The story of Daria

This is the birth story of my Daria.

Having a child and giving birth is one of those things that is completely indescribable... going through it is the only way to understand it. I think that one of my favorite things about it is that in the moments that it is happening, you know you're experiencing a life-changing event. We all go through our days with relative monotony and ease--life changing things don't happen every day, thankfully. And, not all life changing things are good, for sure. In fact, a lot of them are "bad". But, it's fun when you can be in a moment and recognize it as life changing, in the best possible way. No matter what comes after, this moment will be one that you will always have, when your family's life altered forever by the addition of a new person.

Summing up my pregnancy with Daria is a little hard at this point, because it's so recent that I still remember the minutiae of it, as opposed to the overall picture. So, we'll give it a shot, and see what we come up with. :-)

Stressful, because of moving, and settling into a new home, and a new place. New Doctors. (Better medical resources, a relief.) We are sick way more than usual, all winter long. Stress of moving wore down our immune systems, perhaps? Seems like everyone is, so we're not alone there, but it's still hard. All our neighbors have clanging wind chimes, so I can't sleep. Garrett working insane hours. We miss him, a lot. Rain. More rain. More and more and more rain. Comforting the kids, who miss Wenatchee so very much.  Living 1.5 blocks from the Puget Sound. Solace is found there, in rain coats, with a sky above us. Way too freaking many people and trees, not enough sky or outdoors in our lives, like we're used to. Slowly adjusting, and feeling like this is home. Kind friends who touch our hearts with their welcomes. School, and kids learning to read fluently changes our world this winter. They grow exponentially. Pregnancy and Diabetes. Always hard, always stressful, but easier this time with the insulin pump, and medical team that mostly defers to me, and what I know. Being pregnant and a stay at home mom, instead of working, is wonderful. Thank you Garrett. Growing to like the city of Tacoma. Exploring. A baby that is generally rather easy going within me, but when she kicks, she REALLY KICKS.  She responds to her sisters voices, kicks/hits back wherever she is poked, with uncanny accuracy. We can't wait to meet her. Braxton Hicks very consistently since 20 weeks--not painful, just always happening. And, as time goes by she moves more and more constantly--except for when her Daddy puts his hands on my stomach. Every time, without fail, she stops moving immediately.

My due date for Daria is July 20, 2012.

35 Weeks, and 4 days. Counting the days before I hit 36 weeks and desperately hoping to make it that far, and at the same time worrying that I might make it to 39, when they will insist on doing a c-section. An odd combination of worries. A going home outfit and a bag for her is packed. A tactical weapons bag Garrett got us as a diaper bag--it's pretty much awesome. Preregistration filled out for the hospital, but not turned in yet. I'm not packing anything for me until 36 weeks. We WILL make it that far. Her quilt is done--the first rag quilt I've made for OUR baby--I didn't sew when Keira and Brianna were born. Their room is set up, the organization that I desperately needed to get done in there is finished. It's not decorated yet, but the crucial things are taken care of. Thankfully my in-laws had visited the weekend before this... since they were coming I cleaned a bit more thoroughly than I might have otherwise, haha! So my house is pretty clean, and that makes me happy.

I wake up late--8:30 am. I've had horrible heartburn all pregnancy long, so I can't seem to sleep for long stretches at a time. Zantac helps, but not completely. Prilosec gave me a headache that was unbelievable pain--wish-for-death pain, and lasted almost a week. I've added that to my drug allergy list. The good news is that it took care of my heartburn! As a result getting 8 hours of sleep is practically impossible, and takes more like 10 hours, so I'm waking up ridiculously late, and I don't care--I'm letting it happen at this point. Daria has been upside down since 22 weeks. The pelvic pressure is insane. I have to work myself up to getting out of bed every morning because going from laying down to upright hurts so bad. Laying down makes the heartburn worse though, so basically I can't win.

I get out of bed and head straight for the coffee maker--to turn it back on. I set our coffee maker to go off at 4:30 every morning for Garrett. Usually I wake up in the 2 hour time frame to drink still-hot coffee from the same pot, but since I've been sleeping so late I have to turn the pot back on and let the coffee heat back up before it's drinkable. I know, coffee lovers everywhere are cringing, but this is "mommy survival coffee", not gourmet coffee, so the rules are different, in the same way that a cup of coffee from a diner is wonderful, and a cup of coffee from a gourmet coffee shop is delightful. Delightful in different ways and for different reasons, but both delightful nonetheless. 

I curl up in my corner of the couch to wait for the coffee to heat up and the griddle for toast, and plan my day. My mom calls me, and I haven't talked to her in several days, so we proceed with catching each other up on life and family.  As we are chatting I notice that my ankles are swollen. This is odd because other than my pregnancy induced hypertension experience with Keira's birth, I don't retain water. EVER. In fact, I can't currently wear any of my rings because they've flown off my hands too many times for me to feel safe wearing them. Huh. Apparently I'm going to get swollen at the end of this pregnancy. Oh well. I get up to see if my coffee is hot yet. It's not, so I sit down again.

