Steve and Kellie: 2015

The first few weeks were a blur. Penny is a very good baby, but it was still overwhelming since everything was new! What got me the most was my own recovery though. Man oh man, I would rather go through labor 10 times than go through recovery again! It was really rough. I think in part because I didn't really prepare myself for it, I was just focused on the whole getting the baby out thing!

My mom came out right after Penny was born and stayed a whole week. It was fantastic! I honestly don't know what we would have done without her and I cried so hard when she left! It was scary being all alone with a new baby!

The first week we had to deal with Penny's jaundice level being too high. We took her into our clinic on Sunday, the day after we went home from the hospital, to have her level checked again. It was sad that her heel had to get pricked at only three days old, but the results came back a bit lower than when we were in the hospital (at 11 instead of 12. They hospitalize at 13)! Our doctor told us to get her in sunlight as much as we could and we'd check it again the next day at her appointment. So again at four days old we took her to a doctor appointment. She was supposed to get her heel pricked again to check the level, but our doctor finished her examination and told us that she could tell her levels had dropped dramatically (no more than an 8 she said) and that we didn't need to prick her heel - she was fine! Yay!

Other than the jaundice, everything was pretty smooth with Penny. We had so many people give us such great baby gear, especially Katy who gave us a rock n' play and swing (among a lot of other things) that were total life savers! Penny basically won't sleep in anything that isn't "cozy" and moving (aka her bassinet!). My mom helped a lot at night so Steve could sleep enough to function at school. I spent most nights out on the couch with the rock n' play next to me because it was just too hard to get out of bed every hour or so to take care of Penny - sleeping on the couch made it a little less traumatic to get up! :)

Stats:
Four day checkup:
6 lbs 6 oz (doc came in saying "how about that weight gain?!" - they just want them to be back to their birth weight after two weeks - Penny was one ounce off at four days!)

Two Week:
6 lbs 14 oz
20.25 in
13.5 in head circumference

Pics aren't in order (don't even want to mess with that right now), but here's the overload:

Snuggling on the couch right after we got home

First walk!

I love those bright eyes!

Baths were kind of traumatic for everyone at first - this is how we'd get her to calm down afterwords.

So cute even when she's sad!

After her two week doctor appointment - her heel was pricked for genetic tests

First pacifier

She fell asleep like this on my lap while we watched TV

She's a big finger sucker.

Getting her vitamin D

Penny never wanted to lay her head on Steve's chest, she just wanted to stare at him all the time!

This pic just makes us laugh!

Out in the sun for her jaundice - 3 days old!

Newborn pic!

Mom took her out in the sun one day and she came back in completely passed out! I LOVE this pic!

8 days old!

Apparently this is the outfit that Grammy brought Randy home in when he was born!

Hi Matt and Alexa! 3 weeks old.

The only way Steve could get little P to sleep one day.

Trying out her bottle for the first time at 3 weeks. She took it no problem!

1 Month!

Where to even start?!

I went into labor at 8:30pm on Wednesday, September 16th, but I didn't realize it was actual labor since I'd had false labor several times. I took a Benadryl since my doc had told me to do that to help sleep through some of the contractions. Big mistake! I was SO exhausted during all of labor and adding meds was not great. Finally around 2:30am I started timing my contraction since I started to throw up, which wasn't normal for false labor. My contractions weren't consistent at all (ranging from 2 1/2 minutes to 5 minutes apart), but I felt awful so I woke Steve up a little after 4am to head to the hospital. Steve had gone to bed and slept all night since he had a big test the next day (How convenient that I went into labor and he had to reschedule with his teacher!). He ran around the house collecting the last minute items list for our hospital bag while I laid on the bathroom floor! We both were sure they were just going to send us home again, but we jumped in the car and headed out. I was still feeling so so nauseous and about two seconds into the drive I was throwing up out the window (there was no way I was getting out of the car at that point!). :/

We got checked into triage just before 5am and only spent about 30 minutes there getting checked. I had dilated to a 5 from a 3 (where I had been for almost 3 weeks!) and I guess my contractions were consistent enough that they decided to keep me. When the nurse told us we'd be staying I believe I said "shut up" and Steve said "no way" - we were both shocked it was actually happening!

