Dec 26, 2012

First Christmas at Home

We stayed home for Christmas this year because little Adelyn was only 2 weeks old. It was special for our family to enjoy the magic of Christmas together. Kaity wrote a letter to Santa and asked if we would put it in the mailbox for her. So sweet. I'm glad we took a picture of it. 
  Little Addie slept through most of it. She likes sleeping during the day much more than at night. We gotta work on that. 
Being together as a family with this beautiful baby girl is the best Christmas present.

Dec 19, 2012

Welcome Adelyn!

She is here! We are so excited to have the newest member of our family home for Christmas. What an incredible gift.
 
 
Adelyn Mae Carroll was born on December 13th at 1:32pm. She was 8lbs 12 oz and 19.5 inches. My biggest baby!

We were scheduled for an induction for that morning. Markham really was hoping for a 12/12/12 baby, but it just didn't work out. The hospital was totally booked on that day, which wasn't a surprise at all. His last hope was that my water would break on the 12th. But nope.

We checked in at the hospital at 8am. I was at a 3. The Dr. broke my water by 9:30am, and soon after I was having pretty intense contractions. I made it very clear to my nurse I had no interest in natural childbirth. By 10:15, my epidural was in and I was feeling a lot better great. I was able to doze and felt a little loopy while my mom and Markham sat there and tried to figure out why she couldn't access her on-line banking from her tablet. I don't know if it was the drugs or what but it made me giggle a little.

I was progressing quickly and stated to push around 1. It wasn't too bad, and went quickly. Right after she was born the Dr. laid her on my chest and I held her delicate little hands.....precious. Nothing like it.

She didn't cry out and they were concerned about her. I was of course ready to panic but they assured me she was alright. They called in the NICU team to make sure. After a little while and a few tests they concluded she was just fine. Big Relief.

(Warning- content may be too graphic for some readers) Meanwhile the Dr is attempting to retrieve the placenta and it is taking a really long time. I begin to wonder what the heck is going on down there. He is the most calm, wonderful Grandfather type man and put my mind to ease. He said that everything was fine, my placenta was being "stubborn" After 15 minutes or so I was starting feel really light headed and dizzy. They gave me oxygen and a few minutes later he sighed with relief and said my uterus had come out with my placenta, inside-out!! Wait, what?! In his 30 years of practicing he had only seen it happen twice, pretty rare.  It is life threatening and can end up in an emergency hysterectomy because of all the bleeding. Oh wow. I was super grateful that he was so experienced and had stayed super calm. I would have been on full tilt if I had know I had inappropriate organs coming out. I had lost a lot of blood and felt really tired but was ok.

We stayed in the hospital for 2 days. Markham stayed with me the entire time. It was so nice to have him there and just enjoy Adelyn and the peace and quiet. I had great nurses, which always makes a difference.  I would have stayed longer :)  My sweet sister stayed with Kaity and Jackson while we were in the hospital and my mom stayed for several days after we got home to help out. I am so grateful for such a great family!

So now we are just home enjoying our little girl. It is a crazy busy time of year to have a baby but it is kind of nice because it forced me to get all my shopping done early so I wouldn't have to worry about it. I love Amazon and have ordered 98% of my gifts from there. How can you beat 2 day free shipping, by-passing the crowds and traffic?   You can't

So there it is. I wanted to document the details of her birth before it escapes my memory. She is our last baby so I wanted to remember all of it.