Getting Information

I got a call this afternoon from the neonatalogist that I like. She told me that Amelia is doing well and she explained quite a bit more on the apnea issue. Apparently it wasn't just a matter of stopping breathing. The first couple of days that she had these apnea episodes, the nurses had to "vigorously rouse her" to get her to start breathing again. In other words, she stopped breathing, turned color, and had to have significant help to start again. Kari (the neonatalogist) said that it's getting a lot better and that now she just needs a nudge to start breathing again. Yeah, she had another episode this morning. Kari wanted to assure me that it is getting better and that it probably means that she's growing out of it. Knowing that these episodes were so significant, I have no problem whatsoever in having her stay in the hospital as long as she needs. It's amazing how much better I feel about her care just having more information about her actual condition. I'm sure that they just didn't want to scare me and that's why they didn't tell me just how significant her episodes were. But I'm the kind of person who can't be comfortable if I don't understand the whole situation.
Anyway, she is actually doing better. I do still want her to come home, but I'm trying to be patient. In the meantime, I took a bunch more pics with my cell phone today...

Progress and Setbacks

So, it turns out that Amelia has had some apnea problems. I had to practically beg for information about this apnea because one of the neonatalogists isn't as forthcoming as I would like. Apparently, there are a couple of things going on.
When she was born, the doctors decided to give her nutritional supplement through an IV. It's called a pic line (not sure how it's spelled) and it's a central IV that goes deep into her body. That thing is a source of frustration for me, because every time I try to breastfeed her, the pic line alarm goes off, saying that it's blocked. Every single time, at least 2 or 3 times per feeding.

This nutritional supplement consists of fats and lipids and apparently is standard (in this hospital at least) for premies. Not that I was consulted.

The first neonatalogist said that because she was latching on and getting quite a bit of milk (they weigh her both before and after feedings to see how much she's getting), we could go with on-demand feedings. That means that they wouldn't force her to eat at certain times or intervals, but would let her decide.

This morning, the neonatalogist decided to change the order slightly to try to ween her off the pic line. Not that I was consulted. The result of that weening was that they wanted her to eat a certain amount every certain amount of time.

Because of this, I was pretty upset when the nurse told me they would be putting a tube in her nose or forcing her to take a bottle if she wasn't eating that certain amount every certain amount of time. And I only feel slightly bad about pretty much yelling at both the doctor and the nurse about this whole thing. I told them that I did NOT want her to be bottle-fed and I really did NOT want her to have a tube in her nose. I really really really don't want her to forget how to breastfeed. That was a massive source of frustration with Felix and I don't think I can handle that mentally again.

The doctor conceded that they would hold off on weening her off the pic line to make sure she's getting her feedings by breast first. And wouldn't you know it, they turned down the pic line again and she still got a great feeding last time I was in.

The other frustration is the apnea thing. The neonatalogists have both told me that no hospital will send a baby home if it has apnea. Well, after practically yelling at the doctor this morning, I finally got him to tell me that there are certain levels of this apnea. And Amelia is having bad enough apnea that it will keep her in the hospital for 7 full days after her last episode. Since she had an episode this morning (change of color or 20 second documented without breathing - this morning it was the color change), that means I won't be able to take her home for at least another week.

This is one of the reasons why I think it's premature (hah!) to ween her from the pic line. If we know that we have at least 7 more days before she can be discharged, why can't we just ween her a lot more gradually? It doesn't make sense to me to fill her more full of tubes and force her to take a bottle that will only make things more complicated once we get her home. Plus, she's already back up to her birth weight so it's not like things are any kind of desperate... You can imagine my heartbreak at not being able to have my baby yet. She is in every other way healthy and it just kills me to not have her here. I'm finding it extremely difficult to adjust mentally to having this baby that I don't actually have. I will concede that the hormones left over from pregnancy might be making things worse, but I doubt I'd be happy with the situation any other time.

More Amelia

I'm sooooooooo in love! How can you not love her already?!

Amelia Linda - as promised

The tube in her mouth is because she aspirated some fluid during the night. She's still doing well and I'm still hopeful that she'll be coming home soon - early next week maybe?

Thanks for all the well wishes. I'm excited to be showing her off in person sometime in the next couple of weeks.