We headed to our delivery room and I got set up on all the monitors and what not. My contractions were indicating that Penny was in the wrong position, so they had me lay on my side with a peanut shaped exercise ball between my legs to see if she would turn. I was still throwing up at this point, so we decided to get some meds to help. I really didn't want them, but I needed to focus on other things at that point. It helped. I was doing okay until all of a sudden things got super intense. I started shaking like crazy before each contraction which really scared me. I wanted to get up and move around, but they wouldn't let me off the monitors since they were having trouble picking up my contractions and I still had to keep the exercise ball between my knees. I dealt with this for a while, but I finally was so miserable and scared that I decided to get an epidural. I'm really scared of epidurals and was really hoping to avoid one, but I talked with the two nurse anesthetists they sent in and felt pretty comfortable with them. As they sat me up to get started it felt so good to move! But I kept complaining that the pressure wasn't letting up - it was like I was having a super extended contraction. It was intense as they were doing the procedure, but they did an awesome job and I really didn't feel too much, I was just psyching myself out because I knew what was happening. The relief was almost immediate and I stopped shaking before each contraction. After I was laid back down the nurse said the constant pressure I was complaining about was usually a sign things were pretty progressed. My doctor walked in right then (She was going out of town the next day for the weekend, so I was SO glad I went into labor while she was still in town) and they decided to check me. I was at a 10! I had dilated from a 5 to a 10 in about 2 1/2 hours, which is not typical for first time labor. I was actually disappointed to hear that, because if I had known I was at a 10, I wouldn't have gotten the epidural since I was so close (plus they wouldn't have given it to me after an 8 unless I wasn't progressing at all). I got it mainly because I thought I would be going through that for several more hours. But then it was time to push!

I pushed and pushed and pushed for close to 3 hours (the limit they'll let you push for). After the first 45 minutes my doctor asked if I wanted help, but I said no, I wanted to try for as long as I could without an intervention. She knew nothing was happening, but was very patient and let me try, but we made no progress. I did get some great bonding time with the doc and nurses during that time! Haha! So close to the 3 hour mark it was time for the forceps. Pretty sure that's when I started crying. I was just so exhausted and frustrated and scared for the forceps. I love my doctor, Dr. Hook, and really trust her, so that made it a little easier. She has a super low C-section rate (under 25%) and does everything she can before resorting to that (aka forceps) unlike a lot of physicians. However, Dr. Hook later told me she probably wouldn't have used the forceps if I hadn't had an epidural and it would have probably turned into a C-section. So in the end I was SO glad that I did get the epidural!

And then she was here! Screaming bloody murder. For almost 40 minutes. Poor girl was just not pleased about being born! Dr. Hook did the forceps perfectly and Penny just had one tiny bruise on her cheek that was gone before we left the hospital. They kept telling us that she'd have a big cone head cause I pushed for so long, but she barely had one at all! I just remember seeing all her dark hair and being relieved that she wasn't bald and immediately wanting to kiss her chubby little cheeks! So Penny laid on my chest and screamed while I cried and Steve tried to comfort us both! Her info:

Thursday, September 17th
10:40 am
6 lbs 7 oz
20 inches

A few hours later we were transferred to our recovery room that we stayed in until Saturday afternoon. I love the hospital (University Medical Center - UMC) I delivered at for many reasons, but one was because they have queen size hospital beds in the recovery rooms! The only problem was when I would sit the bed up to nurse at night it would move the whole bed and Steve would get bent in funny ways and wake up! Our nurses were SO wonderful and we had such a great experience there! On the second day we were there Penny had to have her stomach pumped because she had been throwing up amniotic fluid and was super fussy. Our nurse told us that was common if a baby had had to be suctioned at birth because of meconium, which was the case with Penny. She did a lot better after that. I also think I need to note that Steve changed every single diaper in the hospital.

We stayed in the hospital two days - heading home on Saturday afternoon. Our pediatrician almost didn't discharge Penny because she was very jaundiced, but her levels were one point below what our insurance would cover a hospital stay for, so she let us take her home! We followed up on the jaundice of course, but more on that later.

And now the pic overload: