Piper in the NICU=a very sad Mommy and Daddy

HI everyone!!! Its been a pretty Crazy 5ish days...so this is the start of the "Piper Chronicles" ;) I will write about Pipers birth story soon, but so many people have been asking about her NICU stay that I thought I would start with that...

Immediately after Piper was born, she was very grunty...I noticed it when she was put on my chest all gooey. They took her to the other side of the room to check things out...which was a total bummer because I really wanted to nurse. Jake of course stayed with her while I was getting all "put back together" ;) A few minutes later, the pediatrician told me that they are going to give Piper an hour to see how she does and if she is still grunty that she will have to go straight to NICU. After an hour of the 3 of us bonding and just loving on each other, they came back in and took her. I truly still had no idea what was the matter. I just knew something was wrong with her breathing. We were pretty scared. We had all these big plans to nurse right away, Jake to get "skin to skin" bonding time and for family to come in and meet the baby and announce the name....well...all that went out the window. We called our family (who went to dinner once they knew she was born) and told them that the baby had to go to the NICU and just to come to the birthing suite when they got back. Without Piper, we announced that it was a little girl and that her name was Piper Ann...everyone was so excited...but of course worried about Piper. The Grandmas were the first to go to the NICU to meet her and to find out what was going on. Jake came back down and explained... Piper had Pneumothorax....which is basically collapsed lung...it happened when she took her first breath in this outside world and her lung could not handle it. They told us that she would have to spend the first 24 hours of her life in the NICU being monitored and x-rayed. Once family left and we got settled into our room, Jake and I headed up to see her....she was so beautiful and I was so in love... first thing the next morning we go see her and they let me nurse!! They told us that the x-rays are not getting any better and she would have to stay there a while. The next two days we were in and out of the NICU, hanging out with family and just trying to recover (yes from 27 hours of natural childbirth...whole other story!! :). Each time we went to see her we expected good news that we would get to take her down to our room and that she was all better...wasn’t happening. Finally Sunday morning we were told the bad news that I was being discharged...but Piper was not. There is nothing like going home from the hospital without your baby! We come home Sunday night around 7pm, take showers, pump, and eat dinner...then we were back up at the hospital till around midnight...just trying to spend every moment we can with her. It was very strange to me to see this "huge", 8lb, post-term, baby with all these tiny preemies. Monday morning Jake and I were back at the hospital by 7am....planning on setting up camp in her little corner and hanging out with her all day long! All day we nursed, she slept on us, we changed her, we just loved on her all day, trying to get as much bonding in as possible...we were really 3 days behind! It was also breastfeeding boot camp! I nursed every time she stirred! and pumped in between that...again i was 3 days behind on that relationship as well. Our nurse came in mid morning and told us...that we would probably get to go home today (Monday) and she started us on the discharge process (paper work, things to read, and videos to watch)...she assured us we would be out of there by 5pm!! WHOOOOO-HOOOO!! wait...6:30pm rolls around and she says...Just kidding there has been a mistake...your not going home...but we are moving Piper to "the village" (its rooms in the NICU that you can spend the night in with your baby)...so you at least can be with her. WAIT JUST A MINUTE!!!!! We were told earlier that morning that the Pneumothorax had resolved and that she was healthy enough to go home??? We asked to speak to the attending doctor....WE WERE NOT HAPPY. But the nurse had to do what she was told and we all moved down to "the village". Once they got us settled in that room...Jake and I broke down...we both just started crying...we were tired, we were angry, and we just wanted to go home with our healthy little girl!!! Jake started praying...and in the middle of his prayer, the attending doctor walks in and says... "I am so sorry guys, but there has been a BIG mistake...you ARE going home!!!!!!!!!" I wanted to kiss that Doctor!!!! There was a miscommunication between the attending doctors on her conditions...but I didn’t care anymore...we were going home!!!! We were home with our little Piper by 9pm last night...and today had just been amazing...a lot of sleeping and feeding....but amazing!!

I will leave you with pictures from Pipers NICU stay...

Its a GIRL!!!!!!!

Piper Ann Seaton was born on July 10 at 6:40pm (27hours of labor!!!!). We are so so so in love!!!!

more details to come....

40 weeks & 5 days....

ok...so now to this morning... I woke up at 2:30am to a contraction...FINALLY!! I stayed up for 30 minutes or so to see if another one came...but nothing. I then woke up at 6am to another contraction...i went to the potty and as i was walking back to bed i felt wet "down there" i felt my shorts and they were wet! So i turned the light on and realized there was a softball size wet spot on my shorts...had my water broken??? I started to get all excited and i showed the spot to jake(poor guy;). We did not want to alarm anyone, so we woke up and got dressed. I peeked my head into our guest bedroom/nursery and told my mom that jake and I were "going out to breakfast before he has to be at work". We really wanted to see if maybe contractions would start or we would get more of a sign that my water actually broke, before we said anything. We went to breakfast and then went to walk (yes...again). I was not having any contractions...but I was still leaking small amounts of fluid. So after walking about 20 minutes we decided to call my midwives nurse. I told her that i was 90% sure my water had broken but i was not having contractions and asked her what to do...she suggested to go to triage...just to be safe and find out exactly what is happening. WHOA boy is this it!!!??? So we come home, my mom is in the shower, and we inform her of what we are doing...she is so excited she starts hollering in the shower :) So right at about 9 am we head to the hospital!!! I have one more contraction while filling out my paperwork at triage. Once we get in there, i put on the lovely gown and pee in the cup for them. The nurse hooked me up on the belly monitors and we wait for Ann (my midwife). When Ann checks me she gently gives me the news that the bag of waters are still in tacked and that i probably just peed a little in my sleep :( She also informed us that i am a full 3 cementers, 90% effaced, and the head is at 0 station. So pretty much no progress since Monday. We called our family to tell them that it was a false alarm, and for my family...it was probably best that they headed home and waited until i was actually in active labor :) Jake was really bummed...i mean really bummed, much more then me...don't get me wrong, i am so ready to meet this person too...but i trust my body and i trust this baby, that when every thing is all ready and lined up that its going to happen :) So thats the latest...no contractions since, family has gone home, jake is back to work and we are just going back to life as before these 2 days of a false alarm :)

40 weeks & 4 days...

Well lets pick up at Tuesday morning (where i left off at the last post)... I had no contractions though the night but was still not able to sleep well, so i called dad(who had made it into town at 1am) at 6:30am and told him that he needed to take me to breakfast ;). Daddy took me to Mimis and i had a yummy muffin. After breakfast we came back to my house...i went the the potty...and realized that i had just lost my mucus plug(lovely, right?)!!!!!!!! Mom, me and dad went to northpark mall to walk and see if contractions would start. the 3 of us (jake went to work) walked for an hour...and not one contraction. We come back home and i took a nice long nap. THEN...we heard that my brother was heading here from Texas!! I was so excited that my whole family was going to be together (NEVER HAPPENS)...that i practically forgot the reason why we were all together....and at this point i didn't even care if baby was ready or not....i was having a blast with my family! We went to Jonnies for lunch and saw our friend Bill, who has been begging us to come swim in his pool, so we asked him if we could bring a crew over (my family and jakes family) that night to swim...He LOVED that idea! Mom and i ran a couple of errands, then we came home for another nap for this pregnant lady ;) When Jake got home from work at 5pm the 2 of us went to walk for another hour at the mall...still not one contraction. AT this point (5pm) it had been right at 24 hours after my membranes had been stripped. Which...if it works like its soposto, i should have at least started some regular contractions by now. So in the back of my head i knew it(labor) wasn't going to be happening, and was starting to feel the pressure with my whole family in town, basically twiddling their thumbs (although i never told them to come to town) just waiting for me to have this baby. Jake and I came home (matt was here from texas by now!) and made stir fry for everyone then we got on our swim suits and headed to Bill's house. We had a bit of an impromptu party...between jakes whole family and my whole family we had a blast swimming and chatting and just catching up with each other and day dreaming about this little one...plus the water felt AMAZING on these fat(swollen) piggies of mine ;) After swimming...of course you need ice cream...so we all loaded up and headed to Freddies Frozen Custard...we sat outside on a lovely summer night eating ice cream and chatting till close to 10pm...it was wonderful!! still no contractions...

come on baby!....

well....last night after getting home from our appointment, we double checked to make sure our "hospital bag" was officially packed, changed into comfy clothes and headed to dinner. I didn't want anything to heavy, so i had some yummy soup at Macaroni Grill. While at dinner we decided to go to a movie (to kill time...during this "wait")....yes...a REAL movie, not a dollar movie! Can you believe it! anyway, it was 2 hours until the movie started so we walked and walked and walked at Quail Springs mall...Contractions started as soon as we started walking. I practically had back to back contractions during our walk for a good 2 hours. They were very close together(around 2ish minutes)...but not very intense at all. As soon as we sat down, and got comfy in the movie theater...they pretty much completely stopped. We went to see "year one"...on a side note, i thought it was a waste of money. Anyway, we walked for a while after too and i had about 3 contractions in 1 hour. So we headed home and was in bed by midnight. My mom and my dad both decided to head to OKC late last night, with them being up to 4 hours away I'm glad they did! I was awake by 4am, so i only got about 4 hours of sleep...but I'm actually not surprised at that...i hope to get a nap in today ;)

40 weeks...3 days...Progress???

YESSSS!! We just got back from my midwife appointment...here are the stats...

2-3 centimeters
60% effaced
+1 station

after seeing that baby has started plenty of progress on its own Ann, Jake and I decided that we should go ahead and strip my membranes....soooooooooooooo BABYS COMING!!!!! keep up with baby seatons twitter for more updates....Jake and I are going to go to Northpark mall to walk for like the next 6 hours ;)

up and coming....

when jake and i wanted to find a photographer for baby S...we heard about our new friend Randy through Ali & Zach! Randy is an amazing up and coming photographer...he practically just started, although it looks as though he was born to do photos!!!! In the post below is a small preview of the awesomeness that he did for our "belly photos"...for more go check out his BLOG. And of course you have got to go to his rockin' website and Book him RIGHT NOW...before he becomes to famous for us OKC folks ;) If you mention that you heard of him from my blog...he will give you a sweet deal of 10% off!!!!!!!