5w through 12w1d - Long time no write

It's been forever and a day, I know.  Part of this is because I'm plum exhausted!  Another part is just that I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue blogging.  After all, while this blog is titled "Hoping for our miracle", we now HAVE our miracle so I questioned whether or not I should continue writing.  I also didn't want to be a blog that tells you about each and every poop our daughter takes.  In the end, I realized that since Maribel will have her whole pre-birth history to read on this blog, why not give her the post-birth stuff here too.  So I'll try to catch everything up as briefly as possible.

Over these last few weeks Maribel sure has experienced a lot!  We had an earthquake (in which daddy was at work and mommy was quite terrified...I seriously did not like the swaying feeling of our apartment building!)  We had Hurricane Irene (which was not bad at all in our town but in other areas, particularly in the county I grew up, was horrible.)  DH went away for 4 weeks for the Army from the end of August to the end of September.  We did fine without him, spending 2.5 weeks visiting family and friends, but we really, really missed him.  Just having him here with us and having that extra set of hands to help with Maribel and our dog - we missed everything about him.  But he's home now so everybody's happy!

As of last Wednesday (11w1d) Maribel weighed 13lbs 1oz so she's a really healthy girl.  She's growing out of clothes, in many cases only wearing them once before we have to retire them.  She's currently in 6 month onesies & outfits and 6-9 month sleepers (6 month sleepers are just about to short for her long legs now.)  She is still breastfeeding and supplementing with formula.  She eats a LOT!  Most feedings she'll feed from both breasts and then follow that up with a bottle (anywhere from 2oz - 3.5 oz of formula.)

Maribel started smiling at just past 5 weeks.  Oh we love her gummy smile!!  While DH was away she also started "talking".  It was amazing to watch her "find" her voice and really vocalize to us.  The day before he came home she giggled for the first time when I tickled her chin (ok, one of her many chins.)  Each day she seems to do more - follow my voice around the room, watch the dog walk past, suck her thumb, drool, actually play with her activity gym, etc.

She still doesn't like to sleep for very long.  At night she usually falls asleep around 8pm or 830pm and sleeps until 1am or 2am.  She eats and is up for about an hour.  Then she wakes again between 430am and 530am and is up for the day at that point.  (Now you can see why I'm pretty tired.)  She does nap throughout the day, but the length of the nap varies daily.

I'm feeling pretty well, not great, but ok I guess.  My joints are a wreck!  I'm not sure why but I have a tremendous amount of joint pain throughout my body which gets worse as the day goes on.  Hopefully it's just the after effects of being pregnant?  My itchy eczema is still present.  Not as bad as when I was pregnant but still making me itchy on a daily basis.  My psoriasis is coming back - UGH!!!  I really don't want to have both skin ailments but it looks like I'm not getting my wish.  And lastly I'm actually gaining weight lately.  I'm heavier now than I was when I first lost the water weight after coming home from the hospital.  Part of it I'm sure is from lack of sleep - I seriously have enough energy to get through the day and play with my daughter but beyond that, I'm zapped.  I also am a snackaholic, perhaps to help me get through the long days & nights.  But hopefully I'll get myself on the right track soon.

Here are some pictures from weeks I missed posting.  Sorry if some are huge - I re-sized them but they don't seem to be cooperating.  Ah well, enjoy!

Our little peanut at 5 weeks:  

Pics from her photoshoot with Breanne Larkin Photography at just past 5 weeks old:  





A little smile from our girl at 7w5d:  

Out for a ride in the stroller at 8 weeks:  

The next 2 shots are from 11 weeks old.  The first is a gorgeous gummy smile wearing a sundress made by Grandma A:


The second is her watching Yo Gabba Gabba while mommy was folding laundry:  

Well, I better go.  Someone small and adorable just woke up from her nap so I'll write again soon.  Bye for now!

Tomorrow is Maribel's 1 month old birthday!

Can you believe tomorrow Maribel will be 1 month old?? Seriously, how could a month already have gone by? She's so adorable and she seems to change a little every day. The picture above was from Tuesday (at 4 weeks old) after her bath. She's always been strong when it came to holding her head up, but now she's ALWAYS holding it up. We're starting to see little smiles when she's awake. They're more like half-smiles, but they're still oh so cute. She seems like she wants to "talk" but so far her noises are primarily squeaks. Her crying is now really loud instead of her little squeaky, fake sounding cries that she originally displayed for us. And we're picking out more of our features now - she has my dimples, the shape of my eyes, and my ears. Everything else is 100% like her daddy.

