A LONG Post to Catch Up...

I had great intentions of posting several blogs during the final days before Madelyn arrived, but I was so tired that I just never got around to it.
We spent the days before she was born dreaming about what she would look like. How her hair and eyes would be, dreaming about all what she would be like and how excited we were to meet her.
We had a C-Section scheduled for Thursday January 26th, but as most of you know that she was born the day before on Wednesday January 25th.

Here's her birth story...
I had had contractions on and off (but mostly on) for the entire weekend before she was born. At my appointment that Monday, my doctor told me that it was normal and to just ignore them as long as I could and that if I couldn't, then I would need to call the hospital. Well things calmed down and I worked Monday and Tuesday as planned. I took Wednesday off to get a few last minute things done and to rest. Wellllll, I started having contractions about 4 a.m. that didn't stop. I didn't wake Tyler up because I didn't think it was anything too serious. When he got up to get ready for work I told him that I thought things were starting to change and it might really be "real" contractions. He asked if he should stay home from work, but I told him to go because we had the C-section scheduled for the next day and I was determined that everything was going to go as we had planned. (Comical, now, I know). He got ready for work and headed out with his cell phone close in case I needed him. I tried laying back down in bed, but I was just too uncomfortable. I decided to call my sister to see if she would be around to drive me to my appointment at 1 that day. I was scheduled to go in for pre-admission testing and get blood work done before surgery the next day. With all the pain I was having, I decided it would be nice to have someone drive me there. So I called her and she said she would come. She also highly encouraged me to call the hospital, but I just thought it was silly. So instead I downloaded an app to track my contractions for an hour. After several texts from her and my mom, I decided to call Labor & Delivery and get their opinion. The nurse told me I needed to come in right away, to which I said "Well my husband is at work, so I could be there in a couple of hours." I knew I wanted to shower and finish packing our bag in case this was the real deal, so I was buying myself time -- I could have been there in about 5 minutes, but I wanted to be sure I had the house in order before I left. I sent out texts to the family to tell them not to worry, but I was going in and I would keep them posted. My sister showed up and I was still getting ready. Don't you know everyone takes a shower and does hair and makeup before they have a baby?!? She was running around the house getting my stuff packed and urging me to get out of the house. We finally got on our way and when I walked in, the nurses were waiting for me and had a room ready to go. They hooked me up to several machines and confirmed that I was in labor and was dilated to a 1. The nurse told me that she would be back in an hour to check me again and if I had made any more progress that I would be having a baby that day. I called Tyler (who works directly across the street from the hospital) to tell him he should head over because I was pretty sure that it was time. My sister took care of calling everyone else to tell them that they should start making plans to head to the hospital. The nurse came back in around 30 minutes later to check again. I had progressed enough and the doctor said to get the OR ready and we would be having the baby in about an hour. Five minutes later, the nurse came back in and said that they had a surgery team ready and they had to hurry because it was time to have a baby. About that time, Tyler walked through the door and the nurse threw scrubs to him and told him to get ready. All of the sudden a swarm of nurses and doctors were in the room hooking me up to all kinds of things and before I knew it, I was rolling off to surgery - less than an hour after I walked in to the hospital.
They had to poke me about 5 times for the Spinal Block - after my back surgeries, they kept hitting bone and couldn't get the right placement for it to work. They finally had me lay on my side to try one more time and it worked!! Because of the placement, I was numb from my collar bone on down, but I was ok with it because I meant that I would get to be awake for the birth! A few minutes later, they let Tyler come in to the room and surgery began. It took just a few minutes, enough time for me to tell Tyler about the epidural fiasco, before the nurses told him that he better get the camera out because we were about to have a baby! He stood up to look over the curtain and she was here! Madelyn Elise Sidwell was born at 1:01 pm on January 25th. She weighed 7 lbs 6.3 ozs and was 20 inches long. I remember them saying how much hair she had and listening to her cry. After a few minutes, Tyler brought her over to me. I couldn't move my arms, but the nurse picked up my hand to touch Madelyn's face. Since I couldn't feel her, Tyler put her cheek to cheek with me and he just held her there for a few minutes.

Tyler went with her to the nursery because the operating room was too cold. He stayed with her until I was out of surgery and they could come back to be with me. I listened as the doctor finished sewing me up and stapled my incision closed. Then I was off to recovery and the rest of the day was spent with our family meeting Madelyn and spending time together.

A day or two after she was born, we noticed that Madelyn was looking a little orange. The pediatician confirmed that she was jaundice and wanted to take some blood for testing. Long story short, she had bilirubin levels that were in the high risk range and the doctor had called for her to be moved to the NICU for light therapy. Before we knew it, the nurse came to take our baby away and those couple of days were terrible for us. There wasn't anything wrong with her, but if we didn't take the time to put her under the UV Lights, her levels could continue to spike and we would have to look at other interventions like blood transfusions and other scary things. Tyler and I spent 2 days alone in the hospital room without our baby - the reason we were there. It was hard on us, but we looked forward to every 3 hours when we would get to go into the nursery and be with her for 30 mintues while I nursed her. We looked forward to every 12 hours when they would test her levels and we could get an update on her progress.

Luckily for us, she progressed each time they tested and we got to go home from the hopsital with her on Sunday. We feared that we might have to go home without our baby and thankfully, she was able to come home with us and didn't need any further treatment.
We went home Sunday afternoon and things have been great since. She is really a great baby and we have loved every minute of having her at home with us.
I promise I will do better at keeping this blog updated. There's just this little person in my life now that is so much cuter than the computer and I spend most of my time with her :)