our time spent in the NICU.

[originally posted on 2/12/15]

katie and I were in my room waiting for jon while he was in the nicu with prim. when he got back down, i asked him if he'd told his family the good and not so good news yet. he hadn't, so he left to tell them it was a girl!!! they were very happy and loved her name. they cried when jon told them she 

was up in the nicu and they all went up to see her. this was while i was calling my family and getting medicine for my insane headache. i think his parents went home from there. jon came back down to get katie so that she could go meet her!

She said that when she talked to Primmy, she'd turn to look and her and would stop fussing. me and my sisters are lucky we look alike because our kids immediately like us all, haha! she liked katie's voice probably both because it sounds like mine and because she heard it the whole week before she was born so she recognized it. 

while they were in the nicu, i was getting myself together. katie came down to let me know she saw prim and that it was time i went up there. she (bless her) stayed back to pack up all of our belongings so that we could move rooms while i was wheeled up to my little baby. i saw her for a short time and wasn't able to hold her yet. 

it was so sad to see her hooked up to all of these cords and wires. fortunately, i never saw her while she had her feeding tube. jon showed me videos and it broke my heart. i was, however, very grateful to see her so large and so pink! besides all of the cords she looked like a brand new healthy baby. we were only there for a few minutes before heading to the recovery room where we sent out texts letting our friends and family know she was born! the nurse in the recovery room was seasoned and very kind although it grossed me out to hear her go on about how i was in pain because it was as though a freight train slammed into my vagina the four hours i was pushing. nevertheless, she did the dirty work of helping me address the downstairs and get me set up with ice packs.

prim had a little feeding tube for the first few hours and told Jon and Katie i couldn't breastfeed until they were sure what was going on with her lungs. when we got up to the nicu at about 7:55pm, i realized jon hadn't even held her yet! here he is holding her for the very first time. she couldn't take her eyes off of him, she loved her daddy right away!

breastfeeding went pretty well from the get-go and although it felt a bit weird, i was so happy about it! i totally prepped for and researched breast-feeding my whole pregnancy and was so excited to do the best thing for my little baby and be able to bond with her. jon was very encouraging. i considered no medication birth, cosleeping, cloth diapering, etc. but breastfeeding was the main thing i was dedicated to and excited about.

here are John and Kathy holding their first grand baby. during the pregnancy they had a hard time expressing how excited they were for the baby's arrival but they immediately bonded with her.

i wanted to get jon a gift when the baby was born to welcome him into fatherhood and i wanted it to be something that could last forever. i got him this swedish axe that he's been wanting forever and engraved it in my beautiful handwriting! 

almost a full day went by before katie sheepishly asked if she could hold prim. worst sister award goes to me. i was so tired and overwhelmed that i didn't even realize she hadn't held her yet. here they are together for the first time! prim already loves her aunt katie, we are all so happy she was there through everything. 

ashton was at the hospital while i was giving birth but because everything took so long, she didn't get to see me or prim. her and aaron came the next day and got to hold her! they are such good friends and are expecting a little girl of their own in march. while ashton was holding prim, little aurora was kicking! 

it took less than a day for this nickname to be thought up. by uncle sam.

this is the day after Prim was born at about ten o'clock at night. they would have us come to the nicu every three hours to breastfeed prim. that meant i'd feed her and hold her for about an hour, go back to our room to eat and sleep for about an hour and then start waking up to get ready to go to the nicu again. the nicu nurses would call us about 15 minutes before they wanted us there to wake us up. i am not sure if that is normal protocol, but we are so grateful they did that!

november 17th, 5:50 am.

