Comparing

So I know Willa weighed more than Addie or Etta at birth but 

I was curious about other measurements so pulled out their baby books...

Addie

weight: 7lbs 6oz

length: 19.5 

head: 14

Etta:

weight: 8lbs 3oz

length: 20 1/4

head: 15.5 (at 2 month appointment, couldn't easily find a birth one)

Willa:

weight: 9lbs 15oz

length: 22

head: 14

So much to be thankful for

As I reflect on Willa's birth and hospital stay I realize how incredibly thankful I am for so many things.
Here are some of them (in no particular order):

-our midwife Heather (who was also the midwife who helped deliver Etta). She gave us choices for induction and supported our decisions, she let me labor like I wanted and did not put restrictions on my mobility, she encouraged me during my pushing phase, she helped calm and reassure me during those scary first few minutes when Willa was being given oxygen and I still had to deal with the uncomfortable but necessary post-birth procedures like delivering the placenta and having a tear stitched up. She sat with us for a bit as we waited for my ambulance and admitted that she had been asking herself the same questions I was asking "could we have prevented this?". She left a couple phone messages because she wanted to talk to me in person. When we did talk the afternoon of Willa's discharge I gave her an update on how well baby Willa was doing and she told me how she had reviewed the birth with the nurse who was there as well as an OB as she tried to step back and think through if she should have done things differently. She cared so much about how me and my baby were doing and we both were in tears by the end of the phone call. It was a very healing conversation for both of us and if I were to have another baby I would do everything in my power to once again have her be the one catching my baby. To top it all of, she is a solid Christian woman.

-our doula Heather (who was also Lori's doula for baby Daphne's birth) who consistently checked in with me as we got close to my due date, who helped us ask informed questions about our induction choices, who was physically & emotionally present for me when Matt was in a different room with baby before transport, who came with me in the ambulance and made sure Matt & I got settled at First Hill before leaving (by taxi at 11pm) and who visited at the hospital then gave me a ride home when I needed a few hours away from the hospital.

-all the nurses at First Hill who cheerfully took such good care of baby Willa and communicated with me. They knew what her needs were and tried to push the Drs in the right direction, they supported me in my brestfeeding and kept me up-to-date on any changes or new plans.

-Kristin - a fellow mom from church who has a boy Etta's age and was due with a girl one week after me and who used the same midwives. She prayed for us, she asked questions about my appointments, she provided emotional support and encouragement, we shared jokes and tears all through emails. Her birth did not go as planned either and she had to be induced (with our midwife Heather!) then ended up with a c-section, but we are both so thankful for our healthy girls who are finally here. We can not wait for our girls to meet and to grow up together in Sunday School classes!

-Matt who was uncomplaining about so many things including: changing his work schedule around so I could go to a few extra dr's appointments as I passed my due date, his driving to & from the hospital, the parking garage fees I know he hates paying, the co-op classes he attended in my place, the extra meals eaten out, his limited visits with Willa when she was in the hospital, etc. And who at home has been willing to change diapers, give Willa a bottle, help Willa fall asleep (no matter how long it takes), get the big girls out of the house for a while, make dinner, etc.

-Matt's mom Karen who was basically on-call for an entire month as we waited for baby to come. She rearranged some responsibilities and stayed at our house for a few days during the induction and hospital stay. She cooked yummy healthy food for the girls, kept them busy with art projects, kept them on schedule and provided stability during the unexpected post-birth complications.

-my parents who have been staying with us for a few days. Playing with the big girls, attending co-op classes in my place, holding baby Willa, watching all 3 while Matt and I went out to a quick dinner, etc.

-my friend Becky who visited at the hospital to keep me company, who walked slowly with me as I went to the drug store to pick up my prescriptions, who made sure I got food in my body, who set up a meal-train and who visited us at home to see how we were settling in.

-all our friends & family who have been showering us with well-wishes, signing up to bring us meals, giving sweet baby presents, offering playdates, etc.

-I am thankful for the resiliency of newborns. And for the medical advancements and technology (along with the support services and social services) that can help so many babies who are born premature, who were born to drug-addicted mothers, who suffer from hypoxia, etc

-baby Willa- I am so incredibly thankful for such a beautiful, healthy baby. The fact that due to her short hospital stay she can be comforted by a pacifier at times and that she takes a bottle like a pro are icing on the cake :)

I am thankful to God for all these people and all these things, and I know I am truly blessed.

Willa has been home for one week

 Showing off her hospital jewelry

 First time wearing clothes (last Friday, right before we went home)

 Big sister Addie putting on Willa's sock.

I think I am ready to give up on socks for the time being.

The only thing that stays on her feet is Zutano booties, and thankfully we have multiple pairs.

 Rub a dub dub

Sweet sister necklaces from grandma Karen 

Addie's says "big sister"

Willa's says "little sister"

Etta's says "middle sister"

The girls sure love their baby sister!