I won't lie though - it has been a challenging week so I apologize for abandoning my blog but I haven't had the energy (physical or mental) to write. We MAY have found a decent combination to help combat the gassiness. Originally the VentAire bottles seemed to be working, but eh, not so much. So now we're back on the Dr Brown's bottles with the Gerber Good Start Gentle and knock wood, we've had a very good day today with very little gassiness (and no regurgitations the last few days, I might add.)

If you recall from my last post I was hoping to ditch supplementing with formula but nope, that just isn't happening. In fact her formula intake has increased. I love breastfeeding but damn, this girl is just not satisfied. She will breastfeed from one boob for 15 minutes. Then 20 minutes later she wants the other boob for 15 minutes. Then she'll drink a couple ounces of formula and I'll pump. and the cycle continues. I'm beyond worn out, she's tired of crying to eat, it just wasn't a happy environment. So right now we're doing primarily bottle feeds with formula. I'm doing a few feedings a day on the breast and also pumping 2-3 times a day so we can mix a bit in with her formula and freeze the rest for future use. It's just an amazing difference on how full she feels after eating. Even if we give her a bottle of breastmilk, she's back to snacking every 20 minutes whereas the formula does fill her up for longer. So that's where we're at right now (and yes, it seems to change every few days as we try to find a rhythym that works.)

We're still having to walk laps around our apartment with her in the evenings so it seems that colic has arrived. We've tried gripe water to see if it would help and it's hard to say if it really is helping, but with that, bicycling her legs, and walking her around in various positions, we're getting through the tough times in the evening. She does love her bath too so that we know is one part of the evening where she feels good and relaxed. At least if it's colic, there is an end in sight, even though that end could be a couple months away.

As for me, I've been trying to fend off some post-partum depression. It's kicked in some this week, probably because it's been quite challenging with sooooo little sleep (Maribel was up every single hour last night and DH was away for work so it was a long, long night) and that was on top of many days in a row with minimal sleep. I was so tired today that I pumped 2.5 oz of breastmilk and carried that bottle and a dirty formula bottle to the kitchen. I got to the sink and mistakenly dumped the freshly pumped breastmilk down the drain...UGH!! I lost track of how many times I cried today but between my fatigue, my terrible cooking (long story from another day but suffice it to say I really am a lousy cook), my weight that is going up instead of down, my car needing to go to the shop AGAIN today for ANOTHER $400+ repair (last repair for a similar amount was only a month ago), my "failing" at exclusively breastfeeding, my baby who won't stop crying at night (yes, she eventually stops but if you've ever been around a colicky baby, you know exactly how exasperating it can be) and me wondering how I'm going to handle things when DH goes away to an Army course in the future - well, all of that is enough to make me feel pretty darn shitty. I know I'll start feeling better soon and for now I've got DH and my sister who can watch out for me to make sure I don't go off the edge, since I know PPD can really sneak up on someone.

Next week we have her one month doctor's appointment (with a vaccination, ouch) and we make our first trip to upstate NY to see my family. The baby, dog, & I will be spending a week up at the farm where Maribel will get to meet her Grampy, her big brother, and her other niece that she hasn't met yet. It will be interesting to see how she does on the car ride (just under 5 hours) too so I'll at least have a few things to post about late next week. For now though, it's time to start pumping again so we'll talk again soon.

3 weeks, 2 days - Gained 10.5 ounces!

Go Maribel!! She gained a whopping 10.5 ounces over the last 8 days (and grew 1/4 of an inch too!) She now weighs 8 pounds, 13.5 ounces and the doctor has cleared us to go back to exclusively breastfeeding. One, I am soooo happy that she had this great weight gain. The doctor said sometimes they just need that nudge to get things going. Two, I am soooo happy to be able to stop supplementing with formula. Between the regurgitation and gassiness the bottlefeeding has given her, we'll be thrilled to ditch that! Bring on the boob juice 100% of the time again! Her next checkup is 8/11 so that will be her one month visit where she'll get her second Hep B vaccine and we'll again make sure her weight gain is progressing as it should.

