Week Two

I can't believe Isabella is two weeks old already! I'm already getting sad thinking about how quickly she is going to grow up and I'm trying to savor every moment with her while she's a tiny precious little baby!

Isabella is doing great so far. We went back to the pediatrician to check on her jaundice, which has leveled off, and found out that it will take about a month for her to lose the orangeness. Stephen calls it the "Tropicana Look." She will fit right in with all the tanning bed junkies. We also found out that she gained 9 ounces in one week! Yay! She is now back to her birth weight! (And that explains why I've been feeling so much like a dairy cow lately.)



We love to watch all of Bella's little facial expressions and the funny noises she makes, she's very entertaining. Stephen loves to hold her and has discovered that walking around with her is a good way to calm her down. I feel like my entire day revolves around feeding her, talking to her, and trying to catch up on sleep. Our biggest challenge right now is figuring out how to get her to sleep in her pack'n'play bassinet. She almost always wakes up in the transport from the location where she fell asleep. Any and all suggestions and advice on this topic would be greatly appreciated...


Stephen trying to get Bella to sleep...

I'm feeling much better lately. I've been able to switch to taking Tylenol a couple of times a day and can move around a lot more without hurting much, so it seems that the c-section recovery is going well. The blood loss recovery is getting a little better with each day. A week ago, I could only be on my feet for about five minutes a day and that was it. Now I'm up to about thirty minutes a day and I feel strong enough to carry the baby short distances in our house every now and then. My mom took off work for a week to be here when the baby was born, but since we were in the hospital five days, we only had two days at home to enjoy Mom's good cooking! Stephen's parents were here for several days this week and did some more cooking for us, and having that good food available has really helped out.


Introducing Bella to The Great Outdoors (and me sporting the official new mommy look, complete with no makeup and greasy hair... just lovely).

We're starting to get adjusted to having a baby around, but I am still wondering if I will ever wear real clothes and makeup again, if we will ever be able to sleep more than three hours at a time again, and whether Stephen and I will ever be able to spend time alone together in the next five years. Last night we got to watch half of a movie together on the couch while Bella slept in her bassinet, and that was a huge accomplishment. lol. I am so thankful for all the time I've spent with babies before now, because that is definitely helping to make this transition easier. If not for that, I think we would be going at least moderately insane right now with the demands of newborn care. Instead of that, we are just mildly irritated every now and then (usually at 3 a.m.). Bella is still being a very good baby, and we still have a ton to learn about being parents, but she is being quite patient with us and giving us lots of love and joy anyways. We love her to pieces!

Isabella's Arrival!

I can't believe our little girl has been here for a week already! She is the most beautiful, precious, wonderful, amazing, sweetest, adorable thing ever and Stephen says I am going to spoil her rotten, but he is just as enamored with her as I am. Sorry for the delay in posting pictures; recovery has been rough and this is my first time online since Bella was born. Here's an update on what's happened in the past week!

Isabella was born on April 15th at 9:02 a.m., she weighed 6 lbs 9 oz and was 20.5 inches long. She has dark blue eyes and lots of brown hair. She did have a little trouble with breathing the first couple of days because of amniotic fluid left in her lungs, and she's had jaundice that we've had to monitor pretty closely, but these have not been major problems, and other than that she has been perfectly healthy so far and we are so grateful for that.

The Surgery

The C-section itself went just about as well as it could have. My nurses and doctor did an awesome job. We were all in great spirits and I didn't get nervous until I walked into the operating room and saw all of the instruments and machines... it was like a dentist's office times 10. I asked to have as little pain medication as possible because I wanted to be alert, and I was really surprised at how much pain there was from the pulling and pushing of the surgery, even with the spinal in. It was intense. But it was not long until Bella was out, and holding her was the best pain medication they could have given me!

