So...about the daily dose....

Okay, so while the daily dose of Olivia was a good idea in theory, it turns out it wasn't such a practical idea. As it's now been about 2 weeks since the last post, you've probably guessed the daily dose idea went by the wayside pretty quickly. I've been just a little busy trying to take care of Olivia and myself. The days go by so quickly. When I wake up (or I should say am woken up by a crying baby), I change her, feed her, hop in the shower, get dressed, come downstairs, eat breakfast, and pretty soon it's time to feed her again. The rest of the day in between feedings and while she's napping I try to either be productive (i.e. go to the grocery store or do laundry) or I try to rest. Before I know it, it's time for dinner and getting ready for bed, and starting the process all over again. My new goal for blogging will be to post at least once every 2 weeks, maybe once a week if I'm really on top of things! :)

Daily Dose of Olivia

Since we've taken so many pictures, I am going to try to post a picture (or a few) each day.

Here's Olivia with Daddy:

 

and Olivia with Mommy:

She's here!!!

Well, after many painful hours of labor and an hour and a half of pushing, Olivia was born on September 26, 2010 at 5:24 a.m. She weighed 8.0 lbs and measured 20 inches. I should know that nothing goes as planned but the entire birth experience was far from what I imagined. The end result was, of course, wonderful and well worth it.

Here is her birth story. You've been forewarned. It's long and shares all the gory, not-so-fun details, but I wanted to document it for myself.

We went to the hospital at 5:30 on Saturday night. I was having contractions around every 6 min. but was in a lot of pain from all the pressure. When we got there, they told me I was only 1 cm. dilated. They gave me morphine and said they'd check me again in an hour. An hour later, the pain was worse but I still hadn't progressed. The triage nurse kept trying to send me back home since according to her I wasn't progressing and therefore, wasn't considered to be in active labor, but kept letting me stay one more hour.

Finally at close to midnight, after six hours of excruciating pain, they were going to send me home but I pretty much begged to stay. The nurse talked to Margie (my midwife) who said that I could be admitted but they would have to put me on pitocin to move things along. I would have to be four cm. before I could get an epidural. I was told this would make my contractions worse, but decided I would rather be in pain at the hopsital than go home and sit there and wonder when I could go back.

As soon as they admitted me and wheeled me to my own private room, my contractions were two minutes apart. The new nurse, Betsy, who I liked much better, told me that my contractions were too close together for pitocin anyway. She called Dr. Guy (who, by the way, delivered Sarah 23 years ago) in to check me because apparently I have a weird cervix and she couldn't tell how far dilated she thought I was.

Thank goodness she did because he said I was 6-7 cm!!! I still can't believe how this is possible. Less than hour before, the triage nurse had told me I was only 1 cm and was wanting to send me back home. Either I really progressed that quickly or she wasn't doing a very good job of checking me. I guess there's no point in trying to figure it out now. It's a good thing I insisted on staying because Dr. Guy told me that if I hadn't wanted an epidural that I likely would have had her within the hour. CRAZY!

I should mention that once we got admitted, Yusaku called both sets of our parents to let them know what was going on. We hadn't wanted to let anyone know we were at the hospital until we were sure they were going to let us stay. Our parents came right away and got in a little visit before heading to the waiting room, where Yusaku's parents and my dad managed to get a little sleep. My mom, not surprisingly, was too excited to sleep.  See proud grandparents below. :)

I did get an epidural right after Dr. Guy checked me and it was wonderful. I only wish I had had it sooner, but better late than never.  There's no way I could have continued going without one so it was worth it to me to prolong the labor a little in order to enjoy a few hours of peace. It at least made the last few hours of labor peaceful and almost enjoyable. Up until that, I couldn't think past the pain to the fact that I would get to meet Olivia soon. I had never had a break from the pain in between contractions because the pressure was so bad I thought I was going to explode or die. Even Yusaku said that he couldn't imagine trying to make it out to the car with the amount of pain I was in in order to go home.

The other surprising thing Dr. Guy told me was that my water had broken, yet I have no idea when that could have happened. This explains why I had so much pressure as there was no barrier between her head and my cervix.  I never had any big gush of fluid or even noticed any leaking. I had started to go into early labor on Tuesday and by the time I saw one of my midwives on Friday, she told me she thought I would have my baby that weekend. She was right! Interestingly, even though she checked me, she said nothing about my water having broken. The fact that it had broken and I didn't know when was bit of a concern because they usually want to deliver the baby within 24 hours of that happening and it could have been a couple days since it had happened.

