Joys In My Life

Part 6 also starts on Phoebe's Day 6. She was in the NICU, doing very well, and we hadn't seen the surgeons all week (this was Thursday by now). The doctor's at this hospital were saying that if they didn't hear from the surgeons soon, they would send her home with us that day, and we should follow up with the other doctors when we got home. Tom and I had been together with her since she was born, except for running home for a bite to eat and shower and change. We lived 10 minutes from the hospital. We had discussed the night before that we would rather her go from one hospital to the next. We weren't relishing the thought of handing her back to a hospital after she'd already been home. But anyway, I sent Tom to Babies R Us across the street from the hospital to pick up a new infant car seat (the convertable one was too big for her) and have it installed properly, as they had the fire department there doing the installs and showing the proper way to do it. ...

I started pushing I think around 6:30 or 7 AM. Phoebe Katharine Wilson was born at 7:36 AM on October 6, 2000. She was 7 lbs. 1/2 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. Did I mention she was 4 weeks early? Thank God! She seemed to be breathing OK but she had some lung immaturity. There were lots of doctors all around her working on her. I got to hold her once before she was whisked away to the NICU. Tom went with her. We discussed that before hand. She had a full head of black hair, just as I expected. There were lots of tears. BTW, they never seem to tell you about having to push out the placenta in the birthing classes. What's up with that? It freaked me out when the doctor told me I had to push again after she was born. I was completely unprepared. I grabbed Nicki's hand (SIL) and she was forced to sit down. She told me she almost got sick. That is the part of the story where she wished she wasn't there. Sorry, Nicki. Tom was watching Phoebe with the doctors on the ...

We'll continue from going into labor & delivery. Beautiful room, hardwood floors, my own bathroom with shower, loved that room! I spent the next 21 hours in this room. It was about 2:30 PM by the time I got settled in the room. My water broke at 10:30 AM. I didn't feel a single contraction until I got settled in the L&D room. Ouch! The good thing is I practice yoga and really learned my breathing exercises well. These really do help, girls! I was going to do my best to do this without an epidural, because we didn't know if Phoebe was going to have to go right to the other hospital for surgery. We knew if that happened, there was no way I was going to stay checked into the hospital where I delivered. I had to be with my baby. I didn't want to wait for an epidural to wear off. I also have to admit, I don't like needles. I never even looked at the needle they used for amnio. Not even after they did the procedure. I laid down in denial that anythi...

I’m typing this into MS Word first, so if I lose the post in Blogger, I can repost it later. It seems all my issues with Blogger are during evening hours, and that’s when I’d like to get this one done. So I went for a Level 2 ultrasound and Doppler when I was 36 ½ weeks along. I had my 36-week appointment with one of the other OB/Gyns in the practice that week, as my regular OB was on vacation. I used to call my mom every Sunday morning to give her the baby update and how the tests were going. When she heard my doctor was on vacation, she told me that I would go into labor this week. I thought she was crazy! I had a scheduled induction for the week of October 24th, a week before my due date. Any way, I do remember Phoebe kicking me a lot the night before these appointments. I told Tom I thought she was looking for another exit. It was October 5, 2000. After the ultrasound, Tom and I would go to Borders to get him a pumpkin spice coffee and me a decaf coffee. I went into the l...

Blogger ate my Part 2 that I typed up last night. I'm going to try again this morning, but I'm seriously considering Typepad with everyone else that has fled. If you are reading this, you may want to go to Part 1 first. We decided to do amneocentisis. They said they wanted to check the AFP level in the amniotic fluid. If the AFP level was fine there, then the baby should be fine. If it was fine, they would need to screen me for cancer. Apparently a high MSAFP level can be attributed to cancer in females. They never told me what kind of cancers. The AFP level in the amniotic fluid was normal. No problems. Baby should be fine. Then they did MRIs (had to be open, I'm terribly claustrophobic) and ultrasounds looking for cancer. They didn't find anything. They gave me and baby a clean bill of health and said they wanted me to come in for Level 2 ultrasounds every month just to check things out. Apparently, there's a correlation out there with unexplained high...

I've been prompted by my other fellow infertiles that had babies spend time in the NICU to tell my story of "we just never seem to get a break." My daughter's 4 1/2 now, but I remember it all as it was yesterday. I should probably write it down for posterity to boot. I'm probably going to need a few typing sessions to get this in so I've already labeled this Part 1 in anticipation. We'll begin with conception. I had surgery for a blocked left fallopian tube in July 1999. I had a feeling it was endometriosis. My mom and DH tell me that the doctor talked to them before the surgery and said he'd be out in about 15 minutes. An hour and a half later he came out and said he had never seen endometriosis so bad on a 28-year-old woman. They were all amazed I didn't have amazingly painful periods (I didn't). After the surgery, they said they wanted to try to get me pregnant quickly with ovulation induction and IUI with my DH's sample (he coul...