In other news, today was DH's first day back to work after his leave. He worked one day a couple of weeks ago (because he had to be available for work for a couple of days between his paternity leave and his regular leave) but now he'll be back into the full swing of work again. Maribel, our dog, and I have all missed him lots and lots today! Oh how I wish we were independently wealthy and could all stay home together. But alas, we are not. So now we'll do our part to see if we can get into somewhat of a routine during the day. This morning we got the stroller out and took a nice long walk before it got too hot. That felt GREAT and I'm pretty sure the dog enjoyed it too (since my late pregnancy walks were very short and as few and far between as possible.)

Well, the princess is starting to stir so I must run. Here is a pic of her from Tuesday when she turned 3 weeks old. What a sweetie she is!

20 days old - Not enough hours in the day

I seriously don't know where the hours go when a newborn arrives. Most days I'm finally getting to eat breakfast around 11 (if I'm lucky) after waking, changing, feeding, changing, snuggling, taking the dog out, feeding, changing, pumping, snuggling, etc. If I try really hard I can also get a load of laundry going or the dishwasher loaded or unloaded but things like a shower or real housecleaning, um, yeah, not happening. Then the afternoon has lots of feeding, changing, pumping, snuggling, feeding, tummy time, oh yeah eat some lunch, changing, and maybe, just maybe, folding some of the laundry I started earlier in the day. Evenings are when the little princess gets a bit grouchy. She gets really gassy (as evident by the plentiful farts she produces) and generally just doesn't feel so great. So in addition to feeding, changing, pumping, we also add in walking, bouncing, bicycling her legs, massaging her tummy, and whatever else we can to get her settled and feeling better. Somehow through all of these daily happenings, the clock seems to fly from 8am - 11pm in the blink of an eye. I must say though, while our days are just filled with baby everything, DH and I wouldn't have it any other way. We are completely on cloud nine with our Maribel .

The new feeding schedule drives me a bit crazy. It seems to take forever to breastfeed, then feed a bottle, then pump what she didn't get to drink. Sometimes I'll mix it up so she just breastfeeds one feeding, then the next feeding is primarily formula (with a little pumped breastmilk) with Daddy while Mommy pumps. This is at least allowing me to still keep the supply up (and start stocking the freezer) while not spending all day in my glider rocker with either baby or pump attached to my boobs. We're really hoping that Thursday's weigh-in shows improvement in her gaining weight like she should.

The past week has also been challenging as we tried to find a good formula & bottle combination for Maribel's tummy. She's not always the best bottle drinker. If she drinks too fast or drinks too much she has an explosive regurgitation of everything she drank - out of her mouth and nose, the poor girl just can't hold in what she drank (and it breaks our heart to see milk/formula flying out of her...that can't feel good for her!) We found that some formulas seemed to increase the number of times she'd regurgitate everything. Similac was not her friend. Neither was Gerber Good Start. Both of those were samples we got from the pediatrician and the little one didn't take well to either of them. DH went out a couple nights ago and got some Gerber Good Start Gentle and so far (knock wood) we've only had one regurgitation with it. We also have tried 5 different kinds of bottles to find one that would slow down her drinking and cut down on gassiness. When DH picked up the GS Gentle formula he also grabbed a Playtex Ventaire bottle (DD loves these for her little one) and it's been really good so far so I think we'll be picking up more of those. After each feeding we also keep her upright for awhile (a long while), burp her a lot, and just pray that we're not going to see that meal come back up.

We also started using our cloth diapers (CDs) on Saturday. Love them! They're so easy (even DH said they're just like using a disposable) and so soft against her skin. And I love thinking of the disposables she's NOT using - especially when she's using 12-14 diapers a day at this point (she sure does poop a lot!) The diaper sprayer we bought works great too to just spray the mess into the toilet - again, so easy! The CDs do make her butt look huge, but I love that look of the fluffy butt. The pic at the top of today's post is Maribel rocking the fluff on her first day of wearing CDs. I don't think she was too happy with Mommy though during the photo shoot - she was just waking up and wanted boob NOW!

Well, I'm happy to have finally had 20 minutes to write today but my little darling is starting to squeak which means waking can't be too far away. Gotta run!

15 days old - Come on princess, let's gain some ounces!

Maribel turned 2 weeks old yesterday and in honor of that milestone, here is a picture from that day.