For those who have asked, I'd love to have visitors. There's no window to the NICU and they've limited us to only 4 different visitors (besides her parents, of course) for the entire time she's here. But once she's home and as long as you're healthy, you're welcome to come and gawk at the beautiful new baby. :) And you're welcome to visit me any time. I'd love to see you.

Heather

A baby? Already?!?!?!?!

Okay, so here's the story...

I had a midwife appointment this morning at 10:30 and was contracting the whole drive up. By the time my appt was done, my midwife had decided to transfer my care to Timp Hospital because my blood pressure was still high and she was still so early. And since the doctors from last week had ordered twice-weekly non-stress tests on the baby, I came straight to the hospital on my way home.

A non-stress test requires 20 minutes of uninterrupted baby heartbeat, but it took over 3 hours because with every contraction the baby would just move and they'd have to move the monitors. And while I was trying to hold still so the baby wouldn't move, the contractions were getting stronger.

About 4:10 this afternoon, the nurses came in to give me IV fluids and some pills to hopefully slow down the contractions. They also checked my cervix again and I was still dilated to a 3 - same as last week. They said that since I wasn't progressing they'd come back in an hour and check me again.

4:22 I had one giant contraction and I had to push. That broke my water. I elbowed the nurse button and she came in to check the printouts. When I told her my water broke, she called in two more nurses, and still on that giant contraction/push, out came baby.

Before I could even look up, they whisked baby off to the NICU and she hollered the whole way - a very good sign. Doctors and Brent and mom showed up a few minutes later, and by then I was feeling a billion times better.

So, Amelia Linda Webster was born at 4:25 this afternoon, weighing 5 lbs 12 ounces, 20 inches long. Long and skinny. She has blond curly hair, and she looks a whole lot like her big brother. What a cutie! How in the world did I get a long skinny baby with blond curly hair?!

I'm doing fine and will ask the doctors to send me home tomorrow. She'll likely be here for a week or so. There are some criteria that have to be met for them to send her home, but she really is doing great.

I would have been surprised...

if the tests had come back negative for a UTI today.

But I wasn't surprised. So I'm starting round 5 of antibiotics as soon as Brent gets to the pharmacy and then when it's done I'll be on a maintenance dose through the rest of the pregnancy.

I called American Fork hospital and asked what I would need to come in for non-stress tests on the baby and they said to just show up. Then I called the midwives to see if I could get one of them to assist in case I went early and they said I would have to have an appointment first and they're booked for a few weeks. That means that by the time I would get in to see them I would be at 37 weeks and wouldn't need to go there anyway. Oh well. If baby decides to show up in the next 2 1/2 weeks then I'll just have to go with whoever is on call.

My back is killing me. My dad thinks it's a kidney stone. The urologist today said that was a likely cause of lingering infection. The hope is that it's actually just the baby causing problems and that it will all just magically go away once she's born. I'm crossing my fingers.

Oh, some have asked if I'm going to have a baby shower. I don't have anything planned and I don't honestly need much. I don't have a single scrap of baby girl clothing, although I do have some generic onesies and such left-over from Felix. We haven't started stocking up on the diapers yet, but will soon. Can't have too many of those, eh? My mom says she's going to get me a diaper genie because she was impressed with my sister's. And I could eventually use a toddler bed. We have something rigged up for Felix in the meantime that he likes so there's no pressing need.

In other words, if you feel like you'd be interested in giving a gift, I'm open to anything. I would be just as happy with a visit as with an actual gift. So there you have it. I don't really feel ready for this, but there's not much left to do. I need to pack an overnight bag and put it in the car and stuff like that. For just in case. I don't want to be completely unprepared again.

spaghetti

Felix loves it. My belly does not.

I don't know what it is, but sleeping last night wasn't pleasant. I was so exhausted, but I woke up twice in the night feeling like I was about to throw up. I finally slept in the comfy recliner. It wasn't as comfy as I would have liked, but it was better than waking up every couple of hours with the acid at the back of my throat. blech!

I'm feeling exhausted more than anything. The belly doesn't want me to do anything strenuous and I'm fine with that. So I sit and try to direct traffic. It doesn't work all that well with Felix trying to undo all the cleaning that gets done.

I did talk a niece and nephew into coming over and helping. Becca is an amazing helper, and we repaid her for her work by taking her to see Twilight. Cheesy but fun. I'm glad I had low-ish expectations because I then wasn't disappointed. And Andy is giving Felix a bath after his spaghetti outing. At least I don't have to lean over the tub.

