Aubrey's First 8 Days

WARNING!!! This is probably going to be a long post and may contain too much information for some.

Thursday: Matt and I went to the Dr. in the morning and he said that Aubrey had not dropped and I had not dilated anymore than one centimeter, if that. He said "Come back Monday (12th) and we will see how your progress is going and let's go ahead and schedule an induction for Wednesday (14th)." Not the news we wanted to hear...but it did help convince Matt that we needed to go walking around and what better place than Target? :) They have super cute baby stuff! We definitely don't need anything but it is fun to look. So on we go to Target and walk around for about 40 minutes. While we are there Matt convinces me to get another pair of maternity pants and two maternity shirts because I had outgrown everything. After that we headed home and decided we needed to go to the grocery store for me to walk around some more in the hopes that Aubrey would drop. On the way home my water broke!
We had been praying that my water would break (only 25% break on their own) so we would know when it was time to head to the hospital. God answered that prayer for sure. On to the hospital...

At the hospital we tell them my water was broke and the said "okay, let's make sure," I'm thinking is the trail down the hall not enough proof? They have me sit on a fabric chair while I give them all of my info. to check in and I say "Are you sure you want me to sit in this chair?" she says "Yes, go ahead." A few minutes later I am in triage and the nurse is about to test the fluids coming out of me. You do this by placing a test strip in the fluid and if it turns blue that means you have amniotic fluid. At the same time another nurse comes in and says "She left a puddle in the fabric chair and I tested it, her water definitely broke." I say "I told y'all I shouldn't have set in that chair." The send me on to a labor and delivery room...

In the labor and delivery room I labor. They hook me up to an IV, put a baby heart rate monitor on me and a contraction monitor. These things were so annoying and I kept thinking that I should have had the baby at home to avoid all these wires. I was in active labor at the hospital for about 6 hours and at some point I sat on a birthing ball and vomited my lunch, it felt wonderful, seriously. I believe I have a pretty high pain tolerance, I dilated all the way to a 10 without any medication and no screaming or yelling. The pain I had a month ago when my finger randomly swelled up for a week was much worse than the labor pains. Unfortunately I didn't get to experience pushing Aubrey out.

Unknown to me Aubrey's heart rate was dangerously low when I would have contractions. The nurse was very good about not stressing me over it. She would just say "now the baby's heart rate is a little low so I'm going to have you move to your right/left side and see if that helps." Usually the heart rate is suppose to be in the 120s-140s range so I was thinking it was near 120 , I couldn't see the monitor to realize it was 60. So when I was dilated to a 6 she had me moving around like crazy, even had me get on all fours on top of the bed. I told the nurses that they were crazy and that I haven't been able to move around like that for two months but I went ahead and did what they said. In about 3 minutes I dilated from a 6 to a 10 and had the urge to push and I began to do so. By this time there were probably 7 nurses in the room moving like crazy to get me ready for an emergency cesarean section because of Aubrey's heart rate.In seconds they were running down the hall, pushing me to the operating room. Matt wasn't allowed to come because they didn't have time for him to put on scrubs and get sanitized. They told him to wait in the room and that they would let him know what was going on later. I don't think I realized fully that I was having a C-section I just thought "oh good, I'll get to see Aubrey soon." Since I didn't have an epidural and they had to get Aubrey out quick they gave me anesthesia and I was out in seconds and Aubrey was out within 5 minutes, born at 8:32 PM. I was knocked out so I didn't get to see her being delivered. She had meconium on her so she was taken to the newborn ICU. Meconium is the baby's first bowel movements and it can be dangerous if ingested. It also took some effort to get her breathing and pinking up. Her APGAR scores were 5,7,9. She turned out to be great and she was going to join Matt and I in the mother/baby unit as soon as I woke up from surgery. Matt got to go in and see her in the NICU. I didn't fully recover until about 4 hours later and that was when I got to see Aubrey. I breastfed her a little but after being out of the womb for 4 hours she was already in a sleeping pattern. Matt's parents, my parents and my brother, Jacob, came to see here after Matt and I got to see her. Then we got some much needed rest.