Etta is disappointed that she does not get to hold Willa more. 

She reported at school that "baby cries a lot".

Addie reports at school that "baby Willa sleeps a lot."

The sleep statement is true, the crying statement is a matter of opinion.

I think she cries a normal amount for her age :)

Moving across, moving down, moving over, moving on

I have not slept at home since Sunday night. That was a pretty restless night of sleep as I anticipated the birth of baby and also worried about the upcoming induction. I thought I would be spending a night or two sharing a room with Matt and baby at Swedish Ballard and then going home. But that is not how it worked.

First we moved across town to Swedish First Hill. Baby went to the NICU on the 6^th floor and I went to a room on the 4^th floor in the maternity/post-partum section. Matt stayed the night with me in that room and then we kind of thought we would get another night there before they discharged me.

Instead they moved me down. They have something called parent sleep rooms on the 2^nd floor that can be reserved for 2 nights each week. Except immediately after your discharge from the hospital you can get an additional night. So we were able to “book” a room for 3 nights. It is not a traditional room with nurses checking in on you, and both the hall going to the room & the room itself require keycards. It is kind of like a no-frills hotel room. We do not have to pay to stay in the room and it is a way to be near baby. This was especially helpful as I tried to establish breastfeeding and since we only have one car it reduced on commuting some. Matt stayed the first night in that room with me. But then he needed to get home to be with the girls. So I stayed a second night in that room and got more late-night and early-morning visits to baby Willa.

I planned to spend one more night in the room then go back to my bed at home. But yesterday things were able to move forward towards Willa’s discharge. Wed night he Drs had ok’ed halving the iv amount so that she would start getting hungry and wanting to nurse. They wanted to monitor her and make sure she peed and pooped normal and that her blood sugar was normal. Yesterday afternoon the Dr ok’ed taking her off the IV completely. Once that was done she was a big step closer to going home and they decided to move her to the 2nd floor to a step-down unit. This unit is in the same area as the parent sleep room I was in. But they offered a “rooming-in” room to me, which means I would be (for the first time) sleeping in the same room as Willa. Of course I said yes to that! I was home for a few hours at the time (my first time being home since early Monday morning) but they needed my sleep room cleaned out right away. So someone gathered all my belongings and moved them over to the room Willa & I would share.

She was still hooked up the heart rate monitors etc. Which got annoying because they loudly beep every couple minutes when she moves or her breathing changes or something. But we were together! I was able to feed her overnight when she woke. Actually the nurses said they will wake me and make me nurse her if she sleeps more than 4 hours. It was not my best night of sleep ever between being directly across from the nurses’ station, random beeping from Willa’s monitors, waking to nurse her, etc. But moms of newborns should never expect to sleep well regardless of the location :)

Today Willa was discharged - we got to take her home! We got to move on past the nurse supervision and constant monitoring! Despite a scary start to things, she by all measurable accounts is healthy. Good hearing, good eyes, good nursing and digestion, good blood sugar, good muscle tone and responses - she was good to go!

Now she is home and ad-midst the real world. The world where sisters have snotty-nose colds and tons of friends want to meet her and relatives want to hold her. I hope it will be a smooth, healthy transition for all of us.

Willa's Bath and Breastfeeding

I think this was Willa's first bath.
At Ballard Swedish they wiped her clean after birth but did not bath her since there was trauma and
she needed to be transported right away. At First Hill they did not bath her maybe
because they did not think about it and assumed she already had a bath
or maybe because of all her wires it is more work so they delay it, or maybe she just wasn't too stinky yet.
But I decided to ask about it tonight and the nurse looked at the clock and said she could do it in half an hour and started to pull out all the bath supplies. She had to go searching for a bigger tub because usually they do more sponge-bath style and usually they are washing much smaller babies :)
Her hair looked lighter and curlier post-bath!

This was the only picture of her getting weighed that I was able to snap. But the scale had switched to grams. Oops! She was 9lbs 13oz so she lost a few ounces since birth.
But we intend to help her put the weight back on through a special diet known as "Momma's high-fat breastmilk"! I have been pumping at the hospital and we have a good supply of milk for her stored there. This afternoon they followed through on reducing her IV amount. So now we are hoping she will actually get hungry and want milk. She has latched a few times to nurse yesterday and today. Tonight after the traumatic event known as a bath, she nursed for almost 20 minutes! We did not weigh her after to see how much she drank, but she was sucking and swallowing well. Hurray! So hopefully she does good with milk from a bottle over night and keeps nursing well during the day so we can get rid of the IV altogether.
Then we can get her home!!!

