The Lil Bean has arrived!!!

Procrastination really doesn't pay off, but sometimes it doesn't even matter!!! I had every intention on having the baby blanket finished before the baby arrived, but I was unsuccessful. I can make it smaller if I want to, but I think I'm going to keep plugging away at it today to see how far I can go. I have another 8 hours or so before I go home, so I should at LEAST be able to finish the green squares...

**WARNING**
Some of this post may be TMI, so proceed at your own risk. =)

Anyways...as you see above, the baby is here!!! Monday morning I got up 3 times between 1:30 and 3:30 am with some gassy pains that started feeling crampy , and the urge to pee...a lot. :-) When I got up at 3:30 to go pee, I noticed that the water wasn't "normal" looking. Being a first time mom, I did what probably any first time mom would do...turned around, squatted down to look, and leaked on the rug!!! I figured it was my water, but wasn't positive because it looked like my plug had come out earlier, and I didn't know if it was "still" coming out. I went back into the bedroom, woke my husband up, and said "Honey, don't freak out, I think my water just broke, I'm going to take a shower. Go back to sleep." He stayed in bed for a bit...awake...but got up around 4:45 after I had told him I was going to call the doc and said "did you call?" I told him I had called the hospital, but not the doc yet. He gave me "the look". Anyways...called the on call doctor, and he told me to head in and get checked out.

We headed to the hospital, and when we got to triage, they checked me out and confirmed that my membranes had ruptured. It was about 6:45 am. My first thought was "Holy crap...this is happening!!!" They monitored my contractions for a bit, and they were anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes apart. I got into the hospital gown, and we headed to our L&D room. I labored there for about 4.5 hours, walking around, breathing through it...waiting...

My birth plan consisted mainly of having this baby naturally - no drugs - and I would ask for an epidural if I really felt like I needed it. Well, contractions started getting pretty intense, but I was handling it pretty well! They came in at 11:30 am to check me, and said that I was 3 cm, 100% thinned, and 0 station. I was stoked. I asked for something to take the edge off though, so they gave me some nubane . I labored a bit more, and by 1:30, the contractions were getting pretty difficult to bear for me. They came in to check me again, and I hadn't made any progress...I was still at 3 cm. I had a couple contractions that were "off the charts" as my hubby put it, and after one long one (about 3 minutes total with dips included) put me in tears I said to him "you better get someone in here...there's no way I can do this on my own." They sent anesthesia in, and they gave me an epidural. Wow...did that help. I don't regret getting it one bit...yes, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't do it on my own, but I'm ok with it now. :-) 30 minutes later they came back to check me again and I had progressed to an 8-9!!! The pressure I was feeling was almost as bad as the pain I had felt from a couple of the contractions, especially in my right hip/pelvic area. I started pushing at about 4:30, but was having a hard time getting the baby to come down much. After about an hour, and the doc repeatedly saying "Wow, she's strong..." about my pushing, they had to call the OR and have them on standby because the baby kept getting stuck behind my pelvic bone. Once I heard that, I found some kind of super human strength, and managed to get the baby past the bone! As bean was crowning, Michael said "I can see the head"...to which I replied..."No shit sherlock !" Everybody laughed!!! They did have to cut me a little bit too. The head came out, then one more push and the shoulders came out...a couple seconds later I heard..."It's a girl! Time of birth 5:55 pm." I was blown away...I couldn't believe I had done it! She was absolutely perfect and beautiful. She weighed 5 lbs 2 oz, was 18" long and scored 9/9 on her APGAR's . Since the due date they were calculating off of my last period was 3/30/10, she was one day shy of full term, and was considered a preemie. The Little Lady did have to spend some time under the heat lamps because she was having a hard time maintaining her body temp, but otherwise was doing great. She was nursing like a champ, and is absolutely, positively PERFECT. Her daddy and I are absolutely smitten with her!!!

Meet Little Miss Julia!!!

The first night in the hospital, and Tuesday during the day weren't too bad. Julia had lots of visitors, and was just soaking up the attention! Tuesday night was a little more rough. Michael had gone home to get some sleep, so I was there by myself with the little miss. I really didn't mind because it gave me a lot of bonding time with her. She was up for the majority of the night unless she was touching me in one way or another. She wouldn't sleep in her bassinet very well, but would fall asleep the second she was near my heart. Julia decided at 11 pm that nursing every 30 minutes for 3 hours would be fun...LOL I wound up calling the nurse at 2 to have her taken to the nursery for a little while so I could get some sleep. 5:20 am rolled around, and I woke up, went to the bathroom, and headed down to the nursery to get her and bring her back to the room with me. Michael got back to the hospital around 8ish...I think...can't remember exactly. The pediatrician came in to check on Julia, and everything seemed good! Since she was considered a preemie, though, they wanted me to take her back in on Thursday just to follow up with her weight and such. They discharged us Wednesday afternoon!

Going home...

One of the things they wanted checked while I was at the pediatricians office was her biliruben (sp?) numbers. The MIL and I headed to another part of the hospital (peds office is actually IN the hospital) to get some blood drawn. Let me tell you something...Julia was the talk of the town!!! Everyone that walked by commented on how tiny and adorable she is, young and old alike. It was really neat.

The results of the bili levels wasn't that great. She was at an 18.3 which is pretty high so they set me up for a 24 hour appointment to have her under the bili lights. We wound up bringing her back to the hospital...again...and dropped her off at 5:30 to get treatments started. We headed back home to eat dinner with his parents, I packed an overnight bag for me and her, and we came back to the hospital. Her levels have gone down quite a bit! They ran her vitals and checked her levels at 1:30 this morning, and the number had gone down to 13. They checked yet again around 7:30 or 8 I think, and they had gone all the way down to 10.5!!! My baby girl is getting better!!! YIPPEE!

Check out the new shades =)


DIVA!!!

I am so incredibly in love with this little life...I wouldn't trade her for the world.........