Yes, that is right...Miss Macie Leigh made her debut on December 7 at 5:19am...wasn't she due toward the end of January, you ask? Why, yes, she was...here's the story...
On Tuesday, December 4th, I woke around 2am after sensing a very small gush that reminded me an awful lot of the larger gush I felt with Emily when my water broke. That was all though...no significant amount, just a little bit so I decided to go back to sleep and would act on it if contractions happened to start. Josh was due to be 6 hours away in Michigan that day so when he got up at 5am, I awoke and again felt a small gush...and this time 1-2 more that required some attention. I gave him a heads up about what I thought was happening but told him to go ahead to work and I would let him know...he would turn around and come home if necessary. After he left, I called the on-call doctor from my OB's office. After describing it to him and letting him know that this was my third baby and, other than with labor for Emily, this was new to me. He speculated that it was most likely urine from the baby's pressure on my bladder and encouraged me to call when the office opened to be seen.
I called the office at 8am and left a message for the nurses. I hadn't heard back by 8:45 so I called again to get an appointment time. I was told to wait for the call back. In the meantime, the nurse for the on-call Dr called me to check-in. I re-told the happenings to her, let her know that I was not having any contractions, but that I was fairly certain it was not urine. I got an appointment for 11:30. I'm not sure what made me think ahead, but I'm glad I did. I called our friends (Josh's cousin) and asked if they would mind watching the kids while I went in. Good thing I did...an examination revealed that my water had, indeed, broken and I was admitted to the hospital. Josh was just about to his destination and the kids were safely at our friends' house...so I called my Mom to report for duty. At this point, I was only 32 weeks + 6 days along. After discussing the events with my doctor, she let me know that the plan would be hospital bed rest until the baby made it to 34 weeks, unless something happened in the meantime...which, it did.
Around 2am on Friday December 7th, I awoke to a couple of very strong contractions. I gave the nurse a heads up that she might want to call the doctor. She didn't take me very seriously and said let's watch the contractions on the monitor for an hour. I obliged. A short while later, I called her in again and, again, asked her to call the doctor. She did and he asked her to put me on a 2 hour fluid IV drip because often dehydration can cause strong contractions. About 10 minutes later, I called her again...I knew these contractions. She let the drip rush in, in an effort to get it in fast for the hopeful effect of stopping the contractions. Yeah, not good enough. I told her again to check with the doctor...again telling her how quickly I progressed with labor with my second child. He asked her to check for dilation and I was at 8...suddenly, everyone took me more seriously! A short while later, he arrived with the anesthetist. I was told after Emily that I would not be allowed to try for a VBAC again and I had come to terms with it...BUT, the doctor brought it up again because the baby would be so much smaller than my full term kids! Thanks to Josh's rationale, I decided to give it a try through one contraction and if the nurse saw good movement, we'd go for it. I was so mentally unprepared for the opportunity that I had a hard time thinking through it clearly. I was exhausted...and worried that she was coming so early. After one good attempt at pushing, we looked at the nurse and asked, "did she move?" The nurse's response was "um, yes, a little." Not quite the enthusiasm I needed at that point, especially after pushing for 3 and 2 hours respectively for Aaron and Emily without success. I looked at Josh, and then back to the nurse and said "let's go in for the c-section." A short while later, at 5:19am. Macie Leigh was born weighing in at 4lbs 8.3 oz and 18 in long. She cried loud and long and got an 8 on the Apgar...all very encouraging signs for such an early baby. She was immediately greeted by two nurses and a neonatologist. They just kept saying "she looks good" "she's a good size!" All words a Mama in my situation desperately wanted to hear.
As you can see, she isn't ridiculously tiny...but certainly hadn't started storing much fat yet!
After they wrapped her up and brought her to me to meet and kiss her, she was whisked away to the NICU, while I was closed up. The time it took to close me up were some of the hardest minutes of my life...felt like hours. Back in my room, after about an hour, we called up to the NICU and Josh was allowed to go see her...rough on me to have to wait but I had a decent amount of recovery to start before I could transfer into a wheelchair to see her...major abdominal surgery and all. I needed to be able to sit upright without passing out and I needed to be able to tolerate some liquids and semi-solids, at a minimum. BUT, I was promised that later in the day, I would get to see her too...pretty amazing considering what had just happened to my body...miraculous. Thankfully, as with my previous two c-sections, I was back to eating and sitting up in no time...thanking God that my body recovered so quickly, especially under these circumstances!
As you can see, she started out with a feeding tube, IV (antibiotics as a precaution due to my water break), and cardiac and O2 sat monitoring.
And finally, it was my turn...pure sweetness in a warm little bundle. It was so surreal to be holding her outside of my body so early.
By the next day, she was also put on vapotherm to help her with her breathing. We would learn in the coming days that this helped to keep her airway open. The preemie trachea is soft and hose-like while ours are rigid. The lack of neck control and certain positions were causing her heart rate to drop very briefly but the vapotherm prevented this from happening.
More snuggling...not the easiest thing with all of those wires and tubes but worth every second.
Daddy caught her with her eyes open! She had to wear that splint on her arm to keep her IV in...what a trooper!
While Macie and Mommy were recovering in the hospital, the kids were under Daddy and Grammie's care and were doing GREAT. They brought me dinner each night and loved the "man cave" area off of my room. When they came to the hospital the first night I was there, before Macie's birth, the first thing Emily said was "why don't you have shoes on?" Here I am, in a hospital gown, in a hospital bed, hooked up to a baby monitor and an IV and the sweet girl wants to know why I'm not wearing shoes...too adorable. Every night thereafter, she and Aaron took their shoes off when they arrived:)
As much as I wanted Grammie to stay for a few more days, the duties awaiting her at home prevailed. Before Grammie headed home, she got the chance to hold little Macie...
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