Little Lila Belle will be one week old tomorrow! so much has happened over the past two weeks, it really seems like a blur, but i'll try to remember the details leading up to her birth the best i can 
i was admitted to the hospital on the morning of april 25th because my asthma had gotten too far out of control to deal with at home. over the next five days, the team of high-risk OBs and pulmonologists worked together to try and get my lungs under control. i was getting regular breathing treatments, high doses of steroids along with a battery of other medications in the "it-could-possibly-help" category. as a last ditch effort they doubled the steroid doses and started giving it intravenously. that helped a little, but the second day my lungs started getting worse again. the doctors decided that there was nothing else they could do while i was pregnant, without causing more harm to Lila. they did an amnio to check on the maturity of Lila's lungs, and when the results came back looking good, they scheduled my c-section for the next day, april 30th. the OBs talked to us about the issues Lila could have. they knew she was huge due to being on the steroids for more than a month, and that prednisone could have effected her blood sugar. there was also a chance that her adrenal glad could be suppressed or not functioning because of the prednisone. they also said that even though the amnio showed that her lungs were mature enough, she was still only 36 weeks 1 day, and could have a hard time regulating her breathing and temperature. there was also concern for jaundice and trouble nursing. it was hard to hear all of that... knowing that with all of it, she was still better off outside than in. it was a long night. my surgery was scheduled for 8am, but ended up being pushed back by about seven hours, due to eight emergency c-sections in a row.
i didn't get as sleepy this time as i did with ella. it felt like it took forever for them to get her out, but as soon as they did, we knew about it! she was PISSED! she screamed her head off, which was a good sign. i heard the nurses taking bets on how much she weighed... 9lbs.1oz. lol... yep. i had a 9lb preemie! lol. she was 19.5 inches, with a 14 inch head (ella was 7lbs 14.5oz , 19.5inches, w/ a 14.5 inch head!) and her apgar scores were 8 and 9. ben was able to hold her for the rest of the surgery (they told us they might have to take her to the NICU, depending on how things went, so i was really happy they were able to stay!)
when we went into recovery, the ped. nurse came in to do another assessment, and Lila's respiration rate was too high (it was in the mid 80s, when 65 is the high end of normal,) and she was working too hard to breathe. they almost took her out to put her on a baby c-pap machine, but they decided to let me try to nurse her first. i did, and she was a freaking pro! she latched on with almost no help, and her breathing slowed a bit while she was nursing. they kept us in recovery for a while to monitor her breathing. she was still breathing fast an hour later, but she wasn't working hard anymore. after another hour, she was down to about 65 breaths per minute, so they let us go upstairs to our room on the mother baby unit (where we'd been staying for 5 days at this point!)
othan than dropping a lot of weight by her second night (she got down to 8lbs 3oz) and developing jaundice (she has to be on the billi blanket until tomorrow) she's been doing great. she's still nursing like a champ!
we were discharged from the hospital on sunday, and we are soooooooo glad to be home!!! 9 days in the hospital is a loooooooooooong time. both of my parents took the whole week off and came up to stay at out house with ella. she did awesome. the most we'd been away from her before this was overnight, and we were seriously stressed out about how she would handle it. they did bring her up to the hospital twice a day, so it's not like we went 9 days without seeing her, but it was really hard spending the nights away. mom and dad kept her busy, though, and she dealt with it really, really well.
now that we're home, ella is showing us what a good big sister is supposed to be like she loves Lila, and tandam nursing is working out really well for all three of us. my dad went home to go back to work on manday, but mom is staying with us for the rest of this week. ben will be off next week too, then working part time the week after that.
so! we're loving being a family of four, and getting to know our new little one!
i'll post pictures of our chunky little monkey soon.
i was admitted to the hospital on the morning of april 25th because my asthma had gotten too far out of control to deal with at home. over the next five days, the team of high-risk OBs and pulmonologists worked together to try and get my lungs under control. i was getting regular breathing treatments, high doses of steroids along with a battery of other medications in the "it-could-possibly-help" category. as a last ditch effort they doubled the steroid doses and started giving it intravenously. that helped a little, but the second day my lungs started getting worse again. the doctors decided that there was nothing else they could do while i was pregnant, without causing more harm to Lila. they did an amnio to check on the maturity of Lila's lungs, and when the results came back looking good, they scheduled my c-section for the next day, april 30th. the OBs talked to us about the issues Lila could have. they knew she was huge due to being on the steroids for more than a month, and that prednisone could have effected her blood sugar. there was also a chance that her adrenal glad could be suppressed or not functioning because of the prednisone. they also said that even though the amnio showed that her lungs were mature enough, she was still only 36 weeks 1 day, and could have a hard time regulating her breathing and temperature. there was also concern for jaundice and trouble nursing. it was hard to hear all of that... knowing that with all of it, she was still better off outside than in. it was a long night. my surgery was scheduled for 8am, but ended up being pushed back by about seven hours, due to eight emergency c-sections in a row.
i didn't get as sleepy this time as i did with ella. it felt like it took forever for them to get her out, but as soon as they did, we knew about it! she was PISSED! she screamed her head off, which was a good sign. i heard the nurses taking bets on how much she weighed... 9lbs.1oz. lol... yep. i had a 9lb preemie! lol. she was 19.5 inches, with a 14 inch head (ella was 7lbs 14.5oz , 19.5inches, w/ a 14.5 inch head!) and her apgar scores were 8 and 9. ben was able to hold her for the rest of the surgery (they told us they might have to take her to the NICU, depending on how things went, so i was really happy they were able to stay!)
when we went into recovery, the ped. nurse came in to do another assessment, and Lila's respiration rate was too high (it was in the mid 80s, when 65 is the high end of normal,) and she was working too hard to breathe. they almost took her out to put her on a baby c-pap machine, but they decided to let me try to nurse her first. i did, and she was a freaking pro! she latched on with almost no help, and her breathing slowed a bit while she was nursing. they kept us in recovery for a while to monitor her breathing. she was still breathing fast an hour later, but she wasn't working hard anymore. after another hour, she was down to about 65 breaths per minute, so they let us go upstairs to our room on the mother baby unit (where we'd been staying for 5 days at this point!)
othan than dropping a lot of weight by her second night (she got down to 8lbs 3oz) and developing jaundice (she has to be on the billi blanket until tomorrow) she's been doing great. she's still nursing like a champ!
we were discharged from the hospital on sunday, and we are soooooooo glad to be home!!! 9 days in the hospital is a loooooooooooong time. both of my parents took the whole week off and came up to stay at out house with ella. she did awesome. the most we'd been away from her before this was overnight, and we were seriously stressed out about how she would handle it. they did bring her up to the hospital twice a day, so it's not like we went 9 days without seeing her, but it was really hard spending the nights away. mom and dad kept her busy, though, and she dealt with it really, really well.
now that we're home, ella is showing us what a good big sister is supposed to be like
she loves Lila, and tandam nursing is working out really well for all three of us. my dad went home to go back to work on manday, but mom is staying with us for the rest of this week. ben will be off next week too, then working part time the week after that.so! we're loving being a family of four, and getting to know our new little one!
i'll post pictures of our chunky little monkey soon.
Congratulations! Glad you're both healthy and safe! Hope your recovery continues to go well. Can't wait to see pictures!
: Welcome Lila Belle! What a beautiful name
