Here she is, Lillian Waudine or as we like to call her, Anadine! Our sweet daughter was born February 28 at 1:47pm. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to update y'all on the story - I've been a little busy and a little sleep deprived. But now Anadine is napping, and I'll try to get the story in before she wakes up.
Monday, February 27 I had my routine doctor's appointment at 8:00 am. I woke up that morning with a terrible headache and had felt generally horrible all weekend long. I didn't realize it so much at the time, but looking back on it I realize how terrible I really did feel. My feet, ankles, calves, hands, face, and pretty much every other part of my body was so swollen that I could barely fit into sweatpants and moving in general was very difficult. Anyway, I got to the doctor and they checked my blood pressure. It was 137 over 89....not too terribly high, but very high for me. I did my business in the cup and then went back to sit with R to wait for the doctor. I mentioned to R that my blood pressure was high, but neither of us were too concerned. My blood pressure has slowly risen throughout my pregnancy and so we just chalked it up to possibly extra stress or something along those lines. Well, the nurses came in and suddenly the mood in the room changed. They seemed extra worried about my swelling (more so than previous appointments) and they were asking me questions about headaches, blurred vision, etc. They told me the doctor was running late that morning, but they knew he was going to want an ultrasound, so they suggested we go ahead and do that before he got there so he could look over it with us. They said he was going to want to check the size of the baby to be sure she could come out soon (what?!) So this meant me getting redressed, but I didn't mind because I was going to get to see my baby! As I was dressing I mentioned to R that I thought they suspected preeclampsia. R was not convinced but of course started looking up preeclampsia symptoms on his phone (gotta love him!)
The ultrasound looked great...baby was measuring approximately 6 lbs 13 oz, and all looked good with her (whew!). So we went back to the exam room, I got undressed again, and we waited, and waited, and waited. Meanwhile R was reading off symptoms of pre e and we started realizing all of these ailments I had been having the last several days were right in line for it. So of course I start freaking out a little and the wait for the doctor was excruciating! He never runs late, and he chose this day to do so! Ugh! :)
So he finally comes in, looking extremely worried (way to put my mind at ease, doc!) and tells me that with my blood pressure so high, the swelling, and the extremely high protein count in my urine (the first time we heard mention of this) that i very definitely had pre eclampsia and that I needed to be at the hospital by 11:00 to be monitored for the day and that they would would start inducing that evening. I was still not dilated at all, but it was more important to get the baby out soon because I was going to quickly start feeling more and more sick if we kept me pregnant much longer.
So R and I went home, grabbed our things, and went to the hospital. Here's the real kicker...they were out of beds at the hospital! Apparently that weekend was a very popular weekend to have babies, so they had to put me in this tiny, extra room until they got one of the labor rooms cleaned and ready for me...something they kept promising would happen in the next thirty minutes. Well, we finally moved into our room at 8:30 that night! Oh well, it wasn't a big deal, just kind of annoying. Throughout the day they checked my blood pressure, which steadily climbed to outrageous numbers...like 160/96! Wowser! Once we got moved into our room, they inserted a thing behind my cervix. I can't for the life of me remember what it's called, but the purpose was to give my cervix a kick start and try to get it dilated enough to break my water the next morning and start the pitocin.
Well, morning came, and I still had not dilated at all. They had to start the pitocin anyway, something that the nurse warned me was going to cause horrific pain with my water bag still in place and boy was she right. The contractions came on very suddenly and painfully. She checked me an hour later, still no dilation, so she cranked up the pitocin. The contractions were stage three, coming every minute and a half...an hour later, still no dilation. It was the most terrible pain I have ever experienced. I couldn't get an epidural because I wasn't dilated to a two, and they kept cranking up the pitocin, which would crank up the contractions, but still no change to my cervix. It was all very frustrating to say the least. By this point I knew a csection was probably inevitable, and I wanted nothing more than to just do it and get it over with! At 11:30 the nurse checked me again, found nothing had changed and called the doctor. She came in and said he wanted to come talk to me about a csection and would be there around 12:15 (he finished clinicals at 12:00). I thought okay I can do this for another fourth five minutes. I just watched the clock and counted down the contractions. At 12:30, she came back in and said that the doctor was in the parking lot, but he got a call that another patient was ready to push at a hospital across town so he would have to come back after that. Ugh! Another hour of contractions and finally he came in, checked me one last time (still no dilation) and said it was time for a csection. We got into the OR at 1:35, I got the spinal block (ah instant relief!) and baby Anadine was born at 1:47. It all happened so fast, and it was all so surreal.
While I was in recovery we started discussing names. Going into the day we still hadn't decided on a name, although we had two options that were our top two. Honestly, for the past two months or so I was convinced that her name was going to be something completely different, but when she was born I instantly knew she was a Lillian and I had this overwhelming desire to name her after our grandmothers - two women that we loved dearly. Lillian was my grandmother's name and Waudine was R's grandmother's name. The only problem was we did not want her to turn into a Lilly, which I felt was inevitable to happen.I've taught many Lilly's over the past several years, and not one of them has been a very pleasant experience. :) So R suggested we go ahead and decide her nickname now and in my drug induced sleepiness I came up with Anadine - a combination of the endings of both names. I realize it will cause some confusion, especially with the pronunciation (it's pronounced like clean, not with a long I as in clementine) but I think it's beautiful and it seems to fit her.
R and I are completely smitten with this little girl and we haven't once nor will we ever forget what a precious miracle she is. She is a pretty good baby and we've only had a couple of rough nights so far. Our biggest challenge is keeping her awake while she's eating so that she gets a full feeding each time. She's a pro at nursing, and while I am exhausted and feel like all I ever do is feed a baby, she at least makes it pretty easy on me by being good at it! She has been sleeping in her crib since the first night home and generally wakes up to eat about every 2.5-3 hours which isn't too bad.
I already feel like she has grown so much in the past two weeks. I'm just trying to absorb every minute of it. She is the love of my life and she continues to take my breath away with everything she does.
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