the weekend she was born was very cold. jon would push me to and from the nicu in a wheelchair because i wasn't able to walk very far yet which meant we always had to go together and jon couldn't ever sleep longer than i did. we were starting to get worn out. at some point this day i was with prim for longer than i should have been and by the time i got back to our room i was very late for my pain medicine. while jon was pushing me through the halls the cold air was blowing on my bare legs and when i got to the room i was shivering uncontrollably and it felt like pain was radiating from my lower back. the nurse didn't seem to care very much and just gave me my pain medicine. jon covered me with layers and layers of blankets, put his coat over me and put a heat pad under my body. at north central baptist they have a massage therapist who gives every new mom a 15 minute massage. she had come in the day before to set up a time to come in-she walked in right after i had given jon his ax. she stood by the door talking to me and eyeing the ax without saying anything. her timing wasn't great as she got to my room right when i was having what we later called a 'freeze out'. it killed me to have her pull the covers away to expose my bare back to the freezing air, but i allowed it since i really wanted that quick massage. she massaged for about ten minutes before my body stopped shaking uncontrollably and then continued to massage for another 20 minutes. she talked about how she was former military and took this job because she wanted to continue to help people. the military topic seemed to come up often while we were there because of my marine corps blanket; i didn't mind. i fell asleep after she left and when i woke up i was almost delirious and sweating profusely! in a panic jon took off all the blankets and tried to calm me down, my sweat was soaking the sheets. we tried to talk to the nurse about it, but again she didn't seem too concerned. i told jon and myself that the pain in my lower back was probably from the two epidurals, the back labor and the uncomfortable sleeping position i was in while i slept in the nicu on the couch visiting prim the night before. jon said the nurse thought it was hormone changes in the body.

meeting aunt kaitlyn for the first time!

we didn't take many visitors while we were in the hospital, just family and ashton and aaron. we were so tired from sleeping small increments and trying to spend time with primrose. we were so grateful to katie and jon's family for sitting in the nicu with prim so that she wasn't alone while jon and i ate and tried to sleep and recover.

at 3am on november 18th, they brought our sweet girl to our room. she was on and off oxygen through the weekend and did well enough that after two and a half days she got to be with us. the first couple nights jon and i sat awake looking at each other laughing (in my case trying not to laugh because it hurt too much) and wishing we were with prim. by the third night, we wanted prim with us so badly, but wondered why they would bring her to us so early in the morning. we were both so exhausted. life was better having her in our room, we got to sleep a bit more and breastfeeding was easier. morning after morning the nurses would ask me if my milk had come in yet. "do your breasts feel full?" morning after morning i would tell them no. 

when we woke up, we showered with prim's bed right outside the bathroom door. she slept through it and i knew right then and there that our child was a good sleeper.

my baby scratched herself on her left cheek sometime while in the nicu, i think it must have been from her IV contraption on her hand.

that morning, my dad flew in!!!! we were all so happy to have him here! he is so good with babies and couldn't wait to meet his fourth grandchild. 

on tuesday night, they told us we were able to take our baby home! by this time i had two more freeze outs followed by sweating to death. we called my OB and told her about it and she said it was probably just a reaction to pain. that seemed legit because my lower back hurt so bad and the shivers radiated from there. i started to become extremely fearful of getting cold.

katie, my dad and ashton were all there to help us pack our belongings into the car and dress prim in her going home outfit! her shirt was a gift from amanda, her pants were robbie's/casper's, her gloves from katie and her little booties a gift from ashton. this baby is so loved.
we packed a little blue onsie covered with monkey's and matching pants in case primrose was a boy.

our drive home was stressful and very slow. my dad and katie stopped at the grocery store on the way home and when jon and i got to the house, we were alone. we introduced the dogs to the baby. my FIL had brought home items from the hospital to let the dogs smell them, but forgot to let the kitty do the same. bandit would jump and get startled any time prim would move. i took her sock off to let him smell it and he fled the room.

although katie has nieces and nephews on her husbands side, this is her first on our side. it was the best thing to see her pick up her role as an aunt to her sisters baby. being an aunt is so different from being a mom, i loved watching katie with prim. (baby girl, as she calls her)

at about 8 o'clock we went next door to introduce the baby to her great grandparents! grandpa said she was sent straight from heaven and kept calling out to grandma in the other room "come look what i have!" 

the day before i had prim when we were out on our walk, we passed grandma's house and she came running outside to exclaim "you've dropped!" her guess was a girl, and she was right. when john and kathy went next door to tell them i'd had her, grandpa said "its a girl right? 21" long?" before they even said anything. crazy stuff, y'all. grandma would later tell me that when we came over with the baby, i startled her because i looked so sick.

7am our first morning with Pirm. neither of us remember the first night with her which is either a good sign or a bad one. we were excited to have her home, but life only got more complicated from there...