Emmalyn's Birth

It's kinda hard writing a birth story when you have a scheduled c-section. I arrived at the hospital, listened to the baby on the monitor for a few minutes, nurses me a bunch of questions, took the extremely long walk to the O.R. and Emmalyn came into the world. Not to exciting to read about. However it was the most scary and exciting experience for me! This is my first time actually making it to my scheduled c-section date. All my other babies decided to come out when they wanted to. With my other deliveries me being in pain, I was just so anxious to not be in pain anymore I didn't have time to think about how scary the process of having major surgery is. However this time having to walk into the OR was very scary! I looked around and saw all the equipment, doctors and nurses waiting for me.

Dane waited in the recovery room across the hall until my anesthesiologist had the epidural/spinal in place. My doctor decided to do an epi/spinal combo because she anticipated lots of scar tissue and didn't want a spinal to wear off halfway through the surgery and have to put me under general. The epidural placement did not go in easy, it was very painful and the anesthesiologist had a tough time getting it in the correct spot. Towards the end of her placing it I almost told them to stop and just give me a spinal. It was excruciating! Once in place it was so nice to finally have relief! For months I've been having contractions and round ligament pain, so to feel numb was heavenly! After my doctor came in and I was draped, Dane was brought in to sit by my head. Even though I couldn't see or feel anything I was very scared so  I ease dropped on the doctors. I could hear them discussing where to make the uterine incision. My placenta is in front, so I'm sure they were trying to figure out where the placenta ended and was safe to make the cut. Then to my surprise my doctor told Dane that the baby was about to be born, Dane stood up and started taking video!  Apparently my doctor and Dane talked before my surgery about getting video of Emmalyn coming into the world! How awesome is that! Here is that video. It's only about 30 sec long and it's not too gruesome at all, just simply amazing!

Emmalyn's first 27 seconds

Few minutes old

Emmalyn Maire

Born March 20th 10:25am via c-section

6lbs 15oz 17.5 inches

Here are my favorite hospital pics

Thanks to Candina for editing these beautiful pics!

March 19 Sam painting moms big belly!

Baby shower pictures

 

 

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My cloth diaper stash!

30 weeks pregnant with shingles!

 So painful on just one side of my body! This sucks!!!

It's a 10!

Baby Poll

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http://bebepool.com/go/?a=brandywk1234&view=list#do_entry

3rd Trimester Trials

Compared to my first 3 trouble makers this pregnancy has been so smooth sailing. Silly me thought it would be easy till the end. But what fun would that be? Let the drama begin...

At 29 weeks I had the routine blood work up to test for gestational diabetes. I failed, just like 9th grade biology 😒. So I had to endure the 3hr glucose test, which btw takes 4 hours! I tried to get out of it, but no.  I'm sure later when I have a clingy newborn I will look back on this time, and long for that stretch of alone time 😂! At least I came prepared with my computer. Kinda funny... I used my time to finish scrapbook pages of Maddy's birth (better late than never).

The following day I had a weird pain in my arm a few inches where they drew blood. Then the next day the pain was higher up my arm and more intense. Later that night my whole left upper arm, shoulder, neck, and chest hurt like crazy. The first thing that came to mind of was sepsis, I was scared! So immediately I booked an appointment with my doctor. He didn't find any evidence of sepsis and insisted the pain must be from nerve damage or inflammation. However, later that night a rash started to appear and the pain increased. The pain was an intense, want to rip my arm own off kind of pain! So another co-pay, another day wasted in pain, I went back with my Webmd print out in hand for the correct diagnosis, shingles.

From webmd:

Shingles: An acute infection caused by the herpes zoster virus, the same virus as causes chickenpox. Shingles is most common after the age of 50 and the risk rises with advancing age. Shingles occurs because of exposure to chickenpox or reactivation of the herpes zoster virus. The virus remains latent (dormant) in nerve roots for many years following chickenpox.
Shingles is an extraordinarily painful condition that involves inflammation of sensory nerves. It causes numbness, itching or pain followed by the appearance of clusters of littles blisters in a strip pattern on one side of the body. The pain can persist for weeks, months or years after the rash heals and is then known as post-herpetic neuralgia.

I did catch this early and my doctor was able to prescribe a anti-viral medication. The drug has cut the infection time considerably, however even though the rash is almost gone I still have a lot of pain.
Next on my list of third trimester complaints is my trip to L&D last night. All day I felt like I was leaking fluid. So called the advice nurse and she told me since there is no way to tell if I had a leak in my amniotic sac that I had to be checked out at L&D. As soon as Dane got home to watch the kids I headed in. On my way I noticed that I was having regular contractions. Once there they hooked up the monitors and saw I was contracting every 5 minutes!  A midwife came in to check me and found baby was very low in the pelvis +2 station, soft and "dimpled" (not dilated but would be soon). The fluid turned out not to be amniotic fluid. Instead I have an infection that needs to be treated with antibiotics. After a bag of IV fluids the contractions stopped and I was allowed to go home with a promise that I would drink more water and stay off my feet.
So here I sit hoping this baby doesn't come early. I'm 32 weeks.  But at the very best I'm going to be walking around with what feels like a bowling ball in my pelvis!

**update, baby has moved higher up! She's still pretty low, but at least I don't have to worry about an impending labor**

24 week check up

Need a name!

 Thanksgiving 22 weeks

-Allison

-Emmaline or Emmalyn (Emma for short)

-Evelyn

-Katelyn

-Charlette

-Buckle (Sam's choice)

    We've had 2 ultrasounds... both were inconclusive, but we're going with "girl." I've even started buying things in pink!

It's a Girl!! Well maybe :)

Gotta love how they put a question mark after GIRL. Way to leave us hanging! 

2nd Trimester!

This week I'm 17 weeks along! This pregnancy is going by too fast! I think it's because so far this has been the easiest pregnancy thus far. Sometimes I even forget I'm pregnant ;) So before this pregnancy is over and baby has sucked away all my memories due to sleep deprivation, I thought I should jot some down.

No morning sickness! Not once did I have to run to the bathroom.
My belly started popping out as soon as I peed on the stick :)
Started wearing maternity pants on my Disneyland trip (11 weeks)
For the first couple of weeks if Maddy found me drinking a Pepsi, she would replace it with water :)
First felt movement around 14 weeks! But those movements are still far and few between.
Sam thinks he has a baby in his tummy!
Christian always asks "How's baby doing in there?"
Everyone thinks this baby is a girl. We find out Oct 27th!!! At first we did not want to find out the sex, but everyone has convinced us to peek. I'm going to laugh if baby decides to cross his/her legs :)
Love that I no longer have to clean the litter box!

Well that's it for now! Not too exciting, and I hope it stays that way! I have been having lots of Braxton Hicks contractions, but that has always been normal for me (I have an irritable uterus.. haha.) I'm really enjoying being pregnant this time, but am still trying to wrap my brain around having 4 little ones running around here next year :0

Patiently waiting for Madelyn