Baby Brooke has arrived!

The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind and it looks like the next couple weeks aren't going to be much less eventful. I have been in and out of the hospital with my gallbladder problems just about every other day. But this past week, I was in the ER Monday and then started having terrible pains again Wednesday morning. I was too embaressed to go to the ER again though, so I just kept taking Vicodin at work and bearing through the pain. It finally got so bad though that I couldn't stand it anymore. I tried to drive home but couldn't even make it. My mom met me about half way and drove me to the ER. They figured it was just another gallbladder attack, but it's routine to call Labor & Delivery to check for contractions and listen to baby's heart beat just in case. Well turns out that under all the pain of the gallbladder attack, I was actually having contractions and was 2 cm dialated, 60% effaced.

So they sent me on up to Labor and Delivery about 5pm. They hooked me up to Pitocin and I was still on the Nubain from the ER for my gallbladder attack. Around midnight they said they wanted to break my water. They told me it was rather painful and that I might want to get my epidural then, so I didn't refuse. The epidural didn't hurt at all compared to the pain I have been through the past couple months. I don't remember getting it at all with Luke, but this time it just felt like getting blood drawn, a little prick.

Once they got the epidural going, my blood pressure ended up dropping below 70. They got super concerned so they turned the Pitocin off. My blood pressure stabalized out, so they went ahead and broke my water and told me to rest for the night. I did a good job of sleeping through the night but by morning I was only at 6cm. Just as the one doctor on call left though, at 8am, I went from 6cm to 10cm in a matter of 20 minutes. They called the next doctor on call and he was still about 20 minutes away. At this point, if I would have opened my legs, Brooke would have fell out I think. I was feeling such intense pressure and wanted to push. The nurses even called for "any OB in the house to come." My doctor ended up showing up and I pushed a total of 6 times through three contractions before Brooke was born at 9:01am.

Her Apgar score was an 8 and a 9, but she was on the small side, 5 lbs, 5oz and 19 inches long. They didn't rush her off to the NICU like they had with Luke, but they said I could feed her and then they'd send her up for a check just since she was small. She did perfectly fine on all the NICU testing and literally right before being discharged, she stopped breathing and turned blue.

So Brooke was admitted to the NICU. She has now been there for 4 days but it showing a lot of progress. At first they had her on an oxygen hood as well as a tube to suck out stuff from her mouth. She aso would drop her oxygen levels while she ate, so she was put on an IV with antibiotics. Here is a picture of her on Friday, 5/22, her second day:

On Saturday, 5/23, they took her off the oxygen hood and started her on "room air." She continued to keep her IV though, but started bottle feeding. Since my milk hadn't come in yet, they supplemented what I pumped with formula. She did well drinking 30cc's though. But she was still having several episodes where her oxyen levels would drop and she couldn't get them back up on her own. She also passed her first stool, which was a good sign. Of course she waited for mommy to change her first diaper for this to happen! Here she is on Day 3, the first day we got to hold her:

On Sunday, 5/24, Brooke had now gone 24 hours without having an episode. She was feeding well and was given the go ahead to "eat as much as she wants." She also got her IV taken out. On her first feeding this morning, she drank 55 cc's of breast milk which I was totally shocked at. When we visited her at night she still had not had any episodes but didn't eat well. She had a stool in the middle of her meal and then ended up burping up just about everything she had already drank. She also was very sleepy during her feeding, so we didn't have much progress. Here are some pictures of her fourth day:

So we'll see what tomorrow brings. They are not giving any indication as to when she'll be released, but they mentioned we'd discuss a plan on Wednesday after the holiday. Tonight they are working on bringing down the teperature of the incubator she's in. Once they bring it down and she can regulate her own temperature, she'll be able to sleep in a regular basinett type bed, which will be nice. I still have to have my gallbladder removed, which thankfully can be done lapriscopically and is an outpatient surgery, but I've heard it will be a rough couple of days. In a way I'd like to have it done while she's still in the NICU, but on the other hand I want to wait until she comes home and we get all settled. So who knows, we're just taking it one day at a time...