What a week - #3 comes early

What a week it has been. We had quite the surprise for our family last Wednesday. Alana Michelle Musick was born June 15 at 9:13 in the morning. She weighed in at 9 pounds and 14 ounces and was 21.5 inches long. It's been a long week and a rather involved story...

Brett and I decided to take the girls to the sprayground in Westfield last Tuesday evening. We really should have been putting the last coat of paint on the baby's room, but the weather was just so nice that we decided to take care of it the next day and just go play. Sophia loved the water and was thoroughly soaked while poor Claire kept getting nailed in the face everywhere she wandered. Poor kid.

We took home two very happy and very tired kiddos that evening. Brett and I were pretty pooped ourselves, and after watching our standard Tuesday night TV fix (got to love me some Deadliest Catch on Discovery), we decided to turn in. Baby had other plans for me, which she normally does after a long day, and my standard late night contractions started up once again. Brett went to bed, and I sat up in the chair for a while, waiting for the contractions to stop.

Now, with Claire's pregnancy, I had contractions every night for five weeks. They would start up, be really random in time and intensity, and then just stop. Things were happening the same way with #3, only the contractions always started later at night and were more consistent. But they always STOPPED. Come last Wednesday night, they didn't stop. By 2:30 am, I'd been having decent contractions, three minutes apart, for 2.5 hours. I called the doctor on call at the hospital, who said to come in if I wanted to get checked. I asked her if I could stay home for a bit and see if they let up or not, to which she said yes. Got to watch those contractions when you have previous c-sections. Don't want to have too many of them for fear that you go through too much labor, which may lead to rupturing.

So I kept an eye (and a stopwatch) on things for a bit longer. I woke up Brett because, darn it, I didn't want to be in pain by myself. Everything slowly got more intense. By 4 am, I didn't know whether to call someone to watch the girls so we could go to the hospital or just try to ignore everything and chalk it up to me just overworking myself. We ended up calling my parents, who were at our house by 5:30 am. In that time, the contractions were getting worse, and I had to stop what I was doing every time I got one. The whole breathing through a contraction thing was totally foreign to me since I'd never really gone in to labor. That, and I was so in denial that anything was actually happening. I was convinced that we would go to the hospital, my contractions would stop, and they would send me home. Totally convinced. So I tried to not get my hopes up while I packed my hospital bag and headed to Labor and Delivery at the IU Health North in Carmel. And thanks to all of the construction near our house, it was a nice 40-minute drive to the hospital. Brett was kind and avoided all of the bumps that he could.

After being checked into triage, changing clothes, and being hooked up to a monitor, my hopes of actually having the baby that day were, well, let's just say I had BIG HOPES that they would keep me. The nurse came in, checked me, and I was only 1 flippin' cm. Honestly?! I'd been having contractions, 3 minutes apart, for the last 8 hours, and I was only at 1 cm?!?!? You know when you watch a movie and you see those crazy pregnant women in labor? You know, the ones who yell and scream when something doesn't go their way during labor? Yeah...I felt like that woman. I have a new-found respect for women who go through labor, especially women who do the whole kit-and-kaboddle without pain meds. How do you do it? The nurse told me they would probably send me home with pain meds. Oh great. Immediate tears after hearing this, but I was assured that my normal doctor was starting her rounds, so just hold on until she came, and she would check me again in about an hour. Fourty-five minutes later, my doctor shows up, checks me, and I've progressed to 2 cm. Quote, "Prep the OR. We're having this baby today." Had I not been strapped to monitors and wearing a backless hospital gown, I would have jumped up and hugged my OB.

So, after an IV, extra anti-nausea medication, OR prep, spinal (ouch), and being laid out on an operating table, we had her - the most perfect third baby girl ever - all 9 lbs and 14 ounces of her. Yes, you heard me right. I went in to labor at 37 weeks and had an almost 10 lb baby. Can you imagine how big she would have been had I lasted until my scheduled c-section at 39 weeks? My hips hurt just thinking about it. I have to say that it was the BEST spinal I've ever had, not that spinals are a comfy thing to experience. The anesthesiologist was amazing. The whole c-section was by far the hardest of the three that I've experienced though. I guess the baby was face up, which was a little more difficult to get out than the first two girls, who were pulled out rear end first.