Friday: First thing in the morning the nurse comes in telling us she has some bad news. They had done blood work to check my liver enzymes and discovered that I had developed preeclampsia, which is a temporary issue having to do with high blood pressure. Women with preeclampsia are known to have seizures. To ensure that I wouldn't have seizures I was sent back to the labor and delivery unit where my blood pressure could be monitored constantly and they would give me magnesium sulfate for 24 hours. "The magnesium sulfate makes you feel miserable, I can't think of any other way to describe it," says the nurse "you also won't be able to eat until the treatment is done." It did make me feel pretty bad, I felt to weak to hold my head up. My blood pressure was taken every hour, making it hard to sleep. Matt was exhausted from the night before but we had a wonderful nurse who helped take care of Aubrey, she was so sweet to my baby girl. By the time the treatment was over I had not eaten for 48 hours.

In the afternoon we were sent back to the mother/baby unit and spent two more nights there, making our hospital stay four nights.

Throughout my pregnancy I couldn't picture my daughter wearing pink all the time and being girlie. One night the nurse brought her back in our room after her bath wrapped up in a pink blanket with a pink bow stuck to her head. My heart just melted, she was so cute!

Monday and Tuesday: The newly expanded Ellis family got to go home! We tried to rest and had some visitors. My mother and Aunt Judy cleaned the house and decorated it for fall! It was an awesome surprise to come home to. I love to decorate for the seasons and holidays but had been too tired in the last weeks of my pregnancy to do so. Matt's parents brought over homemade meals to last more than a week. Thanks!

Wednesday: This day was a day full of driving and Dr. appointments. Aubrey had her appointment first in Athens with Dr. Shaw. Overall Aubrey was looking good but had lost too much weight. She was down to 6 lbs. 11 oz., 14.37% less than her birth weight. Most babies lose 7%-14%. Dr. Shaw said to continue breastfeeding but to supplement with formula. She said we can expect to gain .5 oz - 1 oz. a day by doing this. We were told to come back Friday to check her weight. We were really disappointed to hear this. I already felt like I had missed out on a bonding time with Aubrey by not being awake when she was delivered, now was it possible I wasn't able to breastfeed?

Our plans were to leave for Tyler after seeing the pediatrician but we decided to head home first and get things ready for formula feeding. My mother ended up bringing over already mixed formula and we gave that a try. Aubrey drank it. The whole time I was worried that Aubrey would get nipple confusion and not breastfeed any longer. More importantly though, I wanted her to eat. On to Tyler...

Everything at my appointment went great. I lost 26 lbs. already, probably mostly water weight from my swelling.

After my appointment we sat in the parking garage and I attempted to breastfeed and then formula feed without any success. She had spit up the formula from that morning, leaving her with little nutrition in her body. This was around 2:30 and she had not been alert the whole day, barely opened her eyes even when we tried very hard to wake her. I broke down completely. I didn't know if we should go across the street to the hospital or not. We ended up going to see the lactation consultant. She was wonderful. She had me pump my breast milk and then give it to Aubrey. She said that we should pump and feed Aubrey every two hours for the next 24 hours. She believed that my breast milk was delayed from coming in because of multiple factors; c-section, anesthesia, lack of food for 48 hours, magnesium sulfate. My milk had finally come in but it is likely that Aubrey had little to eat in the last day or two because my colostrum was gone by day three or four.

Matt and I had a tiring rest of the day as I pumped for Aubrey every two hours and Matt fed her.

Thursday: wake up: pump: feed: sleep: repeat

Friday: Another day of Dr. visits, but more encouraging. Aubrey had her second PKU test at the hospital. We met with the lactation consultant, Aubrey latched on and fed really well. Yay! Next we went for her weight check and she has gained 8 ounces!! That is half a pound, putting her at 7 lbs. 3 oz. and 10% below her birth weight. The plan is to now breast feed her on demand or every three hours untill she gets back to her birth weight. Her next check up is on the 22nd so we will be doing it at least until then.

Very few things have gone as we planned/hoped but overall it has been a wonderful experience for me. Matt and I now have a precious child that I love more than I ever thought I could. The complications with delivery even have their upside. Since I was out of commission from the surgery and pain medications Matt took care of Aubrey the first four days of her life. I think it really helped to bond them. I am sad that I missed out on so much already but I have her whole life to look forward to!

I was going to post pictures along with this but they will have to come at a later time. I have a pretty girl to take care.