Finally, the promised pictures!

Sorry, I've just not been good on getting any posts done lately. I do have some pictures uploaded finally, so here you go!

The first picture of Maya with Mommy and Daddy



Adan meeting Maya a few hours after her birth



Waiting for the paperwork to go home



Hooked up to the darn bili blanket



Maya in her carseat



Adan holding Maya



Daddy holding Maya



A closeup at 5 days of age



I know they say its gas, but this was a real enough looking smile for me!



Such a big yawn



Mommy and Maya



We are doing well. Maya's bilirubin dropped significantly on Saturday, so we were able to take her off the bili blanket. My hemoglobin finally started heading in the right direction, too. It will take a while to get back to normal, but hopefully my energy level will start building as we get there. Maya seems to be sleeping well between feedings at night, which has been nice. The first couple nights at home, she was wide awake from about 2am - 6am, feeding about once an hour during that time. Now she goes 2-3 hours between nighttime feedings and pretty much goes back to sleep as soon as she's done. That little amount of extra sleep is very helpful.

We're home!

Despite the fact that my hemoglobin again dropped, my doctor allowed me to come home today. It wasn't a huge drop (Wed - 7.3, Thurs - 6.5, Fri - 6.2) and I was able to be up and about for a while without lightheadedness, so home we came. Also, Maya's bilirubin level rose a little (11.6 Thurs to 14.2 Fri), so we came home with the bili blanket.

I am now on iron and am not to do anything other than sit around, eat, feed Maya and sleep. Not easy with a three year old, but Daron is doing great and we have more help from family and friends.

We take Maya to the hospital tomorrow to have a new level drawn, and I will have another blood draw on Monday with an appt later in the day. Hopefully, we'll both see improvement!

I have pictures, but haven't gotten them all uploaded yet. I hope to get that done tomorrow and then I'll post again.

Another night in the hospital

I have to make this quick as it is almost time to feed Maya again. I've had low hemoglobin as a result of the excess bleeding after delivery. Today it went down further, so we didn't end up going home as expected. They'll test again tomorrow morning and we'll likely go home tomorrow. I will be taking iron, but they haven't ruled out a transfusion yet either. Depends on what the level does tomorrow.

Maya also is now a bit jaundice, so she is a little glowworm in a bili blanket. Hopefully it will resolve quickly.

Thanks to everyone for the continued well wishes and prayers. We really appreciate them!

Introducing Maya Elise!

Sorry it has taken me so long to post, but it was a rough day and night yesterday. So, first, I'll post her picture and then below, I'll tell about her birth story.



So, around midnight on early Tuesday morning I woke up feeling stronger contractions than I had previously. Finally around 1am I thought I should start timing them. They were about 5 minutes apart. My doctor had told me to go in when they were 5 minutes apart for an hour. Well, I decided to wait a little while longer because of the night before and how they had petered out. Another half hour went by and they were getting closer to 4 minutes apart, so I went ahead and woke up Daron. He was also skeptical, so he just helped me time them and went ahead and put some last minute items in the hospital bag. Finally a little after 3 I tole him that we needed to call someone to come stay with Adan. At this point, the contractions were about 3 minutes apart and quite strong. So, help arrived and we left.

At the hospital we found out I was dilated to 4cm, so we were officially checked in. Everything was progressing along great until I hit 6cm and then the contractions petered out. We continued to walk, sit on a birthing ball, take a whirlpool, etc, and the contractions would increase for a while, but then they would slow down again. And, I was not dilating any further. So finally the doctor made the call to start pitocin. Oh my goodness, that is some horrible stuff. The contractions were on top of each other with very little to no break between. I had been trying to avoid pain meds (I did try phentynol first and it made me throw up), but the pitocin was tough to deal with that I decided to go ahead and get an epidural. That was a nice break from the pain, but it was a very unnerving feeling to not be able to feel a thing from just below the ribcage down. I was absolutely numb. When they would move my legs it was like they belonged to someone else.

Finally at 4:50pm, Maya made her arrival at 8lbs 4oz and 21 3/4 inches. As you can see from the picture she has a ton of dark hair. Daron has dark hair but not quite that dark. I think she takes after her aunts Rhonda and Rolayne (Daron's sisters) in the hair department! She also already has very dark eyes.

Afterward, I had some trouble with excess bleeding. A shot of methergen (sp?) helped, but my hemoglobin has been pretty low and I'm having trouble with dizziness when I try to stand up. I just finally got off an IV of fluids and I will have a catheter in the rest of the day, but I'm feeling better. I still am having some lightheadedness when standing, so they'll be continuing to check my hemoglobin. The plan is to go home tomorrow afternoon unless the hemoglobin and lightheadedness improve.