Brent is trying his hardest to get work done, but will probably be working all night tonight, all day and all night tomorrow just to get finished in time. I feel guilty asking him to clean up because he has so much to do, but I can't stand the mess of life. You know?

Brent was kind enough to make me an alternate dinner. The spicy sausage in the spaghetti sauce would have definitely given me heartburn and I really don't want a repeat of last night. I think I'll go to bed pretty soon. Soooooooooo tired!

going home!

Doc says there's no protein in my urine at all, which means my organs are functioning just fine. The most I've got is some pregnancy-related hypertension, so they're ordering twice-weekly stress tests in the hospital (I've requested that those tests be ordered at American Fork hospital so I don't have to drive all the way up here twice a week).

Otherwise, I'm good to go. I still need to call Becky (my midwife) to see how she wants to proceed. But... I'M FREE!!!!!

No more snoring/smoking roommate. No more really good desserts. No more bed that magically lifts me up when I need to go to the bathroom.

Good riddance, I say.

another update

I told the nurse that I wanted more information so she paged the doctor. He told her that nothing had changed since yesterday (yeah, I knew that part!) and that they were just waiting on the results of my 24-hour urine catch that just finished.

I told the nurse that wasn't enough. I needed to know what the urine catch was testing for, what the results might mean for my body, and what might my expectations be either way. She said she'd call him again.

Apparently you just have to beg for information.

In other news, I got to take a shower this morning and I feel semi-human. Clean, at the very least. And this morning the nutrition guy actually took my order for lunch. Pulled pork and broccoli that wasn't overcooked, along with some potato casserole that had an unfortunate amount of onions in it. Cranberry juice to drink, and a roll.

But dessert. Woah. I'm almost feeling bad for complaining so much about this hospital. Can you tell what it is? Creme brulee'. I licked it out. Yeah, it was that good. There was even a little chocolate truffle as a side dessert.

I'm so glad I'm not the diabetic in the bed next to me. She's on a seriously restricted diet. My only restrictions are not knowing what's going on, apparently. And the nurses all telling me "your peepee is too dark". That courtesy of Yuko - cute Japanese nurse aide with a strong accent. She's told me that a few times.

Anyway, I'm back to waiting. But I'm comfortable, I'm clean, I'm fed (some yummy food even), and my husband and toddler are on their way.

Oh, nurse just came to tell me that the doctor will come with information when the lab results come in - hopefully by 2 pm. I would have hoped he could spare a moment before then, but that'll have to do. Better than nothing, I guess. Denise (my nurse for this shift) tells me that the charge nurse is even trying to put a rush on my results.

Huh. I guess when you make some noise things can actually go in your favor. At least information-wise!

More as I hear it...

hospital/baby update

It's just after midnight. My roommate is sawing some serious logs. I've been checked extensively and my blood pressure is not staying consistently down. It's not high enough for toxemia, but they wanted to rule out pre-eclampsia and liver damage (thus the second overnight stay).

I had some wonderful visitors today and spent some good time catching up on blogs. I'm not caught up completely, but I feel like a ginormous slacker for not knowing things about pregnancies and babies and adoptions and moving and stuff. I am sooooooo sorry I've been so wrapped up with things that I've been ignoring everyone else.

You're wonderful and I really do love you all!

Last I heard from the docs, they're going to monitor me through noon on Friday. And hopefully that means they're going to send me home. I plan on calling my midwife in the morning to see if she has specific instructions for me, but I'm guessing I'll be on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy. Especially since my blood pressure isn't being consistent.

I'll update again once I know anything. Oh, I am feeling a billion times better. Last thing is to get the dang IV out of my hand...

Update to the update: 6:45-ish Friday...
I did sleep. For a bit. I've been up for almost 2 hours though because at first I couldn't sleep through the snoring. But now my roommate is out on a smoke break and she's been up for half an hour so I really should have tried again.

Doesn't mean it would do me any good.

I'm still quite swollen and puffy looking, and my blood pressure is still high. They took it at 6-ish and it was 158/56 I think. The nurse said that they don't get concerned unless the systolic (top) is consistently over 160 (it hasn't been yet, although it's been close for a while now) or if the diastolic (bottom) goes over 100 (which it hasn't even gotten close).