Neither of my other girls ever took to binkies, but Willa seems to like hers occasionally.
Neither of my girls bottle-fed well at all either.
I pumped and Matt attempted bottles but my girls stubbornly held out until I returned.
But due to Miss Willa's hospital stay and early introduction to bottles,
she may proved herself the exception on that as well.
If so, as much as I do not enjoy pumping I will continue to anyways.
Because being able to leave her with Matt for more than 3 hours and
knowing she is getting her milk needs met sounds pretty nice.
What sounds really nice as well is the idea of Matt being able to give her a bottle overnight
instead of my nursing each time she wakes up hungry.
So although I wish she never had to have this extended hospital stay,
there might be a few unintended perks :)

More pictures of the wedding

http://photos.solacearts.com/BeckyandJarad

If  you look in the "Guests" folder you will see a couple of me and the girls.
Under "wedding party" are some of the girls with Becky.
And under "Reception" are some of Etta doing flower-petal play.

Baby Willa is here!!!!

We went to Ballard Swedish at 7:30am yesterday for our induction appointment. After talking through the choices we decided to do something called the misoprostal tablet. I had to be monitored for 4 hours after that so Matt & I watched a movie, had lunch, chatted with our doula and attempted a nap. I was having mild contractions from the medication so we decided with the midwife Heather as a next step to break my water. After that i was able to walk around so Matt and I paced the halls a bit. My body was dialating and progressing so we did not need to take additional steps such as pitocin. Around 4pm we had our doula Heather return because I had a feeling things would speed up quickly. I was breathing through the contractions but having a hard talking during them. I went in the jacuzzi tub and contractions quickly got more intense. After a little while in the tub, we went back to the room because I was ready to push. After less than half an hour of pushing, Willa was born! 

I knew right away that something was wrong because they quickly cut the cord as they called in more nurses. Her heart rate was good but she needed help with her breathing since the cord had been wrapped around her neck. She had low apgar scores,her skin was pale, she was not breathing well on her own, and she had a few other traits they were worried about. They decided to transfer her to Swedish first hill where they have a nicu where they could monitor her brain function. Their big worry was that she had a lack of oxygen to her brain (hypoxia) due to the cord around her neck. First Hill has the ability to do something called a "cool cap" where they lower the temperature of the baby which helps slow down or reverse possible brain damage. But this has to be done 6 hours after birth to be effective so they needed to transfer her and monitor her brain right away. While I knew that they were talking about the possibility of brain damage before they had evidence from watching the brain waves, it was a possibility and it was scary! They had her in another room and I got to touch her for the first time an hour or so after birth when she was in a big boxy incubator for her ambulance transfer. I was transported by a different ambulance which came over an hour later. It was really emotional for me: I had just given birth to a big beautiful baby who i could not hold and was at a different hospital than me because she had a possibility of brain damage. 

We got to swedish first hill around 10 but were not able to hold baby girl or attempt nursing. She had an Iv and various cords attached to her. The most important thing they were doing that night was monitoring her brain function. The cord was around her neck when she was born and there were some small signs that led to the potential for a big concern. They were still monitoring her for seizure activity etc but as of 11pm Monday night they were warming her because all brain activity so far looked good. 

So today they stopped monitoring brain activity since there were no abnormalities. The Dr explained that there can be 4 different stages of hypoxia severity and she was most likely a "1". Her symptoms were not severe enough that using cool cap would have been beneficial. 

Our current hurdle is to get her interested in breast feeding, wean her off the Iv and make sure her body processes the milk the way it should. In the morning they will also test her liver. They are estimating she could be here another 3-7 days. It seems so long to be at the hospital for a "simple" thing like establishing nursing and making sure she processes the food. But then I look around me at all the premies in the nicu and I think of the weeks and months they may spend at the hospital, at the hurtles they face, at the growth they must do. And it makes me so thankful that she was a full term healthy baby who just needs some extra monitoring.

I was so worried about induction but the birth went really well without the need for escalating intervention, Iv or drugs for me. Pushing only lasted half an hour. Her heartrate was always good so no one foresaw a need for concern. I don't know that there was anything anyone could have done differently. But of course I question if the same thing would have happened if she was born at 40 weeks, if we did not induce, if we had gotten her out of me faster, etc, etc.

For now I am trying not to think about the hospital bills, the bills for the ambulance ride etc. We have insurance but there is only so much they will pay. But the long-term care costs of a child with brain imparement are probably pretty staggering. So once again, something to be thankful for.

Matt's paternity leave is not going to go quite as planned since we will be doing so much shuffling between the hospital and home. I was discharged from the hospital today but they have special family overnight rooms that you can sign up for. We were able to get one for 3 nights so most of my time will be spent at the hospital holding her, watching her sleep and trying to get her breastfeeding.

Again, I am so thankful that there were no signs of brain damage and I am looking forward to when she can be at home with our family!

A big update

No, baby has not joined us yet. Nor am I in labor. The big I refer to is my belly.