We've had a few interesting days since my last post. I think Maribel must have read my blog and thought she was being too easy on us and therefore adjusted her schedule. The last few evenings she's had a tough time. Around 6 or 7pm she started getting really irritable. She'd act really hungry but when she'd try to eat she'd suck for a few minutes and get super frustrated with the whole process. This cycle would go on until about 11pm or so.

We also went to the doctor today for her weight check and she still is not gaining like she should be. In the last week she only gained 3 oz so she's currently at 8lb3oz. When I described to the pediatrician how she had recently started acting, he mentioned the possibility of colic (which I remember, and not fondly, from my DD's infanthood 22 years ago) but said this would be a really early start for that. Since she's having enough wet & dirty diapers it seems as though the quantity of milk she's getting is ok. And my pumping amount for DH's evening bottle is back to a more "normal" (for me) amount of 3 - 3.5 oz. But the doctor is thinking it could be that my breastmilk is not high enough in calories for her to gain weight and be satisfied after a feeding.

So we'll continue to breastfeed for 10-15 minutes on our current schedule (every 2-3 hours during the day and every 3-4 hours at night) and offer formula after she breastfeeds. I'm also going to pump after these feedings so my milk supply doesn't decrease with the decrease in the demand. Then it's back to the pediatrician next Thursday for another weight check and hopefully this time we'll see a substantial weight gain.

And I guess we'll see how this evening goes with the addition of formula after breast. If she's still super irritable it may hint that she does have some colic going on, but if we start seeing her more "satisfied" in the evenings I'll be happy knowing she's getting what she needs from both me and the supplementing with formula. So we shall see and I'll report back soon.

12 days old - Sleeping & eating - her favorite pastimes

Here's our little princess at 11 days old - chilling out on Daddy's lap on the patio. The last few days we've all been spoiled rotten by my family. My mom, daughter, granddaughter, sister, and 2 nieces arrived on Friday just after lunch. They drove down together from upstate NY to meet our little one and help out the new mommy & daddy. Between the delicious home cooked meals they brought down, to the many walks they took our dog on, to loading and unloading the dishwasher numerous times, to loving and holding our little Maribel - we were seriously spoiled rotten! It was a full house (or full tiny apartment) with air mattresses and sleeping bags spread around, but it was soooo wonderful to see and spend time with family. I hadn't been up for a visit since Memorial Day weekend since we didn't want me too far away so close to the end of my pregnancy (especially after my pre-term contractions in early June) so seeing them was long overdue! After a nice breakfast at the diner this morning, they headed back home and I'm already looking forward to seeing them when I go up for a visit in August.

Maribel's been doing great! She's still in the "sleeps a lot" stage though we're starting to see a couple periods during the day where she stays awake longer. I know that in the next couple of weeks we'll see a huge increase in wake periods, but for now she loves to loaf for a good portion of the day. She's eating very well and nights are getting a bit easier on DH and me. We're not complete zombies anymore which is delightful (now I know we'll have more zombie nights in the future, but touch wood, the last few nights have been pretty darn good.) In fact, I generally have to wake her for one or two feedings at night so we don't go longer than 4 hours. Now some may say "let a sleeping baby sleep" but I seriously need my milk supply to stay strong at this early stage. Just the past two days she's had a period of cluster feeding where she eats from one boob, eats from the other, then within 20 minutes she's eating again - like she just can't be satisfied. And she seriously drains me at those feedings. Also the amounts I've been able to pump decreased a little as well, so for now I'm trying to drink fluids like they're going out of style and keep daytime feedings 2-3 hours apart and nighttime feedings 2-4 hours apart. Hopefully that will keep the supply going strong. Not to mention, my boobs turn to bricks and leak like a sieve once we start hitting the 3 hour mark.

As for me, I'm feeling pretty good. The pain from the c-section is completely gone. My weight as of Friday morning was 170.2 so I'm about 7 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight (163.6) Mind you, the day after I came home from the hospital I was actually 2 pounds heavier (184.2) than the morning we went to the hospital (182.2). What??? After giving birth to an 8 pound baby, placenta, and amniotic fluid??? How could I weigh more? But really I was so swollen from all of the fluids they pumped into me and the surgery in general that my legs looked like tree trunks, my feet were just puffy masses, and my hands looked like the Hamburger Helper hand so I guess it took a few days for that fluid retention to go down. So just under 7 pounds to go to get to my pre-pregnancy weight and then I'll start working on my big weight loss goal. Ideally, I'd like to lose an additional 28.6 pounds to get me down to 135, but I'd even be happy to get back down to 145, which is where I was at when we got married.