And, as I'm sitting down on my couch, I feel the first trickle. I know immediately what it is. I shift to sit on my side, and a second one happens. It's 9:15. I let mom finish her story, and then I respond, and a few more minutes go by. I'm not sure how to react at this point--it's just a trickle, and I haven't felt any actual contractions yet, other than mild but consistent Braxton Hicks--that's what they feel like anyway--they're not at all painful. I'm still hungry for breakfast and coffee. And, I'm still hoping in these first few minutes that I can make it to 36 weeks if it's just a leak, as opposed to full on water-breakage. I let mom know that I (as of right now!) am leaking amniotic fluid. She freaks out a little--if your water's broken she needs to be born in the next 24 hours, you need to get to the hospital as soon as possible, etc. I know all this, and I'm planning on it. I'm not going to be foolish and dilly-dally, but I also know that I probably have hours to go, and I don't want to rush to the hospital without getting my dishes done, and the living room straightened up. I promise I'll keep her posted, and I'll be working towards getting to the hospital as quickly as possible. I'll have to wait for Garrett to come home first anyway.

We hang up, and I try to call Garrett's cell phone. No answer. I text him this: "Hey... Will you call me when you have a minute? Not an emergency, I just need to talk to you soonish." I pour myself coffee, and make toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam for the girls and me. I eat my toast--I'm as ravenous as someone struggling with heartburn can be, and if I'm going to be in labor for hours I decide I need the fuel, and I start heading for the shower. Still no real contractions. The girls come upstairs just then, and they both want to take showers too. I let them know that we're going to need to leave for the hospital pretty soon, so they're going to need to eat their toast quickly, go down and take showers quickly, and get dressed and ready to go. They're completely freaked out and worried because they know she's early, but we spend a bit of time together talking about it, and what the next several hours are going to look like before they're reassured and eating their toast. I am hopping in the shower and the contractions are starting to come stronger.  They seem kind of fast and strong, so I'm definitely confused, but not so strong that I'm stressing about that at this point. Nina calls me. You texted me?! She says. I'm so confused... turns out the text I'd meant for Garrett had gone to Nina instead--sometimes that happens on this phone, it'll send a text I write to the last person I texted, and I haven't figured out what I'm doing wrong when it does happen. She's already talked to mom, so she knows what's going on, and I hang up with her and resend the text to Garrett immediately, then turn the ring volume up to full blast and climb in the shower. 

That shower felt SO GOOD on my back. The contractions are getting stronger, and they're fast. I get out of the shower and get dressed, and throw random stuff in my day pack between and during contractions. I put my purse, the diaper bag, the camera case, my day pack by the stairs. The contractions seem so close together, and I'm walking frantically back and forth, back and forth upstairs during them, and they're getting strong enough that my knees aren't holding me up, so I'm having to get down and curl over our bench at the foot of our bed to make it through them. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I was groaning my way through them, but well, I was. And it was freaking my poor kids out. They have a sweet little conversation between the two of them, and decide to get dressed and forego the shower so they can keep an eye on me. My time between contractions is spent reassuring them that this is NORMAL and GOOD, and everything is going to be okay. The beginning edges of feeling like I have to push are coming on. This doesn't make any sense at all to me--It hasn't even been an hour since my water broke, and definitely hasn't been that long since the contractions started. I use the lap feature on my phone's stopwatch to time the contractions. And they're close together. I time five of them, and four of them were just a bit less than a minute apart.  I'm baffled by this--it must be wrong. Some sort of fluke. Going from mild braxton hicks to hard contractions that are a minute apart is not right. But, just in case I decide to call Garrett again, and I get no answer still. Meanwhile they're coming faster and harder. The radiology department at the hospital calls me to schedule a growth ultrasound. I let her know I'm in labor. She asks 45 questions, making sure that I'm ok, etc. Finally get off the phone with her. 

Now, my husband is kind of important. Says his wife. I'll text him anytime I need to talk to him at work. No big deal. He gets back to me when he can. But, I don't usually call him at work unless it's important--and if I do I call his cell phone. He'll answer if he can, or call me back when he can. Every once in a while I'll call his office phone if I need something that's time sensitive, and if he doesn't answer that then oh well. Whatever it is will have to wait. I try his office phone. No answer. And so I do something that I have NEVER done before--I push the button to request that my call be transferred to his Administrative Assistant. I'm feeling a little bit like a drama queen at this point, but I don't really know what else to do. Obviously, I'm in labor and he needs to get home--I'm just still feeling like it's going to be hours--my head hasn't caught up with how fast it's going at this point. It takes forever for the call to transfer, and I make it through another contraction that's just wrapping itself up when she finally answers. She lets me know Garrett's in a meeting--I'd figured that, and that it's almost done, but she'll go in and interrupt for me. I'm breathing pretty hard and I think she senses right away that something's up... he finally comes on the line and I let him know what's going on. I ask him to please wrap up whatever he's working on and head home... and thankfully he didn't listen to me about the wrapping things up part, and just headed home as quickly as he could. 