The update is that if she does not make an appearance tonight or tomorrow, bright & early monday we are going in to the hospital for an induction. This was not at all what I wanted for a birth experience. But I will be 42 weeks on Monday and I am just plain sick of being pregnant and of the tentative planning and hoping & daily disappointment. Who knew I would wish so much for contractions?! I would much prefer the contractions that come with a natural labor than those that are medication induced. I am worried about the slippery slope of interventions that might happen at the hospital. Once I am there, I am there until baby comes. There are different options as to how we go about that & we might have to change tactics depending on how things are working. But I know they will need to monitor me and will most likely want me on an IV. I know that some inductions bring on really intense contractions and women who could handle normal contractions need epidurals due to the relentless contractions caused by induction medications. So I am not excited, but I am also trying not to be too negative or scare myself. We gave this girl plenty of time to come out on her own. She has been healthy, I have been healthy. If at 42 weeks (despite my body successfully going into labor on its own twice for the other girls) she has not come, then I am ready for some sort of medical intervention. If I had chosen to do a home birth with midwives maybe they would have let me go a few extra days as long as we were both healthy. But there needs to be an end point to this pregnancy.

I was so happy with how Etta's birth went. How I labored at home for quite a while, progressed quickly through the transition phase at the hospital in the big tub, birthed in a position I wanted without any pain medication and had a fairly easy recovery. I was proud of my body's ability to handle the process and the midwives ability to step back and let me make decisions. And that is what I wanted for this birth. Maybe it will still happen. Maybe. But if not, she will come Monday or Tuesday after induction and we will be so glad she is finally here!

School is starting

Public schools have started. The girls co-op preschool starts this coming week. It is a "slow start" week to ease them into things.

But their regular schedule will be this:
Tues 12-3 Addie class
Wed 9:30-11:30 Etta class
Wed 12-3 Addie class
Thurs 12-3 Addie class (my work day)
Fri 9:30-11:30 Etta class (my work day)
Fri 12-3 Addie class (special day, only for the older kids who will be moving up to kindergarten next year)

Matt works from home on Thursdays so Etta will be at home napping while I am in Addie's classroom. Baby is allowed in class with me until she is 6 months old (so the majority of the school year really). Most Fridays when i am in Etta's class Addie will be in the on-site sibling care room. The other kids in there with her are all going to be one or under. She is great with babies but I feel bad because I would prefer her to have interaction with kids her age instead of feeling like "big girl helper" - she will get enough of that at home!

One thing that I think will significantly help cut back on the busy feeling each day is that I have arranged carpooling. So on the days it is my turn to drive I have to leave the house earlier of course and be on the ball. But on other days I will not have to load all 3 up just to drop one off - that will be really nice! Also the road construction on 85th between our house and school has finally finished so I will not have to detour around that and get stuck at multiple school zones.

A year from now I will be posting about Addie starting kindergarten. It freaks me out a bit to even type that up, so I am not going to dwell on it.

An overdue update

I am overdue. Baby has not come yet. There is your update!

Let's see... the good news is that I have been getting lots of walks in: especially Greenlake & Discovery Park as I try to get some hill-climbs in to motivate baby. So although they have not done the trick, the exercise is good for me.

At my appointment on Thursday she swept my membranes. I felt crummy all day after that. But feeling crummy is different than having contractions and being in labor.

My next appointment is this coming Tuesday and they made me schedule an ultrasound as well. It is standard practice at 41 weeks because they want to make sure everything looks good. They would also be willing to discuss induction with me at that point. At 42 weeks induction will happen whether I like it or not. I do not want to be induced and sincerely hope baby comes before that. But at this point I can understand why people would want to be induced or have a scheduled c-section. Just knowing when things are going to happen must be so great. The not knowing is driving me crazy. More so this time than with the past two I think.

Also driving me crazy? The fact that baby is head-down and has been for over a month, but that she still has a tiny bit of room to wiggle. I can understand that she wants to move, but when she shifts her bum and body it really does not feel good. Although she is head-down, she has not dropped. So her head can rotate a bit too. Not comfortable. She bumps into things I would rather have left alone. :)

Driving me the most crazy? The comments of strangers (and some well-meaning friends). Stranger at Safeway "is there more than one in there?" Checker at Safeway on hearing that I am over-due "If it makes you feel better, my mom's Dr let me stay in her until she was 3 weeks over-due". Nope, I don't want to hear that. Nor do I really enjoy hearing "I did not think you could get any bigger. But you did!" My self-esteem is not flying high these days.

Despite how big I look, I was measuring 40 at my appointment so there have been no more comments about baby possibly being big. Midwife even said that baby's head felt small (in a good way - big heads have got to be more painful to push out!).

So there you are. Hopefully my next post about her is announcing her birth. I really do want to hold her and meet her!