Well, sleeping baby just started to stir. And so I'll close today by saying I'd personally like to thank the individual who invented breast pads. Because of you I'm not ruining every bra & shirt I own. So whoever you are, thank you!

8 days old already!!

How in the world did our little one become 8 days old already? Time is flying by! The days go so fast, what with nursing every 2-3 hours and walking through some parts of the day and/or night like a zombie. DH & I have a new appreciation for coffee, that's for sure!

Things have been going great! On Monday, we had our first family outing to see Dr D so he could remove my stitch. I remember when he was stitching me up, he was explaining to the assisting OB, the method he was using to close the incision and all I can say is that I LOVED that method. All he had to do was clip the knot on one end and pulled the stitch right out the other end. Quick and painless, just the way I like things! I go back for my post-partum visit on August 15th and then my time with Dr D will be done. It will be weird not going back there again but I'll forever be thankful for everything he did for us (and knowing me, I'll cry saying goodbye to him.)

Yesterday, Maribel turned 1 week old. And to celebrate we went on her second outing, this time to the grocery store. Ok, we really didn't celebrate in that fashion but we seriously needed groceries in the house so a family outing it became. I pushed my cart of groceries and DH pushed our little princess in another cart (see picture below.) One funny moment from this trip - I was waiting for our deli order to be completed and another worker came up and asked if that was my baby in the cart. I said yes. Then she looked at my belly and said "And you're pregnant again?" Oh my goodness, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. I said "No, she's just a week old so this is from her", patting my belly. She said she didn't realize that you were still left with a belly after having a baby and she thought it instantly went away. I curse TV shows and supermodels for this misunderstanding people have. I definitely still look 4-5 months pregnant at this point but it's a shame that people think the post-partum days and weeks are like the character Rachel on Friends where she's instantly transformed to her pre-pregnancy figure immediately after birth. At least there's now one more educated woman in the world (and she's damn lucky I found her question funny.)



Today was Maribel's third outing, this time to her pediatrician. She's looking great and we'll go back in one week just to check her weight. Her weight at birth was 8 pounds. Her weight on Friday when she was discharged from the hospital was 7lbs 15.4 ounces so she only lost 6 tenths of a pound. Today, she was again at 8lbs. So they really just want to make sure she gains at least a few ounces in the next week. She's eating great, evidenced by her healthy amount (perhaps overly healthy amount) of wet & dirty diapers but I'll feel better knowing she's putting on some additional weight by next Wednesday.

So here are some additional pictures for your viewing pleasure:

This was Maribel & me while she was still in the NICU. DH had gone home for the night and I wanted to text him a pic of the two girls who love him most in the world.


Maribel at 5 days old had just fallen asleep after eating and was making lots of faces. This smile was priceless:


One more of Maribel at 5 days old. Here just chilling out while mom & dad watched the women's world cup soccer.


And here's our little princess at 1 week old:


So I'm slightly caught up with things at this point. The little one should be waking up any moment so forgive me if this is full of errors and/or poor grammar.

Home, exhausted, and loving it!

Maribel is peacefully napping in her swing at the moment so I figured I'd use this time to catch everyone up on the goings-on.

As the post title says - we are home! We were both discharged from the hospital yesterday. I was so surprised and happy that we were both able to go home at the same time. On Friday morning at the 5am feeding the nurse was mentioning how maybe Maribel would get to go home after another day (I'd been dreading being discharged on Friday and her having to stay.) Then at the 8am feeding, the day nurse said they'd dropped her IV level overnight and her blood glucose levels were fine so she was given the ok to stop the IV (this left me feeling hopeful that she'd be getting out soon.) Then on my walk to the NICU for her 10:45am feeding the nurse saw me in the hall and said the doctors had decided to discharge Maribel that day. Oh my god, I was overjoyed!! So Friday was spent waiting for my doctor to discharge me, and watching some mandatory videos for NICU babies on carseat safety, infant CPR and choking, having babies sleep on their back, etc. Around 2pm I got the all-clear from my doctor and called DH to have him come get his girls and bring us home. What a wonderful feeling to leave the hospital as a family and head home. Amazing!