I think I must have been a bit shocky at this point... I'm still (in my head) thinking that I need to be doing dishes and straightening the living room. The floor of the living room is covered in reptangles, and in my pacing back and forth, back and forth I'm very careful to avoid stepping on them. Some things hurt worse than labor... stepping on reptangles would be one of them, especially while in labor!! According to my children, who are anxiously keeping an eye on me at this point, and asking 42 million questions about what exactly is going on, I was curled up over the bench in our room and yelling "Hurry up Garrett!!" through these contractions. I am sweating SO bad. Not long after I hang up the phone with him, I realize that I have to puke. I barely make it to the garbage can in our bathroom in time. This panics me a little bit--I know that I'm in transition at this point, and I'm terrified that I'm going to be giving birth at home, to a preemie. I yell for the girls to get me kleenex to wipe my face so I don't drool snot and puke everywhere, and they come into our bathroom looking so scared. I'm scared too. I have to push, SO SO SO bad, after I throw up. It's all I can do to NOT push, and it's getting stronger, and it feels like I'm not going to be able to hold out much longer. 

I ask them to carry everything out the door and pile it up in the driveway. We are going to wait for Daddy in the driveway I tell them. I can't be in the house any longer, I just can't. I feel crazy. I have to move. So, we pile up our stuff in the driveway and wait. I pace back and forth, back and forth in front of the garage, hanging onto the Rover through the hard contractions. I can't stop moving. Another person from the Radiology Department calls me to schedule a growth ultrasound, and I explain, again, that I am in labor right now, again, and reassure her that I'm headed for the hospital. 

My phone rings again, and it's the automatic phone call notification that prescriptions have shipped. I hang up on it. All the phone calls are driving me banana sandwich. All I can do is move. We're all a bit frantic at this point... Keira and Brie are standing at the end of the driveway chanting for daddy to come, and getting upset every time another car turns down our road that's not their dad. I'm pacing back and forth, back and forth and the super cute UPS guy (Hey, I'm in labor, I'm not dead.) pulls up with a box for us. Keira announces to him that momma is in labor, and he freaks out. Ha. I've already taken the box from him and I'm walking it into the house, and he's trying to take it back from me and do it for me, and I won't let him because I need to move and it helps to focus on something, so we kind of fight over the box, briefly. He's asking if I want him to stay there, and do we have someone coming, and I'm having a contraction and so Keira's answering all his questions for me, and I finally am able to assure him that I'm fine, and my husband's on the way. He backs out of the driveway hesitantly, like he hates to leave, but at the same time eyeing me like I'm a grenade with the pin pulled.

Finally I realize that I should call my mom and let her know what's going on. So, it's 10:28 when I call her and give her an update. And she's already getting ready to head up to us from Portland. I let her know that I have to push, but I haven't yet. She knows it's going faster than any of us expected, so she foregoes dropping by my dad's work to give him a kiss goodbye, and heads straight for us. 

Just a few minutes after I hang up with her, Garrett pulls into the driveway. He backs in, because when you work for the company he works for, and keep track of accidents like he does, you back into your parking space. ALWAYS. Without exception. And, your wife does too. :-) 

He's getting out of the car, popping the trunk and the girls are piling the stuff in. He opens my door for me, and tells me to sit. I tell him I can't sit, I have to keep moving. I tell him to go change--my mom and my mother-in-law think I'm crazy for this, but he's wearing super expensive 100% wool pants and a really nice shirt. I know if he wears those pants all day, I'll have to get them dry cleaned or hand wash them, and he's going to be uncomfortable too. I'm not a fan of being in a gross hospital gown while he's all sexy business casual.  I'm still thinking long-haul day of labor here, even though I desperately have to push already, for some reason my head totally hasn't caught up with reality, so I tell him to go change. I've been told since then that I apparently "barked" orders at him to go change, and he wasn't going to waste time arguing with me. That may be true. He does in record time, and is running out the door again. We climb in the car, and we are off. I'm not sure I'm going to be coherent to give him directions to the hospital, so I set up the GPS through the contractions. 

The road to the hospital from our house is a narrow, two-lane, curvy road for the first part. We have to go the speed limit because the people in front of us are going the speed limit and there's no possible way we can pass. I'm having close contractions on top of each other, and it's taking everything I've got to not push. In fact, the only reason why I'm not pushing is because I'm chanting "don't push, don't push, don't push" through the contractions. Garrett gives me his hand to squeeze through them too, and that helps. The girls are mostly silent in the back seat.  The seat belt is driving me crazy, because I have to sit straight, I can't curl up.  Every time I try to curl, the seat belt seizes up on me, and it's sending me over the edge. Finally the road opens up to two lanes, and he opens it up through that section and gets past a bunch of people. Traffic doesn't really clear up until we get past all the stoplights and industrial stuff, and the road turns to a two lane freeway with a speed limit of 60 MPH. Between contractions I glance over, and Garrett is going 90. And this is when the worst contractions so far hit. I'm not sure how they can keep getting stronger and harder, but somehow they do of course, and I can't handle the seat belt any longer. I rip it off, and curl up on the edge of my seat, rocking back and forth and chanting "don't push." Keira whispers in the back seat, "Well, at least she's not having a heart attack!" and Brie says back, "Keira!!! SHHHHH!!!!" 

And, we're going so fast that the short little stretches of different roads that we need to take don't take long at all. Finally we're on Tacoma's city streets, and they are BAD, my friends. It's like offroading, except in the city. Garrett's trying to pick less jarring lines through the potholes, and go fast at the same time. And finally we're pulling up to the main entrance of the hospital. The hospital is under construction, and the main entry way is completely jacked up all the time--they have free valet parking, and it's super backed up. Right as he goes into the center turn lane a contraction ends, and he suggests that I run across the street and go in... so I do. I literally climb out of the car in the middle of the road, and run across to the hospital entry. 

This "Wonkavator" amused me greatly at 3 am.

There are three people in line ahead of me. Somehow they all take one look at me, and just move over. I grab the edge of the counter, because I can feel another contraction building up, and I say what has got to be the dumbest thing ever.

"Uhhh... I think I'm in labor..." 

And, then that contraction starts, and I'm hanging onto the edge of the counter and it's pretty obvious that I AM, in fact, in labor. The volunteer at the counter runs around and grabs a wheelchair and heads toward me, but I need to move so I'm walking towards him too despite his protests that he'll come around and get me. I sit down in the wheelchair, and he starts running. While he's running my water finally fully breaks, everywhere--and I am SOAKED.

He keeps slowing down where the carpet breaks are--they have these vent looking things around corners and stuff where the carpet changes, and bless his heart he's going as fast as he can, but he slows down for all those things. I'm all, don't slow down, just get me there!!!! And he apologizes and says that the vents can be jarring in a wheelchair. I'm like, I don't care--I couldn't possibly be any more uncomfortable...just go as fast as you can!! We finally make it to the elevator. We need to get up to the 2nd floor. He yells for them to hold an elevator that is going up, and they do. Suddenly we are on it, and he's saying she's in labor, and I'm having a contraction and while I'm contracting everyone who WAS on the elevator is piling off of it, ha! And, at the last minute a lady (I think she was an RN? I don't know, because she was dressed in normal clothes, not wearing scrubs, I mean. But I seem to recall RN being on her badge.) steps on the elevator. The volunteer is pushing the 2 button on the elevator, but someone else had already pushed the 6 button. And, it's apparently a glitch with this elevator that the first button to get pushed is where the elevator goes first. He's grumbling about construction, and yada yada, and saying it's probably better this way, because it's faster to just get on any elevator than to wait for another one. Poor guy is so stressed out. So, we're going all the way up to the 6th floor, and then back down to the 2nd. The RN (I think?!) that stepped on the elevator immediately assesses the situation and sets down her paperwork and takes charge of me, she crouches down in front of me and holds both my hands and tells me to focus on her face, and she breathes with me through the contractions and encourages me... I'm so glad she was there, because I don't know if I'd have been able to hold off pushing in the elevator.

And then we're finally on the second floor, and he's pushing me through the doors of the birthing center and running down the hallway, and yelling that he's got someone who's delivering a baby right now and he needs to know what room to put her in. And one of the nurses yells out 221!!!! and he's heading for it, and I have three nurses sprinting in front of me, leading the way.

And I'm saying thank you, and I'm off the wheelchair and literally stripping my clothes away as I go into the room. According to Garrett I left a trail of flip-flops and my yoga pants and underwear from the door of the room to the bed that everyone was stepping on all delivery long--and I don't doubt it. I felt like a pez dispenser with the candy halfway out. Except since I pushed for a while longer I know it wasn't quite that close. And as I go into the room I'm spelling my name--if I say it they won't know how to spell it, for sure, so I always just spell it. And telling them that I'm going to be in the system and all the info about my pregnancy will be in there, but I haven't faxed in my pre-registration yet. It's in the bag with my clothes my husband is bringing in. I haven't had my strep B test yet, so they need to get antibiotics started right away and I'm Type 1 diabetic and at 35 and 4. One nurse immediately calls the NICU for preemie assistance, and I climb up on the bed, and she checks me, and then grins at me and says "It's time for you to start pushing!!! How in the world have you not pushed yet?! You are ready to go!!!"

