Little Bitty

“A little bitty baby in a little bitty gown
It'll grow up in a little bitty town”

-Alan Jackson

In the wee hours of the morning on July 24 I woke up and was having terrible pain in my upper abdomen.  I got up and used the bathroom and laid back down and tried to get comfy and finally fell back to sleep.  I woke up again at about 4:00am to a raging monsoon thunderstorm and realized the pain was even greater and I could not position myself to get comfortable.  I got up and ran a warm bath and got in.  This is when I felt my tummy contracting, although the pain was separate and continuous.  I thought that I caught a stomach bug that has been going around town lately, but started to worry since it was starting contractions.  My biggest worry was that my Mom wasn’t here yet and wasn’t sure what we would do with Austin if I was in fact going into real labor.  When Dustin got up he came in and I told him what was going on.  We decided to call my OB office to see what we should do. 

 

 

Dr. Lunt himself called me back and I talked through my symptoms.  He said it sounded like I probably had the stomach bug, and yes it could cause the contractions.  He said it would probably pass in a day or two, but in the end he recommended that it never hurts to go into Labor and Delivery and be monitored just to make sure everything was ok.  We decided to wait until we could drop Austin off at school and then head over the 75 miles to the hospital.

We got to L&D and they started monitoring my contractions.  I still had  the horrendous pain in my upper abdomen/chest.  They had my start drinking a bunch of water so I could avoid an IV.  They also drew blood.  All indicators seemed to point to they would get me rehydrated and then we could go home to wait out my stomach bug.  Then around noon Dr. Lunt came in and said that the blood test showed that my liver counts were high (thus the abdominal pain) and my platelets were low.  These signs either indicated a failing gull bladder, or that I was developing pre eclampsia.  My blood pressure was a bit elevated, so that is what he was leaning to.  He said that the only cure for pre-e is to deliver the baby.  He checked me and I was no where near ready for delivery, and since I had a previous c-section he would not give me any induction drugs.  So the nurses began prepping me for c-section #2.

Miss Kaitlan Grace was delivered at 2:21pm (MDT) on July 24.  She was 5lbs, 9ozs and 18” long.  As soon as they had me closed up they wheeled me in to a L&D room where Dustin had Katy and I was able to hold her and nurse her, probably within 30 minutes of delivery which was way better than when I had Austin and they made me sit in a recovery room for over and hour by myself. 

We spent the rest of the week in the hospital and both came home last Friday.  During our stay Katy dropped weight and was 4lb, 13oz the last time we had her weighed.  We also battled low blood sugar levels with her, so we did some formula supplementation until my milk came in. 

They tested her bilirubin levels the day before we left the hospital and of course they were in the intermediate-high side so the Pediatrician ordered us to take her to our local hospital lab on Saturday to have the test repeated.  Again it was high, so we had to take her in on Sunday for a retest.  The doctor told us to keep supplementing her so she would poop a lot to help flush out the bilirubin.  We also put her in the sunlight for 10 minutes 3 times a day by order of the doctor.  On Sunday the levels showed a drop, so they said we could stop repeating the test.  Believe me this was such a relief as each test required a heel prick and then having the technician milk the poke until he filled a small vial with blood.  Her poor little heels are covered in marks from all the bili and blood sugar tests. 





We take her back to the Pediatrician tomorrow, so hopefully she has put on weight and any test they give her shows she is doing well.  She has been nursing like a champ, so we stopped formula supplementing on Sunday. 



We are absolutely smitten with our precious little bitty girl, she is the perfect addition to complete our family!