So our baby girl sounded good after delivery. She was crying like any normal baby, though she did sound a bit weaker than the previous two babies. The nurses told us they were going to take her to the NICU and look her over. That was fine. I wanted her to be under their watchful eye, though I had been looking forward to leaving the OR with her in my arms like I had done with Claire. Recovery after surgery was fine, and they soon wheeled me in to the NICU to see our baby girl. So here I come, in this huge hospital bed, wheeled in to the small NICU room. Ended up, our baby was having some breathing issues, so they decided to keep her in the NICU for a little while just to monitor things. At first, they said she would only be there for a few days. Well...not so much...

I stayed in postpartum for my normal 4 days. The nurses there were amazing. I've come to the conclusion that nurses are just amazing people. Really. How can they stay so happy and positive all the time? It really makes life easier, and it makes recovery even faster. The one thing that I really appreciated about the nursing staff in postpartum is that they weren't constantly trying to make me take my pain meds. I really wanted to ration how much I took since I don't really like the side effects of narcotics after surgery, and they let me stretch out my time between doses. On the flip side, they did tell me to TAKE the meds, which was a good thing, since I probably would have tried to go without and been in major pain.

After almost three days of waffling about a name, we finally decided on Alana Michelle. Neither name was really on our "list" of names. Thank goodness for iPod apps. Brett and I normally have a "name date" about a week before our kids come, and we make our list of names there. Didn't quite get to that...

Alana was admitted to the NICU with Transient Tachypnea, which according to Wikipedia, is rapid breathing due to retained lung fluid. (Where would we be without Wikipedia?) We've been in the NICU with her since I was discharged last Saturday. Her respiratory rate has come back to normal. She was breathing at 80-100 breathes per minute, and is now down to the normal 40-60. She was able to get off of her feeding tube and start nursing and taking a bottle. Now we are just waiting for her oxygen saturation to get a little higher. She is still using an oxygen nose tube. Once she is able to maintain proper oxygen levels with that, they can take off the oxygen tube and let her breathe room air. She has to be able to do that and eat normal feedings for 24 hours, and then we can go home. She's made major strides in the past few days, but Brett and I are really ready to just take her home. The NICU staff here has been wonderful, and we've been able to stay in the hospital's family suites for free, which enables us to be close to Alana and present for every feeding while also giving us the space to get out of the NICU at night and have a real bed to sleep in. Whoever thought of that idea for this hospital deserves an award. I think that separate room is allowing us to keep our sanity.

So in the process of the past two years, Brett and I have been through triage, Labor & Delivery, c-sections in the OR, the NICU (with Alana), and the Pediatric ICU (with Claire). We're hoping to not have to see any other area of the hospital! Please, no ER or adult ICU any time soon.

In our time here, we have experienced such amazing support from the hospital staff. We have made sure to thank each person who has helped us, from doctors to nurses to maintenance staff. So thank you Tracy in the OR recovery for taking care of us and making sure we got up to the NICU to see Alana before going to postpartum. Thank you Jaime in postpartum, who always made me smile when she commented on how good my clothes smelled. (Downy is amazing, isn't it?) Thank you Shelby in postpartum, who is an amazing night nurse and indulged my OCD way of scheduling pain medication. Thank you Jonathan Goble for stopping by, seeing if we were ok, and offering to get me some embroidery to work on. Thank you to our NICU night nurses Jeanie and Sarah, who always had patience with us in our sleepy stupor. Thank you to our NICU day nurses, Inna and Melissa, who not only helped us do our thing but also LET us do our thing. I'm sure there are more people to thank, but I just can't remember the names that belong to all of the helping hands.

We hope to leave the NICU soon. It would be nice to be out of here by Friday or Saturday, but I can't get my hopes up too much or else I might get disappointed. There has been a lot of crying, but we have also really enjoyed finally being near Alana. I'm thankful that she is so healthy and not like the tiny babies here that are so very sick and have been in the hospital for weeks. I'm eager to get home. I miss Sophia and Claire and the bustle of everyday life at home. I know they are in good hands with our parents, but still, it would be nice to finally have everyone together. Brett and I are going home tonight for dinner. I haven't been home in a week and have only seen the girls at the hospital. It will be good to see them in familiar surroundings again and be able to tuck them in to bed before leaving for the hospital again.

We're getting there, little by little. We are in good hands and will eventually make it home with a very healthy and happy baby girls. Can't wait. Will keep you all posted on what is happening.