Ellie is Here!

I meant to update this while we were in the hospital, but it always sounds like we’ll have more down time in the hospital that we actually do.  Anyhow, here’s a recap of what has happened during Ellie's first few days (this is a long post, sorry).

Monday (Labor Day) night we took the kids out to dinner as our last outing as a family of 4.  Crazy, right?  We enjoyed some yummy Mexican food together.

Tuesday B and I went to work for the day.  Tracy came over to pick up our boys after work so that we could get ready to go to the hospital.  We were set for an induction at 8pm.  Once checked into our room, they started an IV and when the doc came in to check progress and get us ready for a Foley catheter induction, I was already at 3 cm, which is what the Foley is meant to achieve.  So, we didn’t have to go that route (celebrations).  We’d just sit tight and wait until the morning to start Pitocin.  Everything looked great on the monitors through the night and Pitocin started around 7am.  Around 8am, they started having trouble with the heart rate monitor.  It looked like Ellie’s heart rate was dipping down to the 50s, then rebounding back into the high 180s or 190s.  The audible beeping was still tracking okay, but they needed to be able to watch the monitor from the nurses’ station.  Dr. McKenna came in and did a quick ultrasound to make sure Ellie’s heart was doing alright, and it was, but said that they’d need to break my water and use an internal monitor on Ellie’s scalp to get an accurate reading on her heart rate through labor.  My water was broken around 9:30am, which made my contractions much more severe.  At this point, we’d progressed to about 4 cm.  My parents and Brandon’s parents headed down to sit with us for the day.  An anesthesia resident came down to start an epidural soon afterwards… but the epidural didn’t take.  Contractions became much more severe and I waited (not so patiently) for another epidural.  The anesthesiologist came in to start another epidural.  This one took, thank goodness, but because of the blockage caused by the first one, the 2^nd one only covered the left side of my body.  I could still feel full contractions on the right.  Not unbearable – I could focus and breathe through them, but it was weird to feel it just on half of my body.  

At noon, my nurse came back in and said the anesthesiologist was headed back my way to give me something for the right side.  In the meantime, she’d check progress again.  We were now at 6cm and progressing well.  Brandon and our parents had just come back into the room from getting lunch.  Instantly, my pain level went through the roof.  I could feel unbelievable pressure and the contractions on my right side were now so strong that I was gripping the side of the bed, laying on my side, and couldn’t focus on much at all.  The nurse brought in the OB resident (Dr. Brahman) to check progress again.  By this point, we were complete… ready to start pushing.  Holy cow – did that all happen in 30 minutes?  They got the team ready and rolled me down the hall into the OR.  On the way there, I let my nurse know that I was trying hard to keep from pushing… they picked up the pace so they were now running to the OR.  By the time they broke the bed down and got everyone in their OR garb, we were pushing.  About 4 minutes later, Ellie arrived at 12:52pm!  Uhh… she’s my favorite child now… kidding.  But everything went so fast that we weren’t able to get many pictures when she was born.  I was able to feel exactly what was going on this time, though… if only on the right side.  [side note: Lance was about 30 hours of labor, then just under 3 hours of pushing.  Kaleb was about 8 hours of labor, and 20 minutes of pushing.  Ellie was around 4 hours of labor total and less than 4 minutes of pushing.]

I didn’t get to hold her right away, they lifted her up so that I could see her, but then took her into the adjacent NICU room.  Brandon and mom were able to go see her, but even at that, there were so many people checking her out, that they weren’t able to really get close.  Once the docs were done with me, I was wheeled into the NICU room and they handed Ellie to me (all bundled up).  She weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces at birth (almost 2 pounds smaller than our boys).  I only got to hold her for a minute or two, though, as there were twins being delivered in the other connected OR.  We needed to clear out. Ellie looked okay, but they needed to monitor her in the NICU.  I was wheeled back to my labor room for recovery and was able to eat some lunch while B went down into the NICU with both sets of parents to check on Ellie.  They came back with pictures for me.  Around 3:45, I was able to leave my room and was wheeled down to the NICU while B, his parents, and my dad brought our stuff to our postpartum room.

Shortly after birth.

