Parenting: Preemies Community

Baby girl (Josephine Holly) made her appearance on 1-19-2010. She is 32 weeks, 5 days. Weight just a hair under 4 lbs, length just a touch over 16 inches. She's in the NICU, but doing as well as can be hoped for at the early age. I'm trying to heal up from a 2nd c-section and wrap my brain around having a preemie.

I was woken up around 3:30 am by DD#1, as she wanted a drink. I noticed I felt a little wet, stuck a handy burp cloth/cloth diaper under myself and checked it a few minutes later...I was bleeding. So, I called my mom to come get me, as DH was out of town on a business trip. Stuck a new cloth diaper in my undies and pulled on sweats, etc. Arrived at L&D around 5:30 am. They took me back to triage (mom and DD had to stay in the lobby, due to no under 18 allowed back), got me gowned and stuck monitors on me....I wasn't too worried yet, as baby was moving around, although I was feeling some light contractions. Ultra-sound didn't show anything out of the ordinary, so they took me to a room and had the on call doc (happened to be my OB) come check...I was 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced, big shock to me! They put me on magnesium to try to stop the labor and gave me a steroid shot to help baby's lungs speed up. Mom and DD came back to see me, and DH had made arrangements to fly back early. The magnesium seemed to be working, for a while, then the contractions picked back up and the bleeding started again. A second internal revealed I was to 4 cm and 100%, so obviously baby was not going to stay put. Due to the breech position, we started getting me prepped for c-section. Before long, all we were waiting for was DH to get here from the airport, which he did in very nice time. Got him gowned up and we went back for surgery. I highly recommend spinal over general anesthesia, having tried both now. I feel better about this birth, having been able to be awake for it, although the sensation of lacking sensation (does that make sense?) is very strange. Turned out that my placenta had started to separate, and there was a fairly sizeable blood clot, so she definitely needed to come out!

Once I was able to move my legs a bit (enough to shift from the OR bed to the room bed), I got to go see my baby girl briefly before getting settled for the night. I had some difficulty over the first night with throwing up anything solid or stronger to eat than ice chips, so I still have the IV start in, just in case. Hopefully that'll come out later today, as I haven't even felt nausea for about 24 hours now. Probably just a side effect of the anesthesia, although it might be stress combined with no food for a bit over 24 hours. Hard to say for sure.

I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that she's really here, not in my belly anymore. I think it will take weeks, if not months, to make the adjustment.

My milk has started to come in, so there is enough to cover Josephine's feedings, assuming it matches her needs and can get enough calories, vitamins, minerals, etc. into her.

If anyone has thoughts/advice on the ways to get through these first days at home w/out my little girl, I'm open to learning from those who have been there before me! I know I need to go home, for my DH and DD#1, but it's hard to even think of leaving without Josephine.

-Amber