Our nurses were very accommodating and went along with everything on our Birth Plan. They let me have my arms free during the surgery instead of strapping them down, they did all the newborn checks where I was able to see Bella from the operating table, Stephen and Isabella were able to stay in the operating room with me during the whole procedure, I was allowed to hold Isabella soon after her birth, we got to see the placenta that kept Bella healthy for so long and caused so much trouble in the end, and Stephen and the baby were able to stay in the recovery room with me, where Isabella ate for the first time and seemed to know exactly what to do to latch on!

Our last minutes as a twosome, just before going in the operating room.


Stephen holding Bella for the first time.


My first time to hold Bella, one of the happiest moments in my life!


Getting checked out in the nursery.


The happy grandparents holding Isabella for the first time.


She already has us wrapped around that little finger!


Checking out Bella's feet.


So happy to finally have my baby safe and in my arms!


The Recovery

Everything was great for the first few hours after birth, then something really stupid happened that threw a wrench into everything. There was a crack in my catheter, and instead of fixing it, the nurse (the only bad nurse I had in five days at the hospital) decided to take it out 12 hours after surgery, while fluids were still being pumped into me, and told me that I would definitely know when I needed to pee. Well, several hours went by without me feeling the urge to pee, and by the time I got up to go, I was hemorrhaging. Apparently my uterus wasn't able to contract like it needed to while I had a full bladder, so my uterus filled up with blood clots and within a few hours I lost as much blood as I'd lost earlier that day during the c-section. It was a total nightmare, with nurses coming in to push on my poor uterus all night, me passing huge clots and tons of blood, and trying to feed Isabella every couple of hours. That night resulted in my becoming temporarily anemic. Thankfully I didn't lose so much blood that I had to get a blood transfusion, and I got the choice of that or building my blood back up over time with the help of supplements.

Things have pretty much been a blur ever since then. I haven't been able to take Ibuprofen for pain because of all the blood I lost, so I've been on narcotics that make me feel awful. If I don't take the meds I hurt so bad that I can hardly move, but when I take the meds I feel so bad that I don't want to do anything. I've been on Percocet and I hate the way it makes me feel. I switched to Lortab today and am hoping it won't make me feel so bad. One of my doctors told me that I wouldn't be able to carry my baby for six weeks because of the danger of fainting while holding her (this advice has caused all kinds of breakdowns), and another doctor said I could carry her if I felt strong enough to. Being weak from anemia, the pain in my abdomen, and the pain medications have made recovery a lot harder than I was prepared for. That combined with the demands of feeding a newborn all night and day, and my hormones going CRAZY. It's like mega PMS, after all these months of no PMS. Bummer.

We stayed in the hospital four nights, five days, and I was actually sad to leave. It was so nice to have people around to take care of me and to check on the baby all the time. I loved being brought food three times a day, having a pediatrician available to check out Isabella every morning, and nurses to weigh her and bathe her every night. We only sent her to the nursery to be watched twice during the whole time we were there, and that was during the day after the hemorrhaging, so I could get some rest. I felt she needed to be with us all the time so we could learn how to take care of her before we left the hospital.

Our hospital has lactation consultants available 24/7, and I used them at least once every day. They were so helpful, and I have no idea how new mothers are able to breastfeed without their help. Breastfeeding is one thing that has gone really well so far, which I am so happy about, because I was worried that with her being born three weeks early she might not know how to latch on or suck well, but she has done great since the very beginning. We did have a bit of a scare when she had already lost 9.4% of her birth weight by the end of the second day, even though she was eating and pooping like crazy. A small miracle happened when my milk came in the next morning, only 48 hours after her birth, and she was able to start gaining her weight back. (Apparently milk normally takes much longer to come in after a c-section, and all the nurses were telling me how lucky I was to have it so early). For a couple of days there I looked like Dolly Parton, and discovered that it's extremely painful to look like Dolly!

