Thursday, May 8, 2008

Allie...continued

There is no way I can describe what it's like to be a mom in one post. Or in 20 posts. But I want to use this blog to document as much of my life as I can. So I'm backing up to the first few weeks of being a new mom.

After my emergency c-section, I spend some time in the ICU. I was completely unprepared for this. I was very drugged up and don't remember much about those first few hours. I remember getting to hold my precious baby for a few moments, then throwing up all over the place. That was nice. We didn't tell my family Allie's name until after she was born, I imagined them coming into my room and seeing her for the first time and us announcing the name. Instead, I was chilling in the ICU and Ben rolled her out in her little incubator and got to see everyone's faces when they met her for the first time. That still hurts when I think about it. They took video of her first bath, which Ben showed to me later. My family did get to come and see me in the ICU for a few minutes, even though it was like 1:00 in the morning. Allie spent the night in the NICU and I drifed in and out of sleep, I was so groggy. A really funny thing that happened here...it was time change that night. All of the clocks in the hospital stopped at 2:00 and just stayed there for an hour. I honestly thought I was going CRAZY. In retrospect, it was funny.

The next morning my family and friends started to show up and take turns going to see Allie and coming to see me. Sometime around 5:00 am, she had to move from the transitional nursery to the NICU and the lovely nurse brought her to me for a little while. Though I don't remember much about the night before, I do remember Dr. L telling me that he would be back around noon to hopefully release me to my private room. And I knew that was the key to getting to spend time with my baby. Sometime late morning I asked my nurse when he would be coming by, I was anxious to get to my private room. She told me "Dr. L already did his rounds and won't be back today. You are going to stay here and your baby will stay in the NICU. That's what is best." I lost it and used many choice words on this lady. She had just turned away my family because it wasn't visiting hours. She wanted me to "calm down" so my blood pressure would stablize. After I yelled at her for a while, she went and got my mom for me. And she never came back, I got another nurse. Stupid woman. And sure enough, around noon Dr. L came back and released me to my private room.

My mom gave me a nice surprise. Along with a beautiful card, she took the white teddy bear that my sister gave me many many Christmas' ago and cleaned him up, tied a pink bow around his neck and some balloons. It was very touching and sentimental and he "fluffy" is still sitting in Allie's room.

So I eventually got to go to my room, but Allie had developed a bit of jaundice and had to stay in the NICU under the lights. But being in a room meant I could go down and see her as often as I wanted to. I pumped every 2 hours and sent breastmilk down to her. I spent a lot of time in the NICU that day. That night, Sunday, was the last time I would get a good night's sleep for weeks....

Monday morning Allie was released from the NICU. This was hard. She was a good baby, but I was so FREAKED out. I didn't sleep, I just cried and worried. It was a long two days.

We were released on Wednesday afternoon and headed home. The next several days were a blur. I remember lots of pumping, lots of nursing, lots of diapers, lots of dirty dishes and dirty clothes. And not much sleep. For me anyway. Ben didn't have a problem sleeping. This is when my hormones started to crash and I was so upset about the way the birth went. Even though I knew I had no right to be, I couldn't help it. It was a rocky few days.

The beginning of week 2 my mom took off of work and came over every morning to help me. That was the only time I slept. Ben would gladly take night time feedings, but I didn't sleep anyway. I was too worried that she would be dead when I woke up. I even had the BeBe Sounds AngelCare Movement Monitor. It didn't help me much those first few days. And she was so SMALL, only 5.5 pounds. She was in preemie clothes until she was almost 2 months old.

Most of this was just for my memory, and I'm sure it's pretty boring to everyone else. So here are some photos to make up for the boring post!

My baby girl over the years...


She loves American Idol!


She hurt her arm last year, it was very sad.











Her 2nd birthday party was Mickey Mouse


She's also a LSU fan!







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