The Best Christmas Present

On December 17 we received the best Christmas present - Isabel! She wasn't due to make her grand appearance until Jan 7, but obviously she had other ideas.

I started having random contractions on Saturday, Dec 11. Sunday evening I called the doctor because I had steady contractions that were 20 minutes apart for a few hours. I was told to take two Tylenol, drink several glasses of water, take a hot bath, then lay down. It worked - the contractions stopped. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I had a few contractions when I woke up, was contraction-free during the day, and had several after dinner. I basically went to bed right after dinner each night in an effort to stop the contractions. Thursday, though, was different. I had contractions all day. They weren't consistant and ranged from 3 hours to five minutes apart. After dinner I was watching TV with Nick and Alex when I suddenly realized I had been having a lot of contractions. I started timing them, and they were almost exactly five minutes apart. after twenty minutes of that I decided better safe than sorry, so I headed upstairs to pack my bag. After an hour of contractions I called the hospital and was told to go ahead and come in. Gram came to stay with Alex, who was already in the bed, and Nick and I headed to the hospital. We still weren't totally convinced this was "it" and we half expected to be sent back home.

We arrived at the hospital around 9:15 and were taken to an observation room (which reminded me of an ER room) where I was hooked up to a couple of monitors. The nurse told us twice in the first five minutes that she didn't believe I was in labor because I didn't "look like" I was in labor. I didn't look like I was in enough pain for it to be labor and I was cracking jokes. Little did she know...

They monitored me through the night, and Dr. Bill came at 6:45 to check on me. I had progressed so they finally decided I really was in labor. They scheduled me to go back for surgery at 8:00. Dr. Bill warned us that being early and being a c-section there was a good chance she'd end up in the NICU because she'd likely still have a lot of fluid in her lungs.

Isabel was born at 8:46 am on December 17. She did have a lot of fluid in her lungs. The nurse suctioned her mouth and nose, and then had to put a tube down into her lungs to try to get more of the fluid. She was still grunting when she breathed - she had a hard time exhaling. They decided after watching her for about 30 minutes that she needed to go to the NICU.

Nick walked with her while I was still in recovery. He wasn't allowed to touch her, but got to sit by her for a while. They put the tube into her lungs again and got more fluid out. That stopped the grunting, but she was still breathing very rapidly. There was a possibility of aspiration if they gave her formula, so she wa put on an iv.

Later that afternoon they x-rayed her lungs and they were cloudy. We were told it was either more fluid, which would be taken care of by the antibiotics in her iv and she'd be better in a few days, or it might be a bacterial infection, in which case we could expect a two week stay in the NICU. They would x-ray again the next day to see if there was improvement.

That night I was finally able to go to the NICU to see her. Nick pushed me over in a wheelchair and I got to see her, but they still wouldn't let us hold her.

Saturday morning they finally let us hold her for about ten minutes each. They didn't x-ray again, but everyone could tell she was already improving. DeeDee and Daddy Joe got to go to the NICU with me and see her, but couldn't touch or hold her. Gram came late Saturday night (after putting Alex to bed) and got to see her.

I had an uneventful stay in the hospital. Dr. Bruce, the NICU doctor, didn't want me discharged until Tuesday because before we could take Isabel home we had to spend a night in the hospital with her. The original plan was either in my room Monday night or in the NICU family room on Tuesday night. Either way, we would all be home for Christmas!

Ultimately Dr. Bruce decided he wanted us in the family room Monday night, so I was discharged mid-afternoon on Monday. We spent a terrible night in the family room. It was like a cheap hotel room, and it was smaller than DeeDee's guest room. It was incredibly ill-equipped. There was no where to lay out my pump pieces to clean them, there was zero access to any food or beverage, and the lighting was terrible. The furniture was very uncomfortable, especially considering I'd just had surgery a few days before. And they had Isabel hooked up to this monitor that randomly beeped very loudly. Luckily it only beeped every hour or so while we were trying to sleep, but prior to that it had beeped every minute to minute and a half for over an hour. We had to ask three separate times over an hour and a half for a nurse to come look at it before that happened. Luckily she did just well enough to get to come home. We were still having trouble eating - she didn't want to eat enough - but she hit her bare minimum each time.

When we brought Alex home to meet Isabel it was... interesting. I went with DeeDee and Andrea to pick him up from Ms. Shannon's. I told him Isabel was at home, but when we got home he stopped at the living room door and wouldn't go in. After a minute he forgot Iz was in the living room and went in to play. We showed him where she was and he slowly approached and looked at her for a minute. Then he promptly forgot again and started playing. He seemed fine with her, but he refused to speak to or make eye contact with me or Nick for three solid hours. We got Iz down for a nap and played with Alex some, and that seemed to help. For the most part he still ignores her, but when she makes noises he looks for the source, and when she's asleep in the car he tells her to wake up. One afternoon I was napping and every time she made a noise he would tell her, "Shh Isabel, Mama's sleeping."