Brianne's Stats

Date: May 5, 2010

Age: 7 Weeks

Weight: About 8.5lbs

Height: About 22 inches

Feeding routine: Mommy milk by bottle every 3-4 hours

Sleeping habits: Sleeps for about 3-4 hours, has her days and nights mixed up, and is just now starting to like sleeping in her co-sleeper. She prefers sleeping on her tummy, which we can do since we have the motion monitor.

Misc: She and I went for our first walk in the stroller Friday and she didn't turn blue!

Mommy updates: Friday the 30th was my 33rd birthday and we had Sam and Alex and Jack and Anna over for a BBQ. Bri was awake nearly the whole time they were here too! Went to my 6 week follow up appointment with my OB and she said I'm healed and doing great. And, the best news, I'm at one pound under my pre-pregnancy weight and back in my pre-baby jeans!! But yesterday I started back to work, part-time from home though.

Time flies when you're sleep deprived...

So it's been a long time since I've posted anything, but needless to say, it's been a little chaotic around here with a new baby at home. Yes she is finally home. She came home on April 6th after spending 3 weeks in the NICU. The ride home was frightening though since the incident with her turning blue in the car seat the week before. We did however spend the night at the hospital before taking her home. That was also frightening. Her doctor suggested we "room-in" with her before taking her home so we could get used to her sleeping with us without the monitors and alarms. The room we stayed in was very small, basically a big closet. It had a fold-out couch, a recliner, a lamp and a bathroom. I think there was a phone but there was no tv so we had to watch DVDs on our laptops. They wheeled her isolette in around 9PM and she was ours for the evening. Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night. I held her for a long time to make sure I could feel her breathing, and then when I put her down I kept one hand on her to make sure she was breathing. We all survived though!

Having her home has been a whirlwind! And let me just say that the $200 we spent on the AngelCare Motion Monitor was well worth it! I don't think I would have slept at all the first few nights if we didn't have it. And we never had an alarm go off which is good because that means she never stopped breathing. The first night home though, she didn't want to sleep in her co-sleeper so I tried rocking her to sleep and fell asleep! I fell asleep with her in the bed with us and we slept for 5 hours with no interruptions! When I woke up I was panicked! I couldn't understand why she didn't wake me to eat but she was fine thank god! That's the last time I've let us fall asleep with her in bed with us. Since then, on average, I think I sleep about 4-5 hours a night, and very rarely are those hours consecutively. She is getting better though and the last two nights she let me sleep for 4 hours before waking up and I actually slept in the bed last night! I had taken up residence on the couch because it's easier to do the nighttime feedings downstairs but oh how I miss sleeping in my bed with my Jason...

I went through some serious baby blues though for a while but I think that has all passed now. It's just so very different having a baby at home and it seemed like our lives were so different and that fact made me scared. I missed life as a twosome and wondered if it would ever be the same. Part of me even wished that I could just have my normal life back and that thought terrified me. I mean, how long would it be before we could lay in bed and snuggle till noon on a Sunday again? Spontaneously go to dinner and a movie? Go to Happy Hour after work? I think that being on bed rest for 6 weeks, then spending every day for 3 weeks in the NICU just took its toll on me. I think part of me was just stir crazy and craving human interaction. But I don't think I would have survived the last few weeks without the help from Jason and my mom and dad. My parents will come over and watch Bri just so I can nap and shower and feel human again.

I was also feeling depressed over our nursing situation. Since she was born prematurely, we were not able to start breastfeeding right away and we just couldn't quite get it to work. So I was pumping milk ever 3 hours, and had gotten real good at multi-tasking so that I could feed her and pump at the same time. But pumping ever 3 hours for 3+ weeks leaves the girls feeling not so good. And how time consuming it all became! Every 3 hours I would warm a bottle, feed Bri, pump, wash and sanitize my pump parts and then I would only have 2 hours left before I would start the whole routine over again. We were able to do a few successful nursing sessions but by that point I was already so sore that I couldn't let her nurse for long enough. We worked with several lactation consultants and they all said that I'm making too much milk, which is why every time we tried it, she would get choked and turn blue. I've gone back and forth over this and cried a million tears but I've decided that I'm going to stop pumping at 8 weeks and switch to formula... I feel so guilty about this decision though that it's tearing me up inside. I feel like we were robbed of our breastfeeding-bonding time in the hospital and that it was my fault because I couldn't stay pregnant long enough to keep her out of the NICU. I think I've overcome these feelings of guilt though, I think.