Isabella's First Week

I can't believe how much Isabella has changed in a week. With every day, she looks more and more like Stephen did as a baby. She has his hairline, his chubby cheeks, and I'm pretty sure I've seen his dimples on her. She has been a super good baby so far, which I am so grateful for. She only cries when she's hungry, and she mostly just eats, sleeps, and poops (and luckily, breastfed baby poop really does not stink). When she is alert she loves to look around and check out her surroundings. She cracks us up with all the little facial expressions she makes. She's already been nicknamed "Turtle-neck" for the way she stretches her neck out, "Piglet" for the little grunts she makes, and "Monkey" for her long, strong, skinny arms and legs (and of course all the other nicknames like sweetie, darling, etc). Stephen loves to play with her, and has already made up a song about her, danced with her, and tried to introduce her to some toys and music. He is currently the official diaper changer since I'm not supposed to be carrying her to the changing table until I get stronger (the one perk of this anemia thing). It stinks to be woken up all night for feedings and changings, but we've gotten used to sleeping in thirty minute and one hour increments of time. And she is so cute that she still makes us laugh even at two in the morning when she's had a major blowout. All I've really gotten to do with her so far is feed her, hold her, kiss her, and love on her, but that's enough for now and I'm looking forward to when I'll be strong enough to do more. She is a doll and we love her to pieces.

Isabella's first time to wear clothes.


It didn't take long for Stephen to fall in love with this precious baby!


Isabella loves skin-to-skin time! (And so do I!)


Sticking out her long tongue, one of her favorite tricks!


Our angel.


Ready to go home from the hospital!


Proud Daddy bringing Isabella home.


Isabella napping while I ate breakfast in bed this morning.


I hope this super long blog makes up for the long wait! Hopefully I'll start posting more as I get to feeling better. Thanks again to all of you for your prayers! We have a safe and happy baby and we feel so blessed that she is finally here with us!

Just a Few More Hours to Go...

Almost there! Our surgeon is on call right now, so even if we don't make it through the night, everything will be okay! My mom will be here soon and poor Stephen is busy trying to "man clean" the house, after being at work all day and grading essays non-stop since Friday. It's hard not being able to help him! Yesterday I did too much and had lots of contractions, so Stephen doesn't want me to lift a finger today ("too much" was taking a shower and going to the doctor in one day). I just have to put a few more things on our birth plan (which may or may not go as planned at all, but we're hoping for the best) then back to the horizontal position.

The surgery is scheduled for 8:30 tomorrow morning, which means we have to be at the hospital at 6:30. I have no idea how we're going to be able to sleep tonight, I'm too excited and nervous to sleep! It's surreal to think that our little girl will be brought out into the world tomorrow... one minute she's inside, the next minute she's on the outside... it's almost unbelievable! I can't wait to hold her and give her lots of kisses, we can't wait to see what she looks like, and of course the main thing we're hoping for is that she will be healthy!

Still Baking

Baby's still in there...the terbutaline pills, bedrest, and drinking TONS of water seems to be doing the trick for now... just hoping this will keep working a couple more days! We're having our last doctor's appointment tomorrow with Dr. Puplampu, the OB/GYN scheduled to do the c-section. She has been a great doctor throughout my pregnancy and I really feel good about her being our surgeon (it helps knowing that her undergrad degree is from Harvard and her father is a neurosurgeon!). I trust her to take good care of us.

Isabella is doing lots of stretching, rolling, and poking, and I think I am actually going to miss feeling her move around in my belly. One of my favorite sources of entertainment during bedrest has been watching and feeling her move around and playing the always-fun guessing game "Which body part is THAT?" (obviously, we don't have cable to keep me occupied!). Everything is still looking good for her-- good heart rate, good movement, good blood flow through the umbilical cord. The placenta is not in the right place but I'm thankful that it's still functioning well! As long as she's doing well, I'm happy.

