We had a baby!

I know I am incredibly behind in my blogging and Grady and Brynlee are going to be deprived of documentation of their lives during the months their mother was a slacker…. Sooo, let’s start fresh with our new addition and maybe I will find time at some point during maternity leave to catch back up!

INTRODUCING!

Ellery Sue!

Birthday:  March 3, 2014

Weight:  7 lbs. 13 oz

Time:  7:51 am

Name:  I have always loved the name Ellery and it was one of our top choices with Brynlee so I was very excited when we found out we were having a girl so I could use it!  Sue was my mom’s middle name, so she is named after my mom. 

Delivery:  Scheduled C-section.  She has been our only baby that was planned and arrived on schedule.  I never even had any contractions with her.  We checked into the hospital at 5:30 on Monday morning (March 3rd), got all hooked up to things, IV, blood drawn, prepped for surgery and we were on our way back into the operating room around 7:15.  Surgery was scheduled for 7:30 and I think we started right at 7:40 or so.  She was born 10 minutes later!  She was having problems with fluid in her lungs right away so after trying several different things in the operating room they eventually had to take her to the nursery area to put her in a little oxygen hood thing to get her numbers where they wanted them.  (Pictures to follow….)  Ironically I had told Paul during the surgery that the Dr. had told me that could be a possibility at the birth of c-section babies since they don’t go through the birth canal to get the fluid squeezed out of their lungs.  It didn’t happen with our other 2, so I wasn’t worried about it.  Ironic how it happened with Ellery and I had JUST told Paul that it could happen.  She was back in the room with us pretty much right after I got out of recovery, so it was around 1.5 hours or so that she had to be on oxygen before she was fine.  Paul went with her to the nursery area while I got put back together in surgery and then went to recovery.  He later joined me in recovery to give me an update and we started to call family members.  As with the other 2 c-sections I could not stop shaking/shivering so Paul had to do all of the calling/letting people know she was born.  It was great to have so many visitors and for a lot of family to be able to meet her right away.  Since the other 2 were born in North Platte, we only had a few visitors in the hospital. It was nice to be in Lincoln to have so much family close to come visit, especially since we were there for 4 days!  I just felt bad that for many of the visitors I was not feeling great, but such is the recovery from a c-section I suppose.  I have a hard time finding the right pain medicine, I’m sensitive to many things.  This recovery was especially hard because I got behind on my pain meds on the 2nd day since I was having problems with it (which I kind of blame on my nurse that day, but also myself…) and I was in a LOT of pain.  With the other 2 I have always been up and showered and walking the halls on the 2nd day but with this one there was no way I could do that.  We finally put in a call to my Dr. that night to get him to okay something else and it made a world of difference.  By the morning on the 3rd day I had showered, sat in the chair to eat, and was out of the bed for awhile.  At that point I was very glad we had to stay another couple of days because I definitely needed that recovery time. 

Paul’s mom (Doris) stayed with the kids at our house the whole week while we were in the hospital.  It worked out great for her to be able to take Grady to preschool/pick him up, bring them to the hospital 1 or 2 times a day to visit, and be at home with them.  They loved it and I think she did too!  We are so thankful it worked out that she could do that!  And, I loved having them come to the hospital so much!  They are in LOVE with their baby sister and are such good helpers!  It has made such a big difference having a baby with older kids.  It’s a whole different experience then when Grady had only just turned 2 when Brynlee was born.  They fight over who gets to hold her (literally tantrums when Grady gets to hold her first…) and compete over who can give her their blanket first.  They are always interested in if she is awake or sleeping and where she is at.  It is SO sweet!  Such a gift for all of us!

Okay, enough of my rambling and on to the delivery/hospital pics!  She looks so much like Grady did as a baby and looks like she will even have dimples like him!  She has about the same amount of hair that he did also (Brynlee had more) and it is so dark black like the other 2 kids also.  She also still has a very dark complexion.  Someone even asked us last week if we are sure we got the right baby!  ha!

(I feel like I should also note that she looks kind of chubby/chunky in her pictures from her birthday because of the IV fluids I got before surgery.  She is so petite and tiny now that it is weird to think of her being that big!  These pictures make her look like she has cheeks, and she really doesn’t have any cheeks.  She has Grady’s petite features.  She is also not back to her birth weight yet, so she is probably around 7 1/2 lbs right now…)