But she is doing great and growing so much! She has reflux though and we had a few scary feeding events where she would choke on her bottle and turn blue, but her pediatrician said it was due to reflux. She hated eating because it hurt her, and I hated feeding her because it frightened me. She now takes Baby Zantac and it's helped so much! She rarely even spits up now. But, she is so gassy most days and she just lays and grunts and pulls her legs up and flails her little arms. Thank god for the Mylicon gas drops! And yesterday was picture day and the photographer was supposed to be at our house at 1:30 and we had a huge diaper blow-out before she got there! Bri was covered in poo! It was on her back, her tummy, her legs, her special picture outfit! So I had to give her a bath all by myself right before the photographer got there. Then, during pictures, she pooed two more times lol.

Here are some pics of her. These were taken in the hospital on the day she was supposed to come home the first time. She was two weeks old here:

Good news update

When I got to the NICU this morning to see Brianne, I noticed the feeding tube was gone from her nose. Hmmm... The nurse came to talk to me and told me that she ripped her own feeding tube out last night! They had been giving her bottles ever since. They said yesterday she did 75% of her feedings by bottle and that in the last 24 hours she was at 100%. This is excellent news! So we did bottles all day today and as long as she can take in 150 ml a day by mouth there's no need for the feeding tube to be put back in. When I left at 6pm tonight she was up to 112ml for the last 24 hours and still had 2 feedings left to hit 150! I think we'll do it! And the lactation consultants came in to talk to me again and said they heard she would be getting discharged soon and they want to meet with me tomorrow at 10:30 to do one last nursing session and go over discharge stuff!!!! Our little sweet pea may still yet be home for Easter!!!!

And, a less important bit of good news - I can fit in my pre-pregnancy jeans already! Things may be looking up all around!

Break another little peice of my heart...

So it's day 11 after delivery and my baby girl is still in the NICU... Every day is torture without her. No new mother should be expected to have to deal with having a baby and then having to go home without her. I miss her being with me, inside my belly, where I can talk to her and feel her little kicks. She was with me for the last 8 months and now she isn't! If I make it through this with my sanity it will be a miracle. And poor Jason... He has gotten so used to me crying out of the blue that he doesn't even ask what's wrong anymore. He just hugs me and assures me she'll be home soon.

I have been going to spend the days with her while Jason is at work. It's my new "job". I pack my bag with books and my pumping equipment and drop Jase off at work every morning at 7:30 and then it's off to the NICU. I sit with her and hold her and read out loud to her and every 3 hours I attempt to feed her. We have been working on nursing and she's great at it! Latched on right away on our first attempt. The doctor's tell us she has gained weight and is up to 5lbs 8oz which is wonderful and they have increased the amount of breast milk she gets per feeding. However, she won't be able to go home until she can take all of her feeds by mouth. She is now taking a little over half by bottle or breast but each time we have to finish up with the feeding tube. I am determined to get her home soon so we'll have to keep working hard.

So I mentioned in a previous post about our little scare. Well apparently preemies are prone to Apnea (where they forget to breath) and Bradycardia (aka Brady, where their heartrates drop below 100 for 15 seconds or more). These A & Bs usually happen together or cause each other. While I was nursing her on our second attempt, with no assistance this time, she had an episode. The alarms went off on her monitor and I looked at her and saw she was actually turning blue and seemed very non-responsive. I was terrified and kind of rubbed her and shook her (not hard of course) and she snapped out of it. The nurses and doctor's say that this is common in preterm babies and she'll "grow out of it". When??? So I was afraid to hold her or attempt nursing again for the rest of the day. And when I do, I can't take my eyes off her monitors!

The next day I had the lactation consultants come work with me and show me how to best breastfeed using the football hold. This way I could be more in control of her neck and head to assure she has an open airway and can breath. The doctor's came and told me not to worry about the A & B spell and that she will snap out on her own but that when it happens to rub her back or bottom till she does. They say they aren't worried about this and that the only thing keeping her in the NICU is her feeding. So now I am again terrified of what will happen when we do get to bring her home. What if these spells continue? How will I know if she's breathing when she's home with the monitors? How will I sleep or ever be able to walk away from her when I put her down? I am trying to train myself now when I hold her/feed her not to watch the monitors at all because I won't be able to when she's home but it's so difficult!

And it so exhausting to have a baby in the NICU that we are both physically and mentally wore out. I just gave birth and am supposed to be taking it easy, but I haven't since they let me out of the hospital. I was feeling so ill and feverish and concerned about my heavy bleeding Tuesday that I went to see my OB. She said I was showing signs of anemia and yelled at me for not taking time to fill my prescription for my Iron supplement they gave me in the hospital. She also yelled at me for all the walking and stressing and told me I was just overdoing it. She did an internal exam and my stitches were fine, my cervix was fine and my uterus was contracting and returning to normal. No physical abnormalities were causing my extra bleeding, just me not taking it easy. So I filled my prescription and took the next day "off" from the NICU. My mom went and spent the day with her instead but I felt so guilty that I didn't get any rest and several times almost got dressed and drove to the hospital.

It's taking its toll on Jason too. I woke up one morning to pump at 4am and was so out of it, I didn't even notice he wasn't in bed with me. I started a pot of coffee while I was getting my pumping equipment ready and he snuck up on me from the basement. He had been down there all night, unable to sleep, and due at work in 4 hours. He said he couldn't sleep and was going to just stay up till time to go to work. After pumping, I laid back down and he was going to wake me at 5:30. Well, at 6 I woke up and realized I had overslept and the house was silent. I went to the basement and there he was, asleep in his computer chair with a video clip of Bri sleeping playing in a loop on his pc. It was the sweetest image I had ever seen.

Yesterday, the little baby next to Bri was released. When her parents came to get her, we told them congratulations and as soon as they left, I wept. I guess I was jealous that they were getting to take their little one home with them while ours was still there for who knows how long...

The long awaited arrival

So after they took my little girl from me she went to the NICU where they put her on a CPAP (not sure what it stands for but it's a tube in her nose to keep her lungs inflated with room air, not oxygen), an IV antibiotic, and a feeding tube in her little nose where they started giving her sugar water. I was still in the delivery room recovering and getting cleaned up. Let me tell you, there is no modesty or dignity in the labor and delivery department. Since I still couldn't walk due to my numb legs from the epidural, the nurse had to pretty much put me in a wheelchair and take me to the bathroom. There she lifted me onto the toilet and gave me some wet washcloths to clean myself with and then a new gown. She made me sit there till I went pee (they had removed the catheter and wanted to know that my bladder was functioning after the epidural). Let me tell you, it hurt! So then she gave me a pad, that was like the size of a bath towel and some disposable undies and put them on me. Then she wheeled me to my postpartum room.

It was getting late and I hadn't eaten anything since dinner the night before and I still had to go to the bathroom so I decided I should eat and try again to pee before I went to see Brianne in the NICU. But I still couldn't walk so my nurse brought me a snack (turkey sandwhich, fruit cup and cookies and juice) and then it was time for the dreaded bed pan. Remember me mentioning the no dignity/modesty thing earlier? Well yep, here again, my nurse had to lift me onto the bed pan and take care of all the, well, cleanup after. I was starting to get some use of my left leg back, so I "stood up" on my good leg and pivoted into a wheel chair. Then she escorted me and Jason to see Bri, finally!

When I saw her, I was so overcome with emotion and so filled with love that I just wept. I still do when I think of it. She was absolutely perfect and angelic and I couldn't believe she was ours! I can't believe how much you can love someone. At that moment, the love I felt for her and Jason was so powerful it made my knees weak. We weren't able to hold her just yet though because she was still on the CPAP for her lungs and under a warmer because she was unable to maintain her own body temp. But we touched her and kissed her and just stared at her for at least an hour or so. Then my nurse came for me. She said I needed my rest and took me to my room. I was so exhausted I couldn't hold my head up but I still couldn't sleep. I just wanted the littlest member of our newly formed threesome to be there with us where she belonged. I called the nurse around 3:30 am to help me go to the bathroom again and to give me some pain meds because the epidural was wearing off and all my lady parts were hurting!