Now, based on the story so far, it might seem obvious that I was indeed ready to go. But there was part of me that was hugely relieved to hear her say that, because up to this point I was so afraid that I was going to get to the hospital and they were going to be like, "You're dilated to a 2. It's going to be hours yet." So, mostly I was completely relieved to be right, and actually in labor, and not riding in on my drama llama, all NOT as in labor as I thought I was. So I was pretty much just as relieved to be right as I was to be able to push. And they're calling the Doctor, and he comes in, and he's the one that I'd hit it off with really well in my OB appointments--they rotate the patients through with all their OB's for scheduling purposes, and also so you have met and know whoever is on staff when you actually deliver. Anyway, I'm glad it's him, he seems like an actual human being, (no offense to doctors everywhere) and I really appreciated his approach and his reasonableness.

And, I'm pushing. And the room is CROWDED. I have two NICU nurses with the baby warming table across the room, one nurse on either side of me, the doctor in front of me, and another nurse on my right hand side, trying to get an iv in my arm while I'm pushing and another nurse trying to get me admitted to the hospital. The room is SO crowded. So, I'm holding my arm perfectly still while I'm pushing and I'm answering admittance questions. But I'm starting to stress, because I'm worried that Garrett and Keira and Brie aren't going to make it in time. I know what a zoo parking in this place is. Finally I lay back for the brief seconds between contractions and they walk in. I'm so relieved that they are there. I want Garrett next to me, but there isn't really room for him, and it's probably better that he stayed with the girls anyway, off to the side a bit. I'm just so glad they're there.

The girls had a great time playing with the hospital bed.

Pushing when you're in labor is the COOLEST thing. Because most pain that humans encounter in life is not just painful, but also so hard because there's nothing you can do about it. For example, if you stub your toe, all you can do is hop up and down on the other foot and curse until your pain goes away... there's no fighting it, you just have to wait. Or if you burn yourself, or break a leg, or whatever. But when you're in labor it's painful, sure, but it's really more of a process--which is what makes it so incredible and amazing, I think. And, when it's time to push, you can fight back against the pain.

It's instinctive... tuck your chin, curl your body up. Push down towards your bottom, not up towards your face. If you do push up towards your face one time by accident, prepare to feel like your head is going to explode.  You won't make that mistake twice.

And then she's out. And the nurse is yelling  "Born at 11:13!" And she's crying, thank the Lord, and the Doctor is putting her on me--on my shirt that I never got around to taking off for a hospital gown.  

When he puts her on me, I know immediately that something isn't quite right. I can't quite place a finger on what it was, but her cry was weak, and she was moving weird...shaking and jerky movements. I'm scared initially, but everyone is saying she looks healthy, so I hold her for a few minutes, and then they take her to clean her up and check her out. 

They wipe her up and wrap her, and I get to hold her again, and Garrett gets her, and her big sisters get to follow her around and watch her. Brie says, "She looks like me!!" and Keira is stressing out because we have a car seat ordered for her, but we aren't supposed to get it until Friday, and it's only Tuesday so how are we going to get her home?!  They get to hold her and ooh! and ahh! over her, and how little and precious she is, and how much she looks like both of them. She has hair the color of Brie's, but with the texture of Keira's. She won't open her eyes, so we can't tell what color they are yet, but we are all betting on brown. Her sisters were born with dark velvety brown eyes, so it follows that she would have them too. {They are actually a stormy ocean blue!! Hence one of her many nicknames already, Miss Blue Eyes.}  

Meanwhile, I am cramping. Getting rid of the placenta this time was more painful than the baby extraction. And, instead of kneading my whole stomach like the nurse did with Brie's placenta, the doctor just picks one place on my stomach and pushes, hard. And he apologizes every time, but it hurts like CRAZY!!!, and it's all I can do to hold still and not punch him. He explains that it's usually harder to detach the placenta the more children you have--but on the flip side the mother usually heals a lot faster. Weird, huh?! It takes FOREVER to get rid of that stupid placenta... and meanwhile the nurse has taken Daria and is trying to test her blood sugar. Except she can't get any blood out of her heel. And she's poking her again and again, and not getting any blood. So she calls the NICU nurses back to bring a lancet that they use in the NICU to test, and she's telling them to hurry. So I'm panicking over Daria, writhing and cramping, and trying to concentrate at the same time on what's going on and what's being said at the warming table across the room. 