Overall I must say the hospital stay was great. The nurses in the mother-baby unit (taking care of me), the nurses in the NICU (taking care of Maribel), and all of the doctors that checked in on her were great. The nurse we had for our c-section, Jen, was one we had when we were there for our pre-term labor stay in early June. She saw us on the c-section schedule, recognized our names, and swapped with someone else so she could be our nurse for the c-section. We'd really liked her when we had her as our nurse in June so when she walked into our labor room, I was really excited (and even more happy when we learned that she'd swapped with someone else to be with us.)

The c-section itself went fabulously. An emergency had come in so we got bumped. We were originally scheduled for 11am but ended up going into the OR around 12:30pm but that was no big deal for us. When it was our turn, the nurse and anesthesiologist walked me to the OR. During this time, DH had to put on his "spacesuit" (which is super hot and sweaty), his little booties, and his adorable little hat and then had to wait for our nurse to come get him. So while he was getting dressed, I sat on the table and got my spinal. This went fine, especially knowing what to expect after my TAC in January. As my legs got heavy, they hooked me up to all of the different monitors, put my nasal cannula in for oxygen, lightly strapped my arms down, got the curtain hanging up so I couldn't see below my chest, put in my catheter, etc. Once everyone had scrubbed in, they told Jen to go get "Dad".

DH came in and sat next to my head. Afterwards he told me that walking into that room and seeing all of the people, seeing me on the OR table, etc really got him nervous, or as he put it "that's when my heartburn started". As soon as DH sat down, Dr D called out that they were making the incision and called out the time. It was officially underway. Within about 3-4 minutes, he announced "making uterine incision" and called out the time. Oh my god, it was almost time. The pressure and pulling and tugging feeling they warned me of - holy shit that is INTENSE! Two grown men putting tons of weight on your abdomen, pulling in different directions. Wow, it hurt! And it didn't hurt where they were tugging of course, it was like a huge amount of pressure on my upper back and shoulders. Again - wow, it really hurt!

Next thing I know, I hear "head is out". Oh man, I can't believe it. Next I hear, "Dad, stand up and take a look." DH stood, took one look and said "Oh my god, she's beautiful!" And that my friends is when I started crying. And I mean crying! I was sobbing buckets of joyful tears. When I heard her cry, I cried even harder. And when they handed her to Jen who brought her over to the side so I could see her, impossibly, I cried even harder. We'd made it. After all we'd been through over the last few years and all of the waiting these last 9 months, our daughter was here and it was just the most incredible feeling in the world. According to DH, that first look he got of her was of a scrunched up little baby - eyes closed, legs still bent up to chest, having that blue-ish look of having just been pulled out, and seeing all of that gorgeous black hair of hers.
The time it took to get from incision to her arrival was soooo quick it was unbelievable. And from the time I walked into the OR to the time they wheeled me out of recovery, baby in my arms, was less than one hour. It's definitely one hour DH and I will never forget.

So now that we're all home together we're loving our time as a family. DH's parents and sister were here waiting for us in the parking lot of our apartment complex when we arrived home yesterday. They stayed last night but decided to to go home this evening instead of tomorrow. I overdid things a bit this morning as I did housework when I really should have been taking it easy and having others help me with housework. But other than that, we just spent the day with our new favorite routine - feeding, sleeping, changing diapers, repeat. We didn't sleep much last night at all but that's ok. Maribel is an awesome eater and breastfeeding is going great! My milk came in at the hospital early Friday morning and the baby is taking advantage of that. So she was up to eat quite a few times in the night. But waking up and seeing that adorable little face makes it all worthwhile.

One funny story and then I must go. Last night it looked like I had a bug bite below my left eye. It didn't itch but the size and shape looked like a mosquito bite. Really weird! Well, I went to wash my hands before the next feeding (like an hour or so later) and I had a couple more small bumps under that eye and a couple under my right eye too. WTH is going on? Next trip to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and yep, there's more. But now they're merging together and holy shit, these aren't bug bites. We've just witnessed the formation of bags under my eyes. Too freaking funny! With only about 10 hours of sleep since Tuesday and now waking just about once an hour to feed, change, etc took it appears exhaustion took a toll on my face.

Well, the little one is starting to fuss a bit so I think it's time for the boob buffet to open for business. I'll check back in soon and will post more pics in the next couple of days.