In the morning, we ate breakfast and had coffee quickly (ahh caffeine!) and went straight to the NICU. We still had to be escorted though since I was still a patient and they couldn't risking me falling and suing them. Once we got there, we found out the breathing tube was gone yay! And we got to hold her, finally! We took turns holding her "skin-to-skin" to keep her warm and she was so tiny and fragile but it felt so good to have her in my arms. And it was the most amazing sight ever to see Jason holding her, and again I feel like I fell in love with him and Bri all over again. Jason and I even got to try to feed her with a bottle. This was great, and is the thing we are working on most now. She is absolutely healthy, just " young". So we need to learn to maintain our own body temp, learn to keep breathing (I'll get to the scary Apnea story later!!) and learn to suck-swallow-breath so she can take a bottle or nurse (and lose the feeding tube).

We have been told by several doctors that they don't know when she is going to be able to come home. We have been told everything from a week to six weeks! I am hoping that she will be able to come home around the time that she would have been 36weeks old (gestational age) so that's only another week and a half. I need my little girl to be home with me so I can feel whole again! I feel so lonely without her here. She has been with me for the last 8 months and now she isn't here to talk to anymore. I still catch myself rubbing my belly lovingly from time to time only to remember she is no longer in there... I miss her.

34w - Happy Birthday Brianne!

Yes, I know, it's been a while since I've posted but having a newborn in the NICU keeps you busy (and exhausted). My sweet little Brianne was born at 7:31 PM last Wednesday March 17th which was St Patrick's Day!. She was 5lbs 1oz and 18.5 inches long. She is absolutely gorgeous and her birth was probably the most amazing and emotional moment of my life (to date). So, let's see... Where do I begin?

The doctor's came and got me for my induction at 6:00 am on Wednesday morning. They wheeled me to the Delivery room and checked my cervix for dilation. I was already at 3cm so they didn't give me the cervadil, just started me on an IV of Pitocin. The wait was on... The nurse came in every 30 minutes and increased the pitocin and it wasn't long before I felt my first real contraction - not so bad, very mild and tolerable... My parents arrived at about 10:00 am and then they too were playing the waiting game with us.

At around 1:30 pm they checked me and I was 4cm dilated so I decided it was time for my epidural. This was what scared me the most about giving birth. The two anestheilogists came in and showed me how to sit and curve my back while my husband held me up. This wasn't good. It hurt. When they stuck the needle in to numb the area, I got weak and light headed and nearly fainted. So they had me lay on my side and put an oxygen mask on me and instructed me to breath deeply. About 10 minutes later I was back to normal but they were afraid to try again with me sitting up so they decided to do it with me laying down. Can we just say OWWWW! I did not like it at all! And to make matters worse, the guy who actually did my epidural was a student! I was frightened! Then came the catheter, which was not pleasant either but I was able to cope. Once it kicked in, I was better and could no longer feel my contractions, or my legs. Jason was in charge of moving them for me since I had no control. But, after a couple hours, I noticed I could feel and move my left leg but not my right one... uh-oh! Something is wrong!

The anestheologists came back in to check me and said it was a gravity issue and that I needed to roll onto my other side. I did and still nothing changed. I continued on with only my right side truly numb until around 5:00 pm. My doctor came in to check me and I was still only 5cm dilated. However, she noticed alot of scar tissue around my cervix from my LEEP procedure and so she proceeded to "break up" the scar tissue with her fingers! This hurt! Epidural? What's that? She also manually broke my bag of waters since they were still only partially ruptured... what a weird feeling! At this point, my parents and my mother-in-law decided it was time to eat. They went down to the cafeteria and we said we would call if anything changed... Something changed!