On Pins and Needles

The new anti-contraction prescription, Procardia, did not work so well, and we ended up back in the hospital at midnight on Friday for contractions. The doctors told me to call if I have more than four in an hour, and I was having six an hour for several hours in a row. They were irregular but some of them were pretty intense, and even though I was pretty sure they were just false labor contractions, it seemed to me that it would be irresponsible not to go to the hospital when I was having so many. I was awfully glad we went, because even after I got there and they started pumping in fluids, the contractions got even more intense, closer together, and lasted longer. After two shots of terbutaline and two bags of fluids, they calmed down but didn't stop completely. The doctor said that normally they would have gone ahead with the c-section in that situation but since we knew Isabella was still immature it was better to try to keep waiting.

Apparently I'm just one of those people who is going to have lots of contractions, which really puts me on pins and needles because every time they start up, I have to start trying to figure out if they are real or false and get ready to go to the hospital. Supposedly the false ones aren't strong enough to make me dilate, but the real contractions are strong enough, and it's really hard to figure out when it's real and when it's false when so many are coming on. Even at the hospital, they aren't able to figure out for sure whether they are real or false. They hook me up to a monitor that times them, but the only way to really find out is to do a cervical check, which can't be done in my situation because it could rupture the blood vessels on the placenta right over my cervix. Soooo things are not too much fun right now. Since I was not bleeding, they let me go home after a seven hour stay, but last night the contractions started up again. I decided to switch back to the previous medication I was on, terbutaline, before they got out of hand, and so far that seems to be working better. I'm crossing all my fingers on this.

Even though it's never fun to spend the night at the hospital, there was an up side to being there Friday night. There are two hospitals in Athens, both competing heavily for the maternity patients, and being newbies in town we didn't know which was really the better hospital. Even after we took classes at both and toured both of them, we were undecided about which to have the baby at since they both seemed good to us. The last time I went in for bleeding and contractions, we went to the hospital where I was already registered, but I really wasn't happy with the experience we had there, so after asking around a little we decided to deliver at the other hospital and did our pre-op there last week. Our contraction episode Friday night gave us a chance to really check out that hospital before delivering there, and I feel really good about it now. Everything was so much better than at the previous hospital we went to. We had the best nurse I could ever hope to have and I wish I could put her on reserve for our c-section! Everyone was super nice and professional, the room was much more comfortable (Stephen even managed to fit on the bed with me to catch some sleep), and even though I got another busted IV, the nurse recognized it right away instead of leaving the needle in for hours like they did at the last place when I had a heparin lock (my arm is still black and green even though it's been two weeks since that happened!). We also got to see lots of cute sleeping babies in the nursery as we were leaving, which helped to cheer me up. I can't wait for our baby to be here!

Speaking of pins and needles, we also had a good experience with the amniocentesis. The illustrations of amnios in pregnancy books make the needle look gigantic, but the doctor used a thin flexible needle that didn't hurt at all. Isabella is a very active baby, and I was so worried that she would be in one of her somersault spells during the test and get hurt by the needle, but she stayed perfectly still while the needle was in and I was very proud of her for being so good! They withdrew an ounce of amniotic fluid in 10 seconds, and I thought it was super cool to see what the fluid looked like. It's crazy that something can be taken out of my uterus so easily!

We have everything ready for the baby, except for strapping in the car seat. My mom has arranged to stay with us for a week after the surgery while Stephen has to be at work, then his parents will come to help a few days while he has to work the following week. We tried to time things so that the baby would come after the semester was over, and her due date was actually the day after Stephen would be completely done with the semester, but obviously things have changed since she'll be delivered three weeks early. Life is going to be pretty hectic for a few weeks while he finishes up the semester and we are adjusting to having a baby around, but that's just how it's going to be and we're trying to make the best of it. All we care about is having a healthy baby!

Another Week in the Oven (Maybe)

Results from the amnio showed Isabella's lungs aren't mature enough to come out yet and they want to wait until next Thursday, the day I turn 37 weeks, to get her out. The idea of her staying in there longer to develop is great, but the problem is I've been having a lot of contractions the last few days, even on the anti-contraction meds. We switched to a different prescription today and are hoping that will help. Otherwise she might be coming out sooner than Thursday.

