2 Weeks Today.

I can't believe it's already been two weeks since Eleanor was born..   it's seriously flown by and I'm shocked how much different she looks after just 14 days here.   Our little Ellie is already in 3mo clothes and eats like a little piggy.    Her sisters absolutley LOVE her and her Daddy and I are head over heels for our newest Little Princess.

I feel so blessed that I have 3 perfect little girls to love and spoil for the rest of my life.   Mallory and Maleah were such easy babies..  content and happy all the time and Ellie is no different.   She's such a little sweetie and wants nothing more than a good bottle of breast milk and cuddles.. <3

So far my recovery has been pretty easy.    Jeremy has been amazing an help and is doing so much for the girls and myself.  The only issues I've had from my surgery have included headaches from my Spinal Block that have already ceased, awful swelling that went away about a week ago from water retention and I have some minor nerve damage in my lower back and on my left buttcheek where I have no feeling anymore.   But the procedure was so easy, I would take all that and nerve damage over my last Spinal & C section expience anyday.

A Baby is Born!

 

So, as a follow up to my last post..  Here's my labor.. errrr ummm  birth story.

As you probably already read, on Sunday December 11th, Jeremy and I took the kids to Winterhaven to see the lights and I jokingly said (and hoped) the walking would put me into labor. 

We were getting ready to leave and trying to find the crossroads we came in on around 10:00pm and thats when I started having mildly painful contractions.   Nothing too awful, just absolutley annoying..   which by the way I attributed to the fact that I had a very full bladder and needed to pee like my life depended on it. 

The whole ride home I was having some intense period-like cramps and some back pain but like i said..  nothing too awful.  

After we got home and taking our sleeping girls inside, I decided to shower to be fresh and clean for my scheduled C-section that was set for the following morning at 7:30am.   My cramps laid off a little bit after a nice long relaxing shower and after laying down for a few minutes Maleah woke up and refused to go back to sleep.      We played on my bed for a little bit but my cramps kept getting more and more intense and seemed to be coming faster and faster.

I spent about 3 more hours cramping every 2-3 minutes with them becoming more intense as the minutes passed but I was trying not to show too much pain since Maleah was getting worried with my groans and breathing.    

At 3:00am I decided I had better finish packing my hospital bag and wake my Mom up to watch Maleah since she was still awake and I went and told Jeremy (who was laying on the couch resting) that it was 'Time'.  He seemed a little worried and excited and we grabbed my pillow, bag and boppy and kissed Maleah goodbye and were out the door to the hospital.

Now I wasn't due to be at the hospital for another couple of hours.    My scheduled C-section was supposed to take place at 7:30am and I was to check into the hospital no later than 5:30am...  Well, we checked in at 4:15am after a VERY painful car ride.    I contracted every 2 min of the 40 min car ride, gripping the door and Jeremy's hand in pain and stomping the floor while trying to breathe through the pain.

After we finally got check in and all the paperwork signed, I was taken to a room where they asked for a urine sample and had me change into a gown and I was hooked up to the monitors in no time.   Pretty soon I had several nurses and techs in my room, swarming around me asking me a dozen of questions all at the same time meanwhile Jeremy was being absolutley AMAZING reminding me to breathe through every contraction and rubbing my shoulders and running his fingers through my hair.    

Because of my exteme adhesive allergies the nurses, drs and Anesthesiologist were all trying to figure out how they were going to hook me up to my IV without using any kind of adhesive pads or tape and came up with the best solution...   sewing it into my hand.

The Anesthesiologist numbed my hand with several shots and inserted the IV.   He then took out a needle and with several small stiches he literally sewed around the vein and cathetar to hold it in place and then had the nurses wrap my hand with a roll of gauze and self-sticking wrap to keep it covered and secure.    

It seemed like time was flying by as I was signing paperwork and they were getting everything prepped.    My OB wasn't on the schedule until 7:00am but they didn't want to wait because of how recent my previous C-section was.   At 6:20am after having a bag and a half of fluids and one round of antibiotics in my system they gave Jeremy his painter's scrubs and put my hair net on and I was getting wheeled on my way to the OR.  

Jeremy had to wait outside the OR doors while they got me moved to the operating table and ready to get my spinal.  The Anesthesiologist was scrambling to have all the adhesive cut out of the surgical drapes and any other items they used for routine C-sections.   After 15 minutes, my Spinal Block was getting placed and I was being layed down on the table.   After inserting the cathetar and covering me with drapes, Jeremy was brought into the room right at the same time the Dr was cutting my incision.    He stood by my head and continued to rub my head and hair and within what seemed like just minutes, I felt a ton of pressure and pushing on my stomach and heard a loud squack from behind the curtain.. 

