She's finally here!! It's taken a bit to get back to posting but here we are! Elizabeth Sarah Nord was born November 24th at 8:58 pm weighing in at 8.15 and 22 inches long- big girl!It all started around 2:30 am that Tuesday morning when Rachael woke up to minor cramping. She got up, unable to sleep, and began to notice a pattern as the morning progressed. It was still pretty far apart, but eventually began to grow closer and closer together. Billy got some good sleep and when he got up, was a great help in encouraging through the contractions and helping to time them. Such a wonderful hubby!! We waiting until about 11 am or so to head in to the hospital, wanting to make sure we were far enough along they didn't just send us home!! I wasn't too sure we would be very far but at least we had been 3 cm for a bit- that had to count for something right?! We got to the hospital and when they checked, I was at 5cm already and doing well!! Yippee!!
We were admitted, then called our parents to let them know what was going on. Mom had been having dreams that we wouldn't call her until the baby was born, stemming from the comment I made about waiting to call after making sure we would be admitted :-) Needless to say, they jumped in the car and got to the hospital as fast as they could. We played the waiting game, with Billy winning the award for best support person in the world, and eventually progressed to about 7 cm before requesting the epidural. I had wanted to wait until I was farther along in labor for fear of it slowing down the progress, but when we got it- I think it took about an hour for me to make it to 10 cm!! And folks, I am a firm believer in a women being able to do it on her own if she wants to - all the power to her, but dude, for this lady- I am a "I don't have to pay for Eve's issues now so why would I chose to?" lol Note: I always had heard stories of the epidural hurting and such so I was a little nervous... totally no need to be!! Hardly felt it at all!! I think there were parts of my tattoo that were more uncomfortable than that was! Anyway, no need to worry about progressing apparently! We were feeling great and pushed for about 2 hours.
Around that time, my epidural began to wear off- not fun! I like to think I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but whoa, dude. So we requested a re-dose. From the time I requested the dose through the time I got it and it was kicking in, the dr.s noticed her heart rate showing a little distress. I was so proud of our daughter to make it this far into labor with no signs of struggle - she's such a trooper!! After that, I started to peak a fever at 101.2 (which is crazy high for my typical 97 ish), my blood pressure was steadily rising and my heart beat had picked up at an alarming rate. The dr, Billy and I finally made the decision to go ahead with a c-section.
Billy was really concerned through the whole thing about me and bless his heart, my state just made him even more so. He was able to come into the surgery room all scrubbed up and be with me. The surgery went well and Lizzie came out crying - the best sound I think I can imagine! The folks getting her all taken care of kept talking about how alert she was, and then cracking up when we poo'ed not once on the table they were prepping her on, but twice! lol That's my girl! Meanwhile, the dr is trying to get my heart rate down (which didn't go down until about 4:30 that morning) and Billy's wanting to make sure I'm ok but also see his new daughter. Rough, but God is good and got us through.
We noticed right away she's a strong little girl. She was moving her head around a bit (albeit very clumsily) and was super alert after eating. Nursing went a bit rough, and from what I heard, that was to be expected. She was a great eater but for some reason we were tearing mommy up. We knew it was going to be difficult and sore so we continued as best we could and sought help from two consultants and all the nurses who came in.
We spent Thanksgiving in the hospital, but had great food and plenty of visitors (not to mention a lot on our minds with the newbie). Coming home was uneventful and felt so good to be out and home. The first couple nights sleep were rough, but Mawmaw (Rachael's mom) came over and stayed the night and helped us to trouble shoot some stuff. After that, sleep has been pretty good!! She had her days and nights mixed up but I think we're getting that ironed out. She's going about 4 hours in between feedings so we're getting about 3 straight hours of sleep a stretch at night - which is pretty much awesome!! Part of the problem we encountered with the sleep at first was also feeding related we think.
We continued nursing at home but Rachael was in tears each time she went to nurse. We decided to give her a break and pump, giving the breast milk to Liz via a bottle instead. In the meantime we researched formula just in case it would have to come to that, and found that Rach was not producing what Liz should have been getting. When we told the pediatrician what was going on, she thought that might be part of the issue with the nursing. We talked about it and agreed that we felt comfortable going to formula, especially since Liz had gotten all my colostrum, which meant the most to me. That standing there, her sleep has regulated and she's all but lost that fussy time in the early morning.
Now all we're trying to iron out is our nap times! She's not sleeping well during the day for some reason, and we're not really sure why. She'll sleep great when she's being held by someone (note we are limiting this because we know she'll get used to it if we let her), and we're putting her down in her crib to sleep for naps to reinforce the sleep there, but she's still waking up periodically in a crying fit. Obviously we're knocking out any of the basics, food/burp/diaper/reassure. Any thoughts - feel free to voice!!
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