Doing much better but still in NICU

Hi there! Things have been busy here at the hospital so I haven't had the time (or brainpower) to write. Today's update will be brief as well, just so I have time to walk a little before my next visit to the NICU. The picture you see on this post is DH & Maribel in the NICU yesterday afternoon - aren't they just sooo darn cute??

So if you recall, late on Tuesday (her birth day) they took Maribel to the NICU because of her breathing. They put her on the nasal cannula, started an IV, started antibiotics, and did blood work to check for infections. Since she was particularly having trouble breathing through her nose, she was unable to eat. DH spent a few hours with her that evening in the NICU while I was restricted to my bed. Our nurse was kind enough though in the wee hours of Wednesday morning to get me hooked up with a wheelchair and rigged up my IV bag and catheter so I could go see Maribel in the NICU.

That was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits! While of course it was hard to see her with the nasal cannula taped to her face, see little monitors all over her body, and see her IV in her arm (with her arm taped to a straight little board to keep it from bending) I had just missed her so much, it felt amazing to see her. DH & I spent two hours with her, from 12:30am-2:30am, holding her and watching her every breath, wishing she'd stop struggling to breathe, and then went back to my room and tried to get some sleep (and by that I think we each got 2-3 hours.)

At 10am Wednesday morning my catheter was out and the nurse had made sure I could walk around on my own. Then as soon as she gave me the ok, I walked to the NICU to see our little girl. I was thrilled to see the nasal cannula gone and the nurse asked if I wanted to breastfeed. YIPPEE!!! I'd been pumping every 3 hours but this was awesome news! So since yesterday morning, Maribel has kept her pulse ox levels normal without needing additional oxygen and she's been nursing every 3 hours. As of today though, she's still in the NICU. I'm hoping she'll be able to go home tomorrow if I'm also discharged tomorrow. The items that are still pending are: she needs her cultures to be normal and she needs to be drinking enough breastmilk to be able to be weaned off of the IV fluids. Please, please let her come home with me tomorrow!

So my schedule right now has been - go to the NICU, feed Maribel, and snuggle with her. I usually spend an hour or hour and fifteen minutes doing that. After that I spend a little time walking the halls as I know walking is really important in helping with the c-section recovery. So I count my walk to and from the NICU, then I also do a walk to fill up my ice pitcher, or just do a lap around the nurses station. Then it's back to my room to eat/drink/pee/take pain meds and text any updates. Then I try to take a nap if I can (generally about 1 hour.) So this whole cycle takes 3 hours and I just keep repeating it all day and all night. I feel really good even though the only sleep I'm getting are these 1 hour catnaps. And I'm crampy of course from the c-section but so far percocet is helping me get through the bulk of the pain.

Lastly, I'm finally on solid foods - yippee!! After Tuesday being restricted to just ice and water, then Wednesday being restricted to full liquid diet (tea, juice, sherbet, soup, jell-o), I'm happy to report that I'm back on solid food and loving it!

So I'm going to leave you now to do a little walking and get ready for my 10:45 date with the NICU. Will report back in soon!

She's here!! And she's amazing!!

Maribel is here and I tell you, it's love at first sight! I'll come back, tomorrow perhaps, to give more of the details on the prep, surgery, etc because I'm a little too tired to write all of that tonight. For the details, she was born at 12:52pm, weighed 8 pounds and .02 ounces, and is 20 inches long. The c-section itself went fabulous, Maribel did a great job nursing in the recovery room, and we enjoyed a few hours with her in our room.

Then she had to go to the NICU. She was making "snorting" noises at times and the nurse noticed she was retracting when breathing. So they brought in the pediatrician and checked her pulse ox. Her saturation levels were just under what they'd like to see. So in the NICU they did a chest x-ray (looked good), took some blood to check for infections (started her on antibiotics just in case) and put her on an IV (that's about all she's going to have to "eat" until tomorrow). Since she's really not breathing through her nose they don't want her to struggle trying to eat. In the meantime, they set me up with a pump so my supply keeps up and I'm pumping every 2-3 hours. They can use the little colostrum I'm producing to give to her via swab in and around her mouth. DH is in the NICU with her so I feel good that he's with her even if I can't be. I'll have my catheter until tomorrow morning so I can't walk to the NICU to see her, but the nurse mentioned perhaps wheeling me over to see her later tonight. That would be so awesome because I tell you I miss my little girl like crazy!! I cried buckets when they wheeled her out of our room and I just can't wait to have her back with us.