I have been meaning to update the blog for MONTHS! Literally months. So much has changed since my last post, obviously. I am sure that this post will take me days to write so thank goodness for the save button!
The last few months of pregnancy absolutely flew by. Now I am sitting on the sofa watching our beautiful baby girl sleep in her swing. I can’t think of a way I would rather spend my time. I am certainly feeling blessed.
Just 6 short weeks ago I was in labor about to meet Lainie. What a day!
At about 1:30am on December 7th, I woke up to Lainie wiggling around in my belly like she never had before. I had no idea what was going on, but she kept me awake for hours. Adam suggested that I call the on-call doctor just to chat about what was going on, since they said any drastic changes in fetal movement warranted a phone call. So after spending a few minutes on the phone with the doctor we loaded up the car and headed to labor and delivery to get hooked up to a fetal monitor.
We got to the hospital around 3:30am or so and they listened to Lainie for an hour… things sounded perfect so they discharged me and sent us home. I was having a decent amount of pain but just associated it with how Lainie was positioned. I had an appointment with Dr. Seeker later that morning, so I figured that I could just discuss what was going on with him.
When we got back to the house at 6:30am I told Adam to go back to sleep and I tried to do the same. I laid in bed for about 5 minutes but was just so uncomfortable I got up to walk around the house. I gave up on going to sleep and decided to take a shower so I could get ready to go to the doctor. I sat on the floor of the shower for about 45 minutes and couldn’t get up! Finally I pulled myself up and got dressed. I woke Adam up to let him know that I really wasn’t feeling well. He suggested that I start timing my pains and thanks to a handy iPhone app, we learned that I was having contractions every two minutes. Oops! Time to go to the hospital!
At Dr. Seeker’s office they put me on a contraction monitor and sure enough, contractions were coming every one and a half to two minutes. They sent us straight to labor and delivery, where I was checked in for the second time that day. Luckily I got to stay!
When they checked my vital signs I was running fever and my blood pressure was a bit low – which was suprising since I had been on bedrest for high blood pressure two weeks prior! The nurses had all kinds of problems getting my IV started – three people tried! I can’t even remember how many times they had to stick me with that dang needle before the line was started, but it was not fun at all!
After that we discussed pain management options. I did not originally plan on getting an epidural, but decided that I was in enough pain to move forward with one. My contractions were VERY strong and coming every minute or so. The anesthesiologist arrived and started my epidural. 30 minutes later there was absolutely no pain relief, so they had to take it out and start all over. After the second epidural was in I was feeling much better. Still running fever… about 101.5, still had low blood pressure, but I wasn’t feeling the contractions like I was before.
Unfortunately, about 2 hours later all the pain came back, but just on my right side. I couldn’t feel the contractions on my left side but was having really intense pain on the right. They upped my epidural med dosages – still no pain relief. Sooooo, I went through the rest of labor and delivery with half an epidural. Had I know, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the epidural at all. Oh well!
At about 5pm they told me it was time to start pushing! I pushed for an hour and 45 minutes with little progress. Lainie’s heart rate started to spike so Dr. Seeker decided that we needed to use forceps and deliver her right away. After an episiotomy and one more push, Alainah Elizabeth Johnson arrived at 6:50pm!
When she got here she was running a temperature of 103 – talk about scary! They cleaned her up and took her to the nursery to be evaluated. While I was in recovery, the nurse was talking to me about the NICU and letting me know that Lainie would most likely be staying there for the whole time we were in the hospital. Amazingly enough, I took the news pretty well. I just wanted them to do what they needed to do to make sure she was ok.
After being checked out in the nursery, her temperature was back to normal so the doctor decided she didn’t need to stay in the NICU after all. That was a huge relief! We spent the next three days in the hospital snuggling our sweet girl. On December 10th, after Lainie’s last round of blood work cane back good, we all headed home!
We have loved every second of our time at home together with her. We are starting to get settled into our routine which consists of lots of baby feeding and changing and very little sleeping!
She is such a blessing and we can’t imagine life without her.
Here are some pics of our sweet girl:
Hopefully once we are getting a bit more sleep I will be able to update my blog regularly 
Keep checking back!
Always,
Aimee
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