Finally the placenta detaches, and gets placed in it's silver bowl. Keira and Brianna are fascinated by this--and the doctor shows it to them. One of my favorite things about him in my Doctor Appts with him was how he went out of the way to explain everything to Keira and Brie, and then when he was done he'd pull out his iphone, turn on cartoons and hand it to them, and finish out the doctor appointment. :-) Keira currently thinks it's cool to be queasy over body parts and functions, so she pretends to turn a little green (It could be that I refuse to believe I have a queasy child--I'm attempting to deaden that queasiness by showing her blood and guts as often as possible right now--people who get nauseous in situations like that aren't very useful in emergencies, and I would like to know we could depend on her if we needed to. I'm pretty sure she's pretending though, because if it's something she WANTS to see, like the guy who got his face eaten off, she's not queasy at all.), but Brie just loves it--I know she would have been at the doctors elbow all delivery long if Garrett had let her. The beautiful umbilical cord is a subject for conversation for several days following birth.

After we're done with the placenta business I'm finally able to focus on Daria and what's going on with her. I sit up, and the first thing I set eyes on is a mess of meconium... and that's scary because we have a niece that ended up in the NICU because of meconium. And so far I've got a list of stuff that is worrying--the way she was acting when they put her on me, she still seems to be lethargic and shaky, and meconium everywhere, and they didn't get the antibiotics in me at all... so we're concerned, but she is all-in-all healthy, so thankful for that. Finally the NICU nurse comes in with the right lancet, and tests her blood sugar. And, it's very low--22. (For infants, they want it to be at least 50.) Suddenly everything goes from a happy, exciting event to worrying... they are getting ready to take her to the NICU in a hurry so they can start a glucose iv, and everyone is saying this is normal for early babies, but we're all worried, of course.

Garrett goes with Daria so we know where she is, and Keira and Brie stay with me. They bring me food--a lunch that is full of carbohydrates... macaroni and cheese, cookies, etc., and realistically I could have eaten it and dosed my insulin appropriately, but the nurse realized that was a lot of carbs for a diabetic and not enough protein, so she tells Keira and Brianna they can eat it, and orders something else for me.  My mom arrives, and so Keira and Brie get to tell her all about our eventful and crazy morning while shoveling macaroni and cheese into their faces. The doctor signs off on me having my insulin pump, and we work out a system where they test my blood sugars so they have the numbers in their system, and then tell them to me, and I can manually load them into my pump and dose myself for the carbohydrates I'm being fed, and let them know what my doses are. When you're diabetic, it's sort of nuts right after you give birth--because you go from needing about 1/3 again as much insulin, down to needing drastically less than you usually would. And, the low blood sugars are scary, because there is crazy hormones in the mix too, so they're way more pronounced than they usually would be. So it's a challenging time to figure out what you need.  The pharmacist comes in with paperwork for me to sign off, since my insulin is going to be in my control. (Yay!)

Finally I'm ready to get moved up a floor to my room. And, such a great blessing of this delivery and experience--I feel great. I mean, I feel really great. Since Daria was positioned upside down and so low for so long, moving had gotten to be really difficult at the end there... I was downright miserable for more than a few weeks. So, after I gave birth I felt awesome, like go-for-a-run, conquer-the-world awesome. Thankfully, because the next few days I would be doing a lot of walking. They kept pushing ibuprofen on me, and I did take it, but every once in a while I'd miss a dose, and I didn't really notice too much of a difference without it. This was a HUGE blessing, because for two days Daria was downstairs, and   I was visiting her every two to three hours to nurse her, so being able to move quickly and comfortably was so wonderful. 

Mom and I get to go by the NICU on the way up to my room, and visit Daria. It's hard to go into a NICU to visit our baby... the second one to be in a NICU. My head knows that she's healthy and well, and this is just a little hiccup, but my heart clutches in a sort of panic regardless.  I still have a cough hanging on from a cold a few weeks back, so beside scrubbing our hands up to our elbows, I get a mask for my face.  Her nurse is enjoying her--Daria is pretty opinionated about things already, and lets it be known when she's not happy with how she's being handled.  She gets to meet her grammy, and I get to put her to breast for the first time. She latches right on (Yay!) and over the next several days she'll earn herself the nickname of Piranha, when she decides to wake up and eat, she's ferocious about it. When she headed off to the NICU I had specifically asked that if they had to feed her formula I had no problem with it, I just wanted them to gavage it, or syringe feed her if possible--no nipples allowed anywhere near her mouth. They were totally supportive of this, and I'm so thankful for that. 

We finally head off to my room, and I get settled in. I'm going to be in the hospital until Thursday, and Daria will probably be there longer. Understandably, no one can say for sure how long.

Just a few wristbands.

My mom takes the girls home to bed that evening, and Garrett and I go down to see our new daughter together. She has her first open-eyes conversation with her daddy that night, and she latches on very well again. She's funny--she doesn't like the lights shining in her eyes, and she gets irritable if you touch her wrong or mess with her... she's been poked so many times on her poor little feet that she starts crying the minute anyone touches them. She is so precious.