Coming to Terms

We got a HUGE surprise yesterday! My mom told me last week that she was going to have Easter lunch delivered for us, and I wondered how she'd found a place to deliver Easter lunch in Athens (her google skills are okay but she's not THAT good), but I didn't think much about it. Lunch time came around, and a familiar car pulled up in our driveway with an Alabama tag. It was my mom and her bf John, who drove seven hours round trip in one day to bring us lunch, food to eat the rest of the week, and presents for the baby! I'd just gotten out of the shower when they pulled up and was still in my robe with my hair wrapped in a towel with no make up on when they walked in! Mom loves to surprise people and I think she got an extra kick out of it when she saw me still in my robe. She brought a bouncy seat for the baby and lots of newborn size clothes, so baby Bella will have some cute clothes to wear while she is tiny! I feel really fortunate to have a mom who cares so much and is so generous with her help in our time of need. I still can't believe how far they drove in one day to see us!



I've been amazed at how many people have reached out to us with encouragement, support, prayers, and reassurance. It has been awesome to feel so much love from so many people. At a time when there's not much we can do to make our situation better, it is a blessing just to know that other people care and are thinking about us and hoping for the best along with us.

It's been especially helpful to be in contact with other c-section mothers. Almost everyone I've talked to had a positive experience with their c-section, especially if they knew about it beforehand. I'm SO grateful to know about mine before it happens and to have the opportunity to prepare for it and try to make the best of it. I never would have imagined that I would end up with a c-section, and I know I would have had post-partum depression written all over me if I'd ended up with an unplanned one. It is still weird to think that my belly is going to be sliced open, some of my most important organs are going to be moved around, and our daughter is going to be cut out of me, but all of my previous dreams of a natural labor don't matter one bit when compared to the safe delivery of our baby. I talked to another mother who'd also planned for a natural birth until she found out she had a breech baby with the umbilical cord wrapped around it's neck-- and all of a sudden she wanted that c-section really badly! I feel the exact same way and I am immensely grateful that the knowledge and technology exists to bring our baby safely out into the world. It is so strange to think that the womb that has been the perfect home for my baby for so many months could become such a dangerous place if she were to stay in it much longer, and that labor, one of the most amazing processes our bodies are designed for, would be so dangerous for both of us.

Even though we aren't going to be able to do a natural birth, I am SO glad that we were preparing for one, because our interest in a natural birth is what set off the chain of events that eventually made us aware of the complications with my case of placenta previa. Had we not been pursuing a natural birth, we never would have asked my doctor the questions that led her to refer us to the specialist who discovered the severity of our placenta situation, and I hate to think what would have happened had we not known about that. It's so crazy and random that it's terrifying. Also, I think that preparing for a natural birth has made my pregnancy a much better experience overall. That's what inspired me to exercise regularly and motivated me to keep my weight gain within the recommended range, and at this point in my pregnancy I think I am feeling good physically because of that.

Being on bedrest is tough sometimes because there are still things I'd like to take care of before the big day gets here, but I try to only do one "big" activity per day, and when a morning shower is counted as a big activity, not much else can get done! But bedrest is definitely helping to keep pre-term labor at bay, along with the medications I'm taking to stop contractions, so it is all worth it! We'll be finding out the results of the amniocentesis Thursday afternoon, then the doctors can figure out which day to schedule the c-section. It looks like it will either be scheduled for Friday morning or for one day early next week. We are all kind of hoping for next week so she'll have a little more time in utero, but the specialist says there is no benefit to waiting once her lungs are matured, and the longer we wait the more likely that I'll start having contractions that don't want to stop (pre-term labor is fairly common with previas), so we need to get her out as soon as possible. I'm just ready to have my little girl safe in my arms!

Preggo Pics

We thought we'd better get some more big belly shots since we don't know how much longer Isabella is going to be in there!

35 weeks