On Monday, December 12th 2011, Eleanor Nichole Vega was born at 6:50am.     She was a perfect 21" and 9.14lbs.   She let out her first cry before she was even completley out of my abdomen..   just as her head was pulled out and her airways being suctioned.

Ellie is our third little beauty...   a head full of soft black hair and slate blue eyes. 


They pulled her out completley and brought her to my head so I could see her and immediately I cried a few tears..   they took her to the nursery to do her intial checks and Jeremy of course followed.

As I layed on the table and they were still working on me..  removing my placenta and cleaning up my old scar tissue I began to get nauseous but was unable to get sick but kept gagging.   It's an incredibly weird feeling to need to vomit but not be able to control the muscles around your stomach to actually do it to feel better.     Between gagging and feeling ill in general I started having a severe stabbing pain under my right shoulder blade.    I was given another medicine that was supposed to relax me and stop the pain a little bit but it didnt help.   With my upper body thrashing around on the table the Dr was unable to finish with my surgery so I had to be put under completley. 

I partially woke up when I was being lifted from the OR table to the hospital bed and didn't wake again until I was in my recovery room from almost an hour.. but I woke to the crys of my hungry baby girl wanting her first meal   <3     Jeremy gave her to me right away and she latched on for her first meal like a pro.

We spent a few hours in recovery and then were moved to a regular labor sweet for the next few days.   
Jeremy was amazing during this whole process and practically refused to leave my bedside or sleep.

 

After about 30 hours of no sleep, he finally gave in and napped for the first time.


 She's perfect..  absolutley PERFECT.

Our hospital stay was pretty uneventful but in a good way..  I was able to get up and get moving 24hours after my C-section and got to take a much needed shower.  Jeremy had to go home Tuesday afternoon to take care of the girls' since they stayed the night before with my Mom. 
 

 

Bonding with her Daddy after delivery.

After a little begging and more bloodwork, we were released Wednesday evening and got to go home to everything familiar.   Things have been amazing since being home.  Jeremy has been awesome taking care of us and keeping up on housework so I can recover and take care of our girls..  She's a womderful baby and doesn't cry unless she's cold after a bath and her sisters absolutley LOVE her.

I'm truely blessed to have a wonderful man in my life and three beautiful, perfect little girls.

 



 

Prelude & Winterhaven

For those of you not local, Winterhaven is a community of homes that all decorate for the holiday season.   They get to pick their own theme or just decorate with as many lights as they can etc.     It's fun to walk through and they also do wagon rides and 3 drive through nights a year.     Well Maleah LOVES to sit and look at our Christmas tree so I figured she would love the lights and Mallory is at the age where she loves to go and do things as a family also.

We had been so excited and had been planning our yearly trip to Winterhaven since October.


Anyways, I thought walking would be awesome for me and maybe put me into labor if I was lucky.. 
We planned to go on Sunday the 11th the day before my C-section was scheduled..  kind of like our last family outing before Butters came.

We finally got to Winterhaven and found a place to park around 8pm.. with only two hours to walk around we went off in a hurry and I snapped a few pics.  :)   Well, more than a few...

You can barely see Mallory in the bottom right hand corner of this one.   She wanted to be in the pics so bad lol

Walking was pretty exausting after a bit seeing how I was 39 weeks and HUGE..  but it was fun and we kept pushing on..

The girls LOVED the 'snow' and I couldn't get Mallory to hold still long enough for a picture..   but the snow was really foam and bubbles. 

The girls had so much fun and I have a thousand more pics but onto the rest of the night..

Well we walked for 2 hours or so and even lost where we parked the car lol    at around 10pm I started having some annoying crampos but not much more.    Maleah was alseep in the stroller and Mallory was also exausted but so upset to leave even though we seemed to be the only ones left (because we lost our car).

Finally got the kids loaded up and we were on our way home..  Jeremy and myself talking about the next days activities and how it seemed useless to even try and sleep for the night..   Had to leave at 4:30 the following morning for my scheduled C section..   I did however keep having annoying and slightly painful cramping the whole ride home which I attributed to having a VERY full bladder..

It's the Final Countdown.. dun dun dun dun

It really is, which is absolutley terrifying.

I've been wanting to write again for a while and finish working on my blog graphics...  or well...   start considering I said I wanted to make to change it to a holiday type theme and havent done anything since..

But in my defense..   I have been nesting like a absolute psycho.   ;)

4 seperate appointments a week is really a buzzkill..   They try and schedule 3 in one day but of course once one appointment is running behind, everything gets thrown off and a block of 3 appointments scheduled for an hour and a half time slot turns into 4 and a half hours worth of appointments.   ughh.


Anyways..

