IT'S A GIRL!!!

And one more makes a half-a-dozen!!! Only about 4-6 hours after my last posting on this blog my water broke, so needless to say my days of bed rest came quickly to an end!! From the minute my water broke to the time I was chauffered to the entrance of the Emergency Room by my husband was exactly 20 minutes. That was pretty impressive considering the fact that when I make that drive on a normal day, it's a 15-20 drive alone. We, in the meantime, had some frenzied moments that went something like this.... Alarm rings at 5:40. My husband hits snooze and wakes me up so I could slowly start getting kids up for school while he finished packing for his business trip to Mexico. I told him that I had had the kids get their clothes on the night before so we had about 20 minutes extra so we decided to sleep until 6:00. I flipped over and my baby landed right on my bladder! I decided I can handle 20 minutes of bladder pain to sleep a little longer. A few moments later I felt my water break! I said, "Hey, Eric! Eric!!! My water broke!" He muttered, "Oh, no! What do I do? (his mind on Mexico)" I said, "For starts, get me a towel! Quickly! (my mind on water gushes)" He jumped and made some pretty impressive tracks to the bathroom and back, tossed me a towel and rubbed his head, very clearly just baffled what steps to take next.."NOW what do I do? (mind on Mexico again)" I said, "Help me get outta this bed! (mind on water gushes again!)" He came running to my side of the bed and pulled me up, "Now what?" "Gimme the phone, I have to call Kris!(our neighbor)" As I waddled to the bathroom with a towel between my legs, I was calling Kris. She was over within about 3 minutes at the most, bless her heart! Now to explain all the drama and panic, my second baby was born within 20 minutes of my water breaking and most of my babies are born within a few hours. My doctor had already told me that if I don't make fast tracks to the hospital if my water breaks, I would be delivering in the car, especially with me only be 34 weeks along (my doc and I had had the discussion just the day before) and doubtlessly would have a pretty small baby. Needless to say, my husband didn't want to be the lucky one to deliver a baby and I had no interest in him being my delivery doctor either! I ran out the door without shoes and we were off! I spent most of the 10 minute drive making phone calls trying to wake SOME family member up so they could go relieve our neighbor since I was sure she had to work. Well, once I got there, the nurses were given strict orders not to do cervical checks unless I felt like I was going to push...we needed to try to get to 12:30pm if possible since I had been given a steroid shot at 12:30 the day before to try to super charge baby's lung development since it looked like the end was nearing to my pregnancy. He said that it needs to be on board for 24 hours for it to be the most effective. I was scheduled to have my 2nd of 2 steroid shots that day but even one shot does a lot of good. By not moving much and unknowingly filling my bladder to it's maximum capacity (I had had IV fluids pumping into me..2 big bags and then 2 bags of antibiotics since they hadn't yet tested me for Group B Strep), baby's progression was stopped (the filled bladder pushes baby's head off the cervix so all the dilation quits). Thankfully we also held off until my doctor had lunch with his wife (a happy doctor makes a good doctor!) and passed the 24 hour mark by 38 minutes. I went from 5 to complete in a matter of minutes and from complete to birth in less than 30 seconds! Gotta love life in the fast lane!!! Again my doctor had me laughing with my last (and only) push by saying, "Oh boy!!! I think we got our dates wrong! It looks like another 9 lb baby!!!" I laughed and said, "Yeah, right!" and pushed out a BEAUTIFUL 6 lb 4.8 oz 19" long baby girl, Isabella!! She struggled to breathe for a little bit, was pretty grunty and was in an oxygen hood for a couple hours at the most, and has breathed on her own since! She since then has spent a couple days on IV fluids for nourishment and an oximeter for watching her oxygen saturation level in her blood. She was in a warmer since premies don't have enough fat to keep warm. She finally was my baby to hold, no strings attached, literally....for a few hours, then onto a bili-bed for jaundice. She is still in the hospital, now trying to gain weight! She is about 5 lbs, 8 ozs right now. I also had my share of drama after the birth. First, right after birth, my bleeding was a little excessive so I got an injection of hemobate to slow bleeding by helping the uterus clamp down. I had no sooner received my huge lasagna dinner, still in the delivery room (I was hungry!) when major nausea hit! Then diarrhea for hours. I finally felt good enough that night to eat, then spiked a temp, ended up on IV antibiotics through the night and oral after that. Then, just after I signed my discharge papers and the nurse was walking out of the room, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet to begin giving birth to a huge, huge blood clot. I couldn't pass it so the doctor came up. Since my hemoglobin was at only 6, my doctor said he couldn't put me under for a D & C (normal range for women is 12-16...my doctor had alread told me that since I was up and walking around he wouldn't do a blood transfusion, although my numbers merited that, but any more excessive bleeding, he might need to transfuse). He couldn't get the clot to pass either so he gave me an IM injection of a narcotic pain med (the lower of the 2 doses he could give cause he said I could stop breathing if I got more) waited about 2 minutes and proceeded to do a dig-out of my uterus (the clot was very hard, very large and stuck to the side of my uterus). I have had one baby without the courtesy of any pain meds and that was a cake walk compared to this!!! I endured the most painful 15-20 minutes of my life, then a few hours later spiked a temp again. I had very puffy eyes, which I learned is called periorbital edema, compliments of the low hemoglobin, which resulted in my eyes leaking fluids, like tears. So I ended up getting another big bag of fluids dumped into me, then a very powerful IV antibiotic then 2 units of packed red blood cells. Now I am feeling much better and am running marathons between the hospital and home, playing mommy to my big brood as much as I can! :)