So maybe my fears about getting stuck in the hospital another day or two are unfounded. I seriously hate this hospital. I don't care about the specialists and the specialist hospital right next door. I want to see my other baby and cuddle him and have my husband stop by at least once a day. And I want to be closer to the rest of my family too so it's not such a burden.

I mean, I want to be cared for, of course, but I have no doubts that American Fork hospital could adequately do that. All I've heard are rave reviews.

Last night here, after asking for toilet paper like 4 times (I'm not exaggerating - I asked for paper towels too because we were out of those as well), I still got stuck in the bathroom with no means to wipe. And having a smoking roommate who snores like a logger means I'm not getting much rest. And I desperately need good rest.

The nurse helpfully told me that if I was here for another day I could have an Ambien to help me sleep. How about some ear plugs and housekeeping?! And a room temperature that's not set at 75? And maybe 14 more pillows so I don't have to lay on my back at an angle?

Sigh. Just a little frustrated with a few things...

Wallpaper tag

Because I'm a bad friend, I just barely caught the tag. Sorry about that Kristin. :)

Truth is that my wallpaper is the generic one that comes with the Mac operating system. I'm dumb enough about Macs that I have not even the slightest idea how to change it. It's some kind of purple and navy space scene. Pleasant enough, I guess.

The desktop on my work computer (where I can't access blog stuff because of work blocks) is much more interesting. It's a picture of a Norwegian fjord. Some day I'll take a cruise up the fjords of Norway. I've wanted to do so ever since I can remember. My dad served his mission in Norway and I've been enchanted with it ever since. Alaska has some similar scenery (based on the pics of Norway I've seen), but Norway seems like the real thing. Not sure why.

I'm not really into tagging people, but I like the idea of other people answering the question and putting up a picture for people to gawk at. Feel free to share!

baby news

I'm in the hospital being thoroughly poked and prodded, so although I want to spend time with friends and go see Twilight, there will be no movie for me - likely not till baby shows up. I've been having contractions for a week (mostly the harmless non-progressing kind) but they took a turn on Sunday. I called my midwife on Monday and was put on bedrest till she could check me out yesterday. Then at the appt yesterday she was concerned enough with my symptoms to send me to the hospital.

I'm at the UofU hospital in salt lake and have been miserable. I wonder if the stress of sitting in a super uncomfortable position for hours on end while the lab processed test results (like too much protein in my urine and bad stuff in my liver - can't remember what they called it) made the contractions start for real, but I was having pretty steady contractions (about 5 minutes apart - all in my back - ouch!) for 2 or three hours.

They finally did calm down and now I'm just uncomfortably hooked up to all sorts of tubes and wires. And the ob on today said they're going to move me to a regular room soon so as not to bother me so much. But I will be here overnight again. Yay me!

Oh, I got a shot of steroid to help baby's lungs out for just in case, and I had an ultrasound this morning. They said she looks and sounds great. Big head and short legs, just like her dad. :)

I'll update as I know more. Please keep us in your prayers that baby will be content to hang out for another 3 weeks to get to full term.

Update #1, 11:25 am. I'm moved into my new room, and although I'm more comfortable, it's only because I'm not all hooked up to everything any more. My roommate (that I've heard but haven't seen yet) has been jonesing for a cigarette and that worries me. And she's got the tv going on a channel that annoys me. Of course, most daytime tv bugs.

One of the reasons I was admitted to the hospital was so I could do a 24-hour urine test to monitor proteins and such. But the nurse who started it yesterday forgot to document when that started. So I'm starting over. At least that's without the catheter and without the iv and without the belly bands and without the blood pressure cuff. Right?

Word(s) of the day: Bed rest

I already know I'm an exceptionally big wuss. It is, however, nice to know that some of my pains really are concerning. I mean, I'd much rather not have them, but it's nice to be believed.

Today I spoke with my midwife and after describing all the various aches and pains, she said she wants me on bed rest till at least Wednesday afternoon, when I go in for an appointment. Who knows if she'll keep me on that bed rest after the appointment.

So yeah, I'm uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. And I'm miserably dissatisfied by the state of my house. Sigh. Maybe if I just stick to my bedroom (on my wonderful new bed) and the bathroom, I will be able to block out the images of my terribly messy home.

