Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Sunday, April 3, 2011

She's here!

In fact, she's been here for a week now. We brought Scarlett home last Monday and it's been a busy, wonderful week. It hasn't been all fun and games, though - we put together a little slideshow so you can see what's been going on. Enjoy!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Seven short days

A lot can happen in a week.

Thursday evening, after Scarlett was born, she was admitted to the Neonatal ICU because she was breathing quickly. They did some tests, and determined that her lungs weren't fully mature yet - not unusual for an early baby. So, they had her on supplemental oxygen for a few days, making it difficult to take a good picture:

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Come Monday, that all came off and we could see her face again! Unfortunately, now it was blue. They had to put her into phototherapy (read: shine some lights on her) to correct a slight jaundice condition.

But, that's all behind her now: she's eating like her father, smiling like her mother, burping like the dogs, and sleeping like the cats. She's our baby, alright! She'll be in the hospital for a few more days, and we can't wait to bring her home.

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Happy (one week) birthday, Scarlett!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Scarlett Elizabeth is here!

Wow.

We weren't expecting this to happen quite so fast. One minute, April was asleep, and the next minute the baby's head was peeking out. 30 minutes later, she was doing this:

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Born at 3:43 PM, weighing 6 pounds and 5 ounces, here's our Scarlett Elizabeth:

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Progress

Well, our waiting is finally paying off!

After a long day of unsuccessfully trying to induce labor, April's doctor put her on another drug last night. This morning, they were happy with her progress and switched her to pitocin to continue induction. At 12:30, they broke her water and, like flipping a switch, the contractions became much stronger. It's way too early to make predictions, but at least we are finally in labor!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

What a difference a day makes

I woke up yesterday at 1:30 AM to the sound of April screaming my name from across the house. She'd woken up to go to the bathroom, and thought her water broke. When she flipped the light on, the blood running down her legs and leading back to the bedroom told her otherwise. To make things worse, the normally active little girl inside of her was completely unmoving. She thought she had lost her, and she was hysterical.

We immediately rushed to the hospital, agonizing for ten long minutes over what could be going on. When we arrived, they put a monitor on April’s belly to listen for the baby’s heartbeat – and there it was, perfectly normal. The baby was fine. Of course, soon after, she really made her presence known and started kicking. What a stinker! Just like a kid who hides in the closet until her mother reports her missing, and then jumps out and says “Hi Mommy!” This kid is going to be a little prankster, so watch out!

At that point, we were still worried about the bleeding. There hadn’t been any more, but the doctor was concerned that April could have had a placental abruption, where part of the placenta is torn off. I’ll let you research that if you really want, but suffice to say it can mean bad news for the baby, so we weren’t taking any chances. After 12 hours of monitoring (wherein absolutely nothing interesting happened), they let us go, but not without conditions. If she saw any more fresh blood at all, we’d go back to the hospital to induce labor. If not, we’d visit the perinatologist and look at possibly inducing labor anyway.

We got home, finally, with the intention of getting ready for the big trip to the hospital, whenever that may be. With nearly 3 weeks still to go until the due date, we were not in any kind of rush and didn’t have our bags packed. We decided we’d do that, and be ready for whatever happened next.

As soon as we made that decision, of course, April used the bathroom and saw a little fresh blood. Nothing like that morning, but still, it was there. So much for being prepared! I called the doctor, we quickly got our things packed, and off we went to the hospital.

That was last night. The doctor began induction last night, and they’re starting April on pitocin soon. It’s been a little crazy, but with the relatively uneventful pregnancy we’ve had so far, maybe we were due for some craziness. I know you’ve wanted to hear some news from us, and hopefully we can deliver that soon!