When mom and I arrived in the NICU, they were finishing up Ellie’s echocardiogram.  We’d have to wait to hear from our cardiologist later in the night on the results.  Ellie was still covered in vernix (a waxy coating on the skin), but I could see that she had a lot of hair (not so much on top) and she had extra-long nails on her fingers and toes.  She was beautiful!  I was able to hold her skin to skin and she nursed a little for me.  At this point, her breathing and heart rate were looking good, but her oxygen saturation was fluctuating greatly.  For a “typical” baby, they want the oxygen saturation to be above 90% for sure.  For Ellie, the NICU team was shooting for it to stay above 80%.  In the first few hours, it floated anywhere from about 60% to 85%.  Anytime she would cough or cry… or try to work up a burp, her O2 levels dropped and set off alarms.  Scary stuff, but the nurses were showing us ways to open her airway and help those levels increase again.  I went back up to the room to get B and to let our parents go home… then after dinner, B and I came back down to the NICU to get our cuddles in.  We came down in time to see our cardiologist checking Ellie out.  Dr. Luby said that Ellie looks great.  The echo on her looked a little different than the prenatal echoes, but nothing to be alarmed about.  The right chambers of Ellie’s heart are a little smaller than initially thought, and there was slight leakage in her A-V valve (but not even enough to hear with a stethoscope).  The smaller right chambers could be accounted for and adjusted some when Ellie has surgery down the road.  Good news!!  They had inserted a feeding tube in Ellie’s nose so that they could give her additional fluids through the night to keep her hydrated.  Her hematocrit count was high and they wanted to make sure she had plenty of fluids that would help keep her oxygen levels up.

Ellie getting skin-to-skin time with Daddy

We were both able to cuddle Ellie and give her plenty of skin-to-skin time with us.  She’d have to spend the night in the NICU, though.  B and I were up before 6am on Thursday and were able to shower and get some snacks before heading down to the NICU again to snuggle our baby girl.  We came back up for a late breakfast and were back in the NICU right away.  In Miami Valley, each baby has his/her own NICU room, so we had plenty of privacy with her.  Ellie was able to nurse, and we were able to give her the pumped colostum from the night before through her feeding tube.  It wasn’t much, but that stuff is liquid gold and I wanted to get her as much as possible.  The neonatologist, Dr. Belcastro, came in and talked to us about how Ellie was doing.  He said that her saturation levels stayed between 85 and 90% through the night and that as long as she could do well without the feeding tube and nursing directly, she’d be able to come to our room.  She had to prove that she could handle this for 8 hours (noon to 8pm).  We fed her just before lunch, then headed up to our room so that we could eat.  We had a big afternoon with our little bug.  We said lots of prayers and held her pretty much the entire time.  Her oxygen levels stayed up well for us (except when she needed to burp) and she was eating well for me.  We had some visitors come in and squeeze on Ellie, too – including Lance (Kaleb couldn’t come back because he is under 3 years old).  Very sweet! 

We left the NICU around 7pm so that the team could make rounds and decide if she was healthy enough to come to our room.  Around 8:45, our nurse told us that she’d be wheeled up to stay in our room for the night.  In total, Ellie spent about 30 hours in the NICU – not too shabby at all!

Skin-to-skin snuggles with Mommy

Getting the colostrum into Ellie's feeding tube

 Smiles for Aunt Tracy

 Cuddles for Aunt Emily

Kisses from Lance

That night, Ellie was doing great.  Her nurse came in around 1 am (just as I was putting Ellie back into the crib after nursing and cuddling).  She needed to take Ellie to the nursery to do some tests on her and asked if she could keep her there until the next feeding.  I agreed… but told her that I needed her back at 3am for the next feeding.  My alarm went off… and I waited… and waited.  Finally, I called my nurse at 3:45 and asked if I could have Ellie back to nurse.  Ellie’s nurse came back with her, but said that they were worried about Ellie because her O2 levels were low.  I asked how low, and the nurse said they were in the low 90s.  I said, “Hey, that’s fantastic for her”.  The nurse didn’t think so.  She said that Ellie was turning blue around the mouth when she got upset.  Yes… this was standard for Ellie, too.  Anyhow, they had me go into the nursery to nurse Ellie on the monitors again, but since we were on the transitional floor, the nurses in this nursery were coming up from the NICU to help out.  The nurses in the NICU had been with Ellie the day before and knew that the doctors were trying to keep her above 80%.  I’m thankful that the first nurse was concerned.  She was just going by the standards they use for the rest of the babies in the “typical” nursery… not the same standards that they used for Ellie in the NICU.  Either way, Ellie did fine on the monitors and was able to come back to my room with me after nursing. 

Friday was a rough day… after constant interruptions and going back to the nursery through the night, I had very VERY little sleep.  We did get pictures, though... Julie Davidson from Bella Baby Photography was amazing!  Ellie had another echo done (looked great, again) and we were finally released to go home around 7:30pm.  We made it home just before 9pm and my parents met us at home with our sleeping boys.

Lance didn’t wake up at all.  Kaleb woke up to see us, but was not crazy about Ellie right away.  After refusing to touch her for 10 minutes or so, he started to give her kisses and hold her hands.  Then he didn’t stop giving her kisses and laying his cheek against her head.  I think he’s in love!  Whew – time to rest and enjoy home life as a family of 5… yeah, crazy… FIVE!!  Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts.  We know that each one was crucial in getting us all through these first few days.  We love you - thank you so much for following along.

And here is Ellie's birth announcement: