know about it after we got out of the hospital. She said that otherwise everything looked good. Around lunch time they took my catheter out and my mommy helped to give me a shower. By dinner time I really needed to go to the bathroom but could not go so I took my first walk around the hallway. I still could not go and was now in a lot of pain so they ended up straight cathing me and I filled the bag to the seems. A couple of hours later I was back in the same position and they needed to straight cath me again. Thankfully late in the night my bladder started to wake up and I was able to go to the bathroom.

Friday: Go home day! We spent the day doing all of the discharge stuff. I walked around a little bit more and they had us watch a couple of videos. We were discharged late afternoon. That evening my in laws came over to hang out.

Saturday: My mom spent Friday night to help us out. Saturday we spent hanging out. I was sore and not moving too much. My mom left in the afternoon and then it was the 4 of us. Jilli had a really rough bed time, it was the hardest time for us so far but eventually she went to sleep.

Sunday: We spent the day at home. It was weird for us all to be home on a Sunday morning! My parents brought over food and made us lunch and dinner! We spent the day hanging out. Jilli and the boys went and played disc golf while mom helped me to take a shower.

Monday: Jilli had therapy and Lydia had her first doctor's appointment. The doctor said that she looked good but that we are going to keep a very close eye on her choking. We also stopped at the daycare so we could say hi to my boss and we went to Target to pick a few things up. Brent pushed me in a wheel chair and my mom pushed the girls in a cart. We then came home and Jaime and Jason came over for dinner.

Tuesday: Family day! We decided to have a day just the four of us. We spent the morning just hanging out and then in the afternoon we took a family trip to Starbucks! We took Jilli to Starbucks when she was about a week old and Jilli noticed that in her baby pictures lately so she insisted that we needed to take her sister for a trip to Starbucks. We also got both of the girls bathes. Jilli peed and had her med port open during the night so she got a bath as soon as she woke up and Jilli helped to give Lydia a bath right before we left for Starbucks. Tuesday night Dan came over and brought us dinner.

Wednesday: This morning we hung out and then I had my post op OB appointment. She said that everything looks great. I have some bruising on my incision but otherwise it looks good. We also talked about how I had a lot of scar tissue in my stomach that needed to be cleaned up. We are guessing it is from "this" since odd scaring and healing is common with it. We then went to Penara for lunch since we were already in Delivan. We spent the rest of the day hanging out. Brent played with Jilli for a while and then for a while he had both girls so I could take a nap. Tonight we curled up in our bed and watched the Incredibles as a family.

Sleeping: The first several nights were very long. She liked to nurse every 20ish minutes for about 10min each time, however as my milk cam in this became a problem because her belly would get full and then for subsequent feedings she would eat and then choke and then vomit. It also was very long nights for us because this would start around 11pm and continue until 3am. Finally Sunday night we gave her a passy just at night after she was fed. It is working wonders and she is able to get more sleep at night and so are we. We only give it to her for a short time but she soothes herself and then is not vomiting and choking from too much food.

Choking: We are still really watching this. After almost every feed she starts refluxing and chokes. She does not choke while she is eating, just on reflux after. She spit up sometimes but is able to keep it in most of the time. She also gets hiccups frequently after she eats. She eats every 2-3 hours most of the time but has at least a three to four hour stretch each day where she eats every hour-ish. She is a much faster nurser then her sister though now that she has a better hang of it. For the first coupld of days she would only take three sucks and then sit for a minute and then take a couple more sucks. She still takes frequent breaks while eating however it is not like it was in the beginning.

Overall she is a pretty laid back kiddo. Jilli is adjusting well. She has had her moments however she has also had many sweet moments too. It will take time for her to adjust to her new normal. For the most part she has been really good about being careful around me, which is really nice. I was able ot wean off the narcotics yesterday but am still on one pain med. At this point the skin is just very tight and if I do too much I feel it, My body also strongly reminds me that bending and twisting at the waist is a bad idea, Riding in the car is the only time I feel where my spinal went in but it makes riding in the car rather uncomfortable. I was dumb this morning and accidentally ripped off the scab from my IV site, which up until now had not hurt at all (the nurse did a great job putting it in) however I expect that to feel fine again tomorrow.

I want to send out a HUGE thank you to everyone who has sent us well wishes or has helped make this transition from a family for three to a family of four easier. To the people who have brought us freezer meals, to the people who brought me a fresh cherry pie from Door County, and the people who have brought sweet gifts for both Jilli and Lydia, THANK YOU! We are so fortunate to have such amazing people in our lives!