Thanksgiving was good..  I was rather disappointed since I was super excited for all the food, yet Butterball took up way too much room in my abdomen that I couldn't over stretch my stomach and fill it five times over with too much food.    Major diappointment, seriously.

We also had to make a trip to L&D at the hospital I'll be delivering at to do a NST.   My dr's office was closed that holiday weekend so I had to walk in for an appointment and also got an AFI done.   Baby was doing great, contractions every 5 min but was only feeling 1 out of 3 of them.  My Mom kept the kids for a few hours and boy was it nice to have some down time with Jeremy, just him and myself since we havent have time alone together since July for our anniversary.  My fluids for my AFI were great also, i believe i was measuring a 13 then.   Apparently anything between a 6 and 23 is good. 


I was contracting randomly, well steadily actually..   but they're not doing much to progress me at all which is fine with me.  :)    Finally they laid off and I'm a bit more comfortable becides this HUGE bowling ball stuffed under my shirt.  lol

So today, I am 38.2weeks pregnant.     It's really happening next Monday..  I'll be a mother of THREE children.    The idea alone scares me and obviously I can't go back now..  not that I'd want to anyways.   I just cant believe how quickly this pregnancy went by considering I was pregnant RIGHT before this.    Pracitcally two years straight of being pregnant.   YIKES.   Thats a LOT of skin stretching and hormones to deal with if you ask me!

I'll be having my third C-Section on Monday, the 12th.   I wanted to try for a vaginal so badly but after a lot of contemplating, I decided it would be best if I just had another C-section.   Especially after my growth scan a few weeks ago and the results saying Baby was measuring three weeks bigger than average and was a little chunker already.    My hopes are maybe for our 4th child, in many years from now..   there will be some kind of medical advances or me just feeling a little more secure and I can try for a VBAMC.  (Vaginal Birth After Multiple C-sections)   Maybe within 5-6 years I'll be in much better health and wont of Gestational Diabetes and won't run the risk of having a large baby and I could safely try for a vaginal..  also by them my incision and scar tissue from this Butterball will be nicely healed and secured.   Less of a chance for rupture after that long of a break between children.  

I've been nesting like crazy the last few days.  I went from being so over exausted two weeks ago to NEEDING to nest and reorganize everything.   It's weird how babies can mess with you like this.   lol  and I have never been so thankful for Jeremy before.   I absolutley love him with all my heart but these last few weeks he has been a total life saver.   He knows how uncomfortable I am 24/7 now and how exausting just living is at this point..   So he's been doing a LOT to help me out  (except waking up in the middle of the night to deal with Maleah) and I'm really looking forward to the extra help from him after I have Butterball.   He wasn't there for me after I had Mallory or Maleah so it'll be nice to have an extra set of hands when one of the kid's need something while I have the new baby on my boob.  

I am feeling extra guilty at this point though and I know a friend of mine is feeling the same considering she's in the exact same boat.  We both have kids just over a year old and are expecting within the next week again...   I know Mallory is super excited to meet the new baby and to be a big sister to two younger siblings, not just one..   but poor Maleah just doesn't understand.   I mean, she could care less now..   She'll probably be more confused when she realizes Mommy has a lap again and the big hard belly is gone than wondering where this new squeaking baby came from.    I'm worried we're robbing her from her time to be a baby but on the other hand, I look at her and see how she tries so hard to be a big girl and do everything her big sister does.   She doesn't want to be a baby really, but at the same time..  she's only 13 months.. she IS our baby still.    She'll absolutley be our baby still even after Butters is born, but I feel like she wont have the same opportunities to be little like Mallory did when she was her age.   It really breaks my heart.  
*fingers crossed* Everything will be fine, but I still have a pit in the bottom of my stomach wondering how she's going to react...   How our little Screech Owl is going to feel when she sees Mommy and Daddy snuggling a new baby.  <3

I have ONE appointment left..  Well, technically three..  Friday I will be pretty much spending the day at my OB's office.    I have a NST, AFI and OB appointment to go to and also need to go do my Pre-Op bloodwork etc to prepare for my C-section Monday.    I have a billion questions I need to ask my OB about my procedure since this one will be so much different from my other two considering I developed these odd annoying allergies that need to be adressed and avoided during my procedure.   I'm seriously wondering how in the world they're going to keep my IV line in me considering I'm VERY allergic to adhesives now and can't have one of those sticky sheets put over my IV.. so how in the world are they going to keep my IV securely in place?    How are they going to seal my incision since they can't use any type of glue in my incision?   Is she going to cut out all my old scar tissue and use a ton of internal stitches and just staples on the outside?

UGHHH  so many worries and concerns that need to be adressed..   but of course I'm also concerned about my Spinal and that whole procedure since my last was absolute HELL.  

Wish me luck everyone!   I'm going to need it..