Babysitting

My brother and his wife left for the Bahamas. Lucky them, eh? Well, Brent and Felix and I are staying in their house while they're gone - with 6 of their 7 kids. The youngest is staying with my sister who lives nearby since she doesn't go to school and my sis is home days.

I think I need a vacation. A vacation from my problems, that is! The heartburn has been especially horrible lately, and the baby's movements have been especially painful. I think she must be getting just as anxious as I am for this to end. Can I really hold up for another month and a half?

That reminds me... I really need to figure out what to do for Christmas. The stuff I want or want to give is all either really expensive or really time and energy-consuming. blech.

A bed and a couple of tests

On Tuesday I went to see the midwife for my monthly checkup. All is well, more or less. Felix had a terrible night the night before and so had everyone else I talked to. And the weather was terrible on Tuesday.

I told the midwives about some contractions I've been having and they decided to do a special test called a fetal fibronectin, which tests for a protein that babies give off often when they're getting ready to come out. If it's negative, then there's only about a .8% chance the baby will come in the next two weeks, but if it's positive, the chance is 65%. Mine came back negative, so I guess we're good.

That day, I also got a letter from the urologist saying that my tests had come back negative for infection. Tonight I got a call from my midwife saying that the tests taken on Tuesday came back positive. We're both thinking that I essentially have a UTI whenever I'm not currently on an antibiotic. So she prescribed me another round and is sending me back to the urologist who will likely put me on a maintenance dosage of antibiotic for the rest of my pregnancy. Fun! I'll have to be really careful because I get yeast infections really easily.

Anyway, on Tuesday evening mom asked if I wanted to do some window shopping with her at the RC Willey outlet in Provo. Since I had thought about going there to look at beds, I thought that was a great idea. On the way down to Provo, we decided to price out beds at DI, and magically, we found a new king-size mattress discounted to $325 because of a dirt stain on one side. What a steal, eh? Mom offered to buy the box springs for us and I decided Brent needed to feel it to make sure it would be good for his back.

So we made our way down to RC Willey and found some great deals. Nothing like the DI bed, but really nice beds for not too much more.

Last night, Brent and I hopped in the car and went down to DI to buy the bed. We decided that he should feel the other beds, just in case they were tons better for his back, so we went straight to the RC Willey outlet first. After looking for the saleslady from the night before (they get paid on commission and she had actually helped), the guy who helped us (she was gone for the day) said they had gotten in a bed just a few hours earlier that we might find interesting. $1400 king-size mattress marked down to $299 because of some small oil or grease stains on the top. Yeah, we decided that was the bed for us. Very comfortable, super duper nice, and much higher quality than the one at DI, even though the one at DI wasn't a bad bed.

The salesguy even found us two matching box springs for $150 and gave us a mattress pad/protector for free. Grand total for the whole thing: $479. That included taxes even. The only slight downer is that it's not being delivered till Saturday. Two more nights of crappy bedding and then sleep utopia!

On a side note, it turned out that the sales guy had served in the Rome mission the same time as me. But the first time we saw each other was at our mission president's funeral 2 years ago. It was fun to talk about the mission for a few minutes.

I'm so freaking excited about that bed. I think I'm going to go to "bed" as soon as it's delivered on Saturday... Mmmmmmmmmm :)

This week

I don't remember saying anything about the bed, but Brent and I gave our bed away this week. We decided it's time to upgrade because both of us woke up in pain ever time we slept on it. Within an hour of posting it on Craigs List, I had 5 requests, and we ended up giving it to a nice Tongan lady. Yesterday at work our team theme was "goth". Everyone dressed up, and a group of 7 of us went out to lunch. We were quite the site. The Japanese restaurant where we went very helpfully put us in a separate room and shut the doors. :)

We dressed Felix up so we could take some pictures. He was really mad when I made him wear the green suit underneath, but for some reason, he really like that costume and was very happy to wear it. We took it off to let Luke wear it for trick-or-treating, but don't you think it's amazingly cute?

We stayed home to hand out candy and almost nobody came. Their loss. We had some great candy.

Today I cleaned a bunch while Brent went to help with the Scout PowWow at UVU. And I had Lauren come over to help out. She kept me company and helped play with Felix while I did some cleaning. Can't do much because I ache everywhere and we don't have any chairs downstairs anymore. We did go out for a few hours and run some errands. We even started pricing beds. I think we're going to get the best prices at Ikea, honestly. There are some great beds out there...