About an hour later, around 6:30 pm, my pain was unbearable! I was nearly screaming in agony "Something's wrong! Somebody help me! Why isn't anyone helping me" so Jason called for the anestheologists and they came in to find out why I was feeling so much pain. Well as it turns out, it wasn't contractions that I was feeling, but it was the pressure of the baby, she was trying to come out! The doctor came in and checked me and sure enough, I was fully dilated! It was time to start pushing! I went from 5cm to 10cm in about an hour! I told Jason to call my mom and she was there in no time. It was time for the hard part...

There was chaos and commotion all around me. The team of NICU doctors and pediatricians were behind a curtain waiting for Brianne and I had 2 doctors delivering the baby, my mom holding one leg, Jason holding one leg and my hand, two nurses helping to tell me when to push and giving me ice chips and my dad, hiding behind the curtain waiting to see Bri. I pushed for an hour and the entire time I just wanted to give up and keep her in there forever. Everyone kept yelling at me to push but it hurt and I was screaming "I can't do this!!!!" but finally, they saw her head. I reached down and touched her little head and it gave me strength! She had hair! So I pushed with all my might and after 6 or 7 attempts, she was here!!!!!!!! Ah, relief!



I couldn't really see her when they held her up because I had taken my glasses off and I was scared because I didn't hear her crying! They whisked her away to behind the curtain to the NICU doctors and I was crying and Jason was crying and my mom was crying... I did it! Finally, I heard her first little cry and it was all okay! Jason continued to hold my hand but was watching what was going on with Bri assuring me she was okay. Meanwhile, I was being cleaned up and stitched up (only 1) and still crying of course. They brought her around and let me hold her for like 15 seconds before taking her to the NICU. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen! Even with her little oxygen hoses in her nose, it was love at first sight! And they took her from me! No bonding, no nursing, no intimate moment of her and me and Jason, they just took her! But I know it was to make sure she was okay but it was the hardest thing ever. I wouldn't see her again until midnight...

Here she is!





And this is her the next morning, no longer on the CPAP, laying on her daddy!

33w6d - My last day being pregnant?

Tomorrow is the big day! If everything goes well, tomorrow will be Bri's birthday! I'm so excited today that I can barely sit still. I have been up since 7 this morning and have been packing up my stuff so they can move me to a labor and delivery suite tomorrow morning. I had a big breakfast too because I know that they aren't going to let me eat tomorrow so I ordered french toast and bacon with milk and a coffee. Yumm!

They just came and did my final ultrasound which was a Biophysical Profile (not a fetal growth unfortunately cuz we all wanted to see how much she weighs now) but she passed with an 8 out of 8. Her little organs all look great and she had the hiccups so she passed her "breathing" test and movement test. They also did my last NST today and she did perfect on it too. She had 4 heart rate accelerations in half an hour so her heart seems to be in perfect condition! She would not be still though and we had to keep moving the monitor pads. It was like she was trying to kick them off my belly!

Last night Jason came by after work and he said he couldn't wait till Wednesday to give me my gift so he gave it to me last night. It's the best! See, about a year ago he bought me a Pandora bracelet and I decided that since the charms aren't exactly cheap, that I would only buy charms to commemorate special occasions. So after Jason proposed to me he bought me the "true love" charm, for my wedding gift he bought me the wedding cake charm and a clip with a blue rhinestone to be my something blue, when we found I was pregnant he bought me the baby carriage charm, when we found out it was a girl he bought me a pink charm, and to commemorate her birth he bought me the "little girl" charm (pictured below) and I couldn't love it more! He is absolutely the best hubby ever and I don't know what I ever did to deserve him!



So since we know that I won't be able to eat anything tomorrow we ordered a large pizza from LaRosa's for dinner so I could keep the leftovers in my room today. Now I can munch on cold pizza all day! But I guess them starving me tomorrow will be a good head start on my post-baby diet. And I must add that I'm in much better spirits today than I was yesterday. Although I'm still super emotional and cried this morning when I was listening to her heartbeat but it was a happy cry this time. I have several things to take care of today too and keeping busy keeps me happy. And I just keep telling myself that in 24 hours I could have my little one in my arms! So this may be my last full day being pregnant with Bri and it does make me a little sad. I feel like right now she is my constant companion and I'm never truly alone. I will miss that but it'll be worth it when I see her face for the first time.