That night I'm still running on adrenaline, so I can't sleep. The post-delivery making breast milk appetite shows up with a vengeance, and I AM STARVING. Ravenous. Like, wish I had a stack of sandwiches starving. The nurses are all terrified that I'm going to get low blood sugars, so they pile food in the little refrigerator in my room, thankfully. My blood sugars are low, and I eat like a horse, between going down to be with Daria every couple hours. She's finally strong enough for us to give her a bath at 2 am that night, and get her cleaned up from being born.

We hit it off really well with her night nurse, thankfully. I'm so glad Daria had her. Our nurses and the CNA's at this hospital were all really great.

The next several days feel like weeks for all of us. The girls are losing their minds because due to the whooping cough epidemic in Washington State, they're not allowed in the NICU to see their sister. Garrett sets about distracting them from this fact as much as possible... they get fancy dinners on the pier, and shopping trips, and movie dates with daddy. They get to "master bedroom camp" aka, sleep on our bed with piles of blankets and the windows wide open. Spoiled rotten. This doesn't stop Keira from announcing that she wants to squash all the NICU doctors up into a cheese sized cube and grate them. The child is getting very graphic in her violence--it's hilarious. We totally get it--we've had one of those scary preemies before, and been terrified of sick people around our child before, so no complaints from us.

My days and nights blend together... every two to three hours heading down to the NICU to feed Daria. She's SO sleepy, so some feedings go well, and some don't go so well. The nurses are making noises about checking her bilirubin numbers. I can look at her and tell those numbers probably aren't going to be good, so that's concerning. They're cutting her glucose dosages back with every successful feeding, and as our concern about that wanes, the bilirubin concern gets bigger. I still haven't slept, my life is this trek back and forth, back and forth between the two wards of the hospital, and the small amount of time I have in the room isn't enough to care for myself and sleep, but what am I supposed to do? I can't be in two places at once. My nurse sets me up with a breast pump--and Daria is doing so well latching on I fight using it... I face that breast pump with great dread. Having exclusively pumped for so long makes facing that machine so hard... flashbacks to trying to breastfeed, and how heart-breaking it was to not be able to. It scares me, and I can't handle it, so I don't pump. The lactation nurse finally comes in and sets me straight--reminds me that I'm using it to get my milk to come in quickly, and make it easier to breastfeed, nothing more. I needed that talking-to so I'm glad it happened. I start pumping. This gives me even less time between feedings, and it's so frustrating because not much comes out the first several times, so I'm an emotional wreck. Keira sees this, and takes over washing the pump parts for me when she's there. I'm so thankful for her sweetness--it made it much easier for my emotional self to handle. (Since Daria is premature, it's harder to get breast milk to come in.)

Having had two children in the NICU now, in two different NICUs, actually, there's one thing that I can tell you... Walking in with breast milk or colostrum is met with smiles or even great excitement by all you walk by on your way through the door. No matter how small the amount--sometimes just a few cc's, every drop counts. It's called liquid gold for a reason... and every nurse I've ever met treats it as such. It's held in reverence, and treated with the greatest respect.  

Exhaustion. Not being able to sleep. Not having time to sleep if I could sleep. Watching the clock... setting my alarm constantly to go feed Daria. Ravenously hungry. Equally thankful for her good health--these are all just little hiccups, and the stress of having a child in the NICU. 

Having her in the NICU is another flashback for us--and in my hormonal state it's pretty hard for me. Logically I know that she's okay, that she's well, that she'll be out soon. Emotionally though, I'm not dealing too well with this. The long walk between the wards is depressing for me at first--and I really have to focus on being thankful.  It takes quite a few stern talking to's at myself, before I'm able to make the decision to act thankful, even if I don't feel thankful. Acting thankfully and speaking thankfully can help one become thankful. The last part of the trek to the NICU takes me through the Perinatology ward. As I focus on emerging from my self pity, this helps me reevaluate a lot. Because in this ward there's a room I walk by every time that has a sticker with a flower on it posted on the door. And this typically means that the baby has passed away in that room. I make it a point to pray for that family every time I walk by. Using this long walk, over and over, and over and over, all hours of the day and night to pray and actively seek the presence of God in this helps a lot.

She is surrounded in the NICU by babies who are in BAD shape. The constant beeping of alarms and nurses running past to get to these babies quickly and do what needs to be done to keep them alive is a great reminder of how much we have to be thankful for as well. 

Light therapy, at night. Wumwumwumwumwum. That thing is noisy.

The second night I NEED to sleep.  Punch drunk exhausted is what I am. I have about an hour break between feedings by the time it's all said and done... so I set my alarm to wake up, and try to fall asleep. It's not happening. I try for a few increments that night, and finally get some rest as the sun is coming up. 

I finally realize that I've been doing a lot of praying, but not refilling the tank, so to speak. There's no possible way I can get my eyes to focus on a page at this point--I can't sleep, but I can't keep them open to read either. I am thankful for my iphone once again with the Bible app I have... the YouVersion Bible will read to you. I love this feature, and use it at home sometimes, and it takes on such a lovely glow now, in this time, at this hospital. I'm reminded of the book I'd been reading before this event--The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris. She expounds a lot on the Roman Catholic practice of  Lectio Devina--the reading aloud of the Psalms. I'd been rolling a lot of information from the book around in my head before this happened, and it takes a new meaning for me now... A perspective that I'd never heard of or thought of, and I appreciate so many things about it.  