I started pushing around 3 o'clock in the morning and pushed for an hour and a half. When Dr. Guy came in and saw me pushing, he immediately decided he needed to vacuum her out because she couldn't fit under my pelvic bone. Apparently, he rarely resorts to doing this but felt there was no choice. I also had to have an episiotomy, which is something else he rarely does.

Once she was born, the NICU nurses had to check on her. This is routine protocol anytime a baby is delivered by vacuum or forceps. She was having some trouble breathing and they had to take her to the transitional nursery (a step below the NICU) so I didn't get to do skin to skin or breastfeed right away like I had wanted to. While that was disappointing, I was more worried because I just wanted everything to be okay. I had Yusaku go with the nurses to the nursery and then called my mom to let her know that Olivia had born and what was going on. She came back to the room to stay with me while Yusaku was gone.

Thankfully, she came back from the nursery about half an hour later. They said she was stable now and I was finally able to hold her and breastfeed. We moved to a new, smaller room. I tried to balance resting, eating, drinking, and feeding her, which I think is something I will be battling with for a long time to come. We had a little scare when Olivia started spitting up and choking on mucous. Apparently this is normal within the first twenty four hours, but because it had happened a couple of times that day, our nurse recommended that we keep her in the nursery overnight so that someone could keep their eyes on her throughout the night and we could try to get a little rest. They brought her back every few hours so I could feed her. I am so glad we did this because I know I wouldn't have slept at all if she had been in the room because I would have been worrying too much.

The next "surprise" came on Monday, when we learned that she had jaundice and was above the 95% level, which was above high risk. She had to be put on a bili bed and the pediatrician told me it was medically necessary to supplement with formula, which I didn't want to do. I was afraid that by doing so she would no longer want to breastfeed. I obviously did what they told me because I wanted to do whatever was needed so she would get better. I was told  she needed the formula because she needed to get enough to eat so she could poop and get rid of the extra red blood cells that were causing the jaundice. It seems that the reason she had jaundice had to with the fact that she had been vacuumed out, which had caused bruising on her head and the bruising caused the jaundice.

After seeing the lactation consultant the next day and having her watch me feed Olivia, she said as long as she was feeding well, which she thought she was, that we could skip the formula and just breastfeed, which made me happy. Between the nurses, doctors, lactation consultants, etc. I had so many different pieces of advice/opinions that it was very confusing and frustrating to know what I should do.

Her jaundice levels actually went up the first night so they had to bring in more lights to put above her (see picture below; don't forget to check out the cool goggles).  When they tested her again the following afternoon she had improved enough that we got to take her home (alleluia!). They had been thinking that they would need to keep her under the lights another day, and because I would be discharged we would have had to move to a parenting room. luckily, we didn't have to do that. 

We took her to the pediatrician for her first appointment on Wednesday. The doctor thought everything looked great. They tested her levels of bilirubin again and said that they were now in the low-risk range. :) Breastfeeding, while much more painful than I expected and frustrating at times, is going well overall. While we had crazy beginning, we are overjoyed to be home with Olivia and are getting to know her and love her more each day.


I can't conclude this birth story without mentioning what an important role Yusaku has played. I couldn't have gotten through all of this without him. I don't know how anyone could do this alone. From the moment we got to the hospital to this very minute, he has been the most supportive partner I could ask for. He helped me breathe through the pain of labor.  He encouraged me through the actual delivery, offering me encouragement and telling me what a great job I was doing. Through all the little bumps in the road, he has remained calm and assured me everything would be okay. Since we've been home, he has been up with me at every feeding, recording how long she feeds and on which side. He has also recorded every wet and dirty diaper, not to mention that he's changed pretty much all of them. When I've had trouble breastfeeding, he has encouraged me and reminded of things the lactation consultant told us to do. Since the very first diaper at the hospital, he has changed all of them (with the exception of two I think), never having to be asked, but wanting to do it - to help, to participate. He is a wonderful father and I feel so lucky to have him.