Adan came to the hospital to meet Maya last night, and a prouder big brother there could not be. He kept telling me, "the baby is big enough to come out!" Yep, she sure was!

A quick update...

I woke up a little after midnight with some contractions. They became quite frequent and intense, so we headed to the hospital around 4am. When we arrived I was dilated to 4cm and 80% effaced. The doctor just broke my water a short time ago, but we still likely have a few hours left. One of us will post an update later on!

Ugh

I have just generally felt crappy today. I've had the contractions all day long, although not nearly as consistently this morning. Plus my back has been aching and I've been very crampy. I was actually optimistic that the doctor would find that I am progressing nicely. Well, kinda. I am still dilated to only 1cm. The same place I've been for four weeks now. I am much more effaced than I was though - she said probably about 50%. She said there hadn't been much thinning the last couple times she had checked, so I guess that's something to be happy about.

Anyway, she thinks we ought to give it another week before inducing. So, I am scheduled to be induced next Monday morning unless this little girl makes her arrival before then. I was kind of hoping for this week, but she felt it was best to wait. She's hoping that I'll be far enough at that point that all they would have to do is break my water. And, logically, I know that is the best decision. I would rather not take any labor inducing drugs, but I'm feeling so darned miserable today that I think I would have been willing to head to the hospital right then if she had offered.

These contractions really mess with your head!

So, I've been up since sometime around 3am this morning when I started feeling contractions. These are definitely different than what I've had previously, since I feel them all through my back and they are somewhat painful (not terrible yet, though). They got to the point of every 6 minutes and I thought, wow, we might be having a baby today (my doctor wants us to go in when they are every 5 minutes for at least an hour). But then they started spreading back out frequency wise around 7:00 or so this morning. They are still happening, but they're more like 7-10 minutes apart. I told Daron to keep his phone with him at all times just in case, but I think this would be what they call 'false labor', or what I call, 'really not very funny'.

Anyway, I'm not throwing in the towel yet, but I'm guessing today is not the day.

Still pregnant

Only 2 days left until my due date - yes, I'm still here and still pregnant. Every once in a while I get my hopes up that something may be starting with some fairly frequent and uncomfortable contractions, but so far they never turn into the real thing. In the meantime, this little girl is just as active as ever, which is good, but can be quite uncomfortable. We have talks about how if she needs to stretch out so much, she should just think about making her arrival. So far, she's not taking my advice!

Daron, Adan and I try to go on walks when possible, but it seems like during the last week, either a thunderstorm is coming through or its really hot outside. Tonight seems like a nice night to take a walk though, so I think we'll get out there.

Yesterday my mom and I went to a Tastefully Simple party and then a big arts festival that was going about an hour north of here. I wanted to stay active for both the purposes of keeping my mind off the impending birth and in the hopes of getting something going. No luck on getting anything going, but we did have a good time.

In the meantime, Adan's fascination with when the baby is coming has now become pretty much obsession. He asks about when she's coming, talks to my stomach, hugs and kisses my stomach, and wants to read his books about waiting for baby and becoming a big brother pretty much ALL DAY LONG. We took him to the latest Ice Age animated movie today. In the movie, a baby woolly mammoth is born. When he saw the baby, he leaned his head on my shoulder, put his hand on my tummy, and said 'Baby' in such a sweet little voice. It was very cute.

I'll try to keep posting regularly here now that we're getting down to the wire. Hopefully we'll have some good news very soon!

Not so fast...

So, we had a doctor's appointment today. The plan was that she was going to check my progress and then we would schedule an induction for later in the week. Daron and I did a lot of thinking and talking about it over the last week, and we weren't sure induction was the right thing at this point. So, we decided to go to the appointment today and find out why she felt it was a good idea to induce this week, just a few days before my due date. Well, it turns out, I'm still only 1cm dilated and so she doesn't think its quite the right time to induce either. So, the decision was made easy - there really wasn't a decision. We'll go back next Monday and see if there has been any progress and then come up with a plan for when we think it will be time to induce if this little girl hasn't yet made her arrival.

I'm still hoping she decides to make her debut on her own. The idea of being tied to an IV during labor isn't all that appealing and I have heard that an induced labor can be harder than non-induced. I think it really depends on how close your body really was at the time of induction.

So, in the meantime, I've been walking in the evenings, when it hasn't been too terribly hot. I'm just hoping that activity will help get things going. I still have a lot of contractions and some of them are a bit painful, but so far nothing continues. Hey, tomorrow is the full moon! Maybe the moon's gravitational pull will lure her out of her lair. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?! They do say there are a lot of babies born on the full moon.

I can't believe I'm down to single digits (well, at least single digits to my due date)!