A few quotes that ring true:

Pain- is missed- in praise --Emily Dickinson (Norris's point being that we need to feel the pain, and appreciate it, and in acknowledging it and experiencing it and learning from it, we can also feel praise.)

"You come to the Bible's great "book of praises" through all the moods and conditions of life, and while you may feel like hell, you sing anyway. To your surprise, you find that the Psalms do not deny your true feelings, but allow you to reflect on them, right in front of God and everyone." 

"The Psalms demand that we recognize that praise does not spring from a delusion that things are better than they are, but rather from the human capacity for joy. Only when we see this can we understand that both lamentation and exultation can be forms of praise...The Psalms are evidence that praise need not be a fruit of optimism."

"The psalms make us uncomfortable because they don't allow us to deny either the depth of our pain or the possibility of it's transformation into praise."

And, a quote from a Benedictine Sister that especially rang true for me, "I'm tired, and little pieces of the Psalms are all I can handle. Once you've fallen apart, you take what nourishment you can. The psalms feel to me like a gentle spring rain: you hardly know that it's sinking in, but something good happens."

(All quotes from The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris, Chapter "The Paradox of the Psalms" Pages 90-107)

And so with this rolling around in my head, I'm finally able to sleep with the over-enunciated recording of one Psalm after another playing in the dark and quiet hospital room, for an hour or an hour and a half at a time before getting up and walking the silent halls back to the NICU, once again.

Snuggle and eating time with mommy and the Wallaby in the middle of the night.

Day time is our family--the four of us-- in the hospital room, hanging out together. I won't pretend that it was always 100% fun... but it was good, all in all. Nice to be together, and we appreciate it.  Keira and Brianna are pretty good during this time--and we're thankful for them and their attitudes. They crack us up at one point because they're "starving" for lunch, and we hear "Here lies Keira and Brianna, DEAD because their parents wouldn't feed them lunch." and "I'm really sorry Brie, but if Dad doesn't take us for lunch soon I'm going to have to eat you!"

I check out of the hospital Thursday, but they allow me to stay in a courtesy room so I can breastfeed Daria as needed. I go to change out of hospital clothes and into my own, and realize that when they'd moved me from the labor and delivery room to the recovery room, all my clothes had gotten shoved in my back pack, and the clothing soaked in amniotic fluid had caused everything else in my bag to become disgusting and gross and smelly. I'm able to make do, and Garrett and Keira and Brie bring me stuff too.

Friday morning they move Daria up to my room. She doesn't need to be on the glucose drip anymore, and we're waiting for her latest bilirubin test--but if she needs light therapy they can do it in the room--she doesn't need to be in the NICU for that. I text Garrett to let him know, and we let it be a surprise, so the girls are thrilled when they walk in the hospital room. We get to pass her around, and then the test results come back for her bilirubin, and she goes on a light therapy bed, with a Wallaby (light therapy blanket) for when she's breastfeeding. So even though we can't really hold her, we are able to touch her and talk to her. 

That night I finally get a few ml's of breast milk.  I text Garrett at 3 am to let him know.

We all want to be home. We're just waiting now, from one bilirubin test to the next for her numbers to improve. Saturday morning they do the car seat test. When she hears me talking it changes her heart rate, so the nurse has me be silent every time I check on her. Awww.

The car seat test.

Finally on Saturday we are able to take her home. We have to bring her in again Sunday morning for another bilirubin test, but we're so happy to be heading home. 

The first week of having her home was stressful. Because I want her to breastfeed, so feeding her consists of  Having her latch on to both sides for at least 15 minutes a side--if I fall asleep, it's usually longer than that. Then syringe feeding her to make sure she's full, then pumping, then washing the pump parts. So realistically in that first week I had about an hour's break between feedings at the most. I was a mess through that time--she's so sleepy from the high bilirubin numbers that it's so hard to feed her, and I was discouraged and terrified that I wasn't going to be able to breastfeed her.

We finally had the lactation appointment on the Friday after we took her home though, where they weigh her, then I feed her, then they weigh her again and see how much she got, and she did AWESOME at that appointment, and I got the go-ahead to breastfeed her exclusively.  

Going home outfit

And now she's slowly waking up more and more, and trying to get her eyes to focus on things, and recognizing her sisters and the people around her. She's tiny, and we're enjoying having a tiny little baby one in the house again. We're also looking forward to getting to know her better as she wakes up more, and time goes by. :-)

For now we're just busy falling in love with her, every one of us, and getting through that newborn-in-the-house stage.