Willow Erin was born at 37w2d on April 21st, weighing 5lbs 5oz and measuring 18″ long! She’s healthy and beautiful, and was able to come straight home with us.
At about 35 weeks pregnant I was diagnosed with intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP). The main symptom for the mom is horrible itching without any rash, that’s worst at night and usually worst on the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. (If you’re having symptoms like this, please go to www.itchymoms.com for info and talk to your doc!! It’s rare, but not incredibly so.) The main issue for the baby however is a stillbirth rate that climbs to 10% in untreated cases. The treatment is a med that more or less didn’t work for me (I think because we had caught it too late, plus I had a very severe and sudden onset), and early delivery of the baby. Hence I had a repeat cesarean at just past 37 weeks. I had really been hoping for a VBAC this time, so the c/s was a disappointment. But she needed to come out and that was the safest way to do so.
The c/s itself was kind of weird this time. I was really dizzy starting the minute he started working on the spinal injection, and then twice during surgery I got pretty woozy. Once it was because my heartrate had shot up, and improved after he gave me something (no clue what) to adjust it. The second time my heart rate plumetted, and he again gave me something to fix it and I was fine. Possibly the weirdest part though was that the screen they used this time was really low, so John was able to actually watch the whole surgery. Plus I could actually see it all in the reflection in the massive lights overhead. It was kind of cool, but I definitely had to look away a few times! I got nervous when they started taking Willow out, since Eleanor had come out blue and silent. But Willow came out pink and screaming and got Apgars of 9 and 9!
She came in at 2398 grams at birth, which is just shy of the cut off for low birth weight babies, at 2500 grams. Because of that she had to go to the special care nursery for six hours once our 1.5 hour recovery period was done. I had also had GD with this pregnancy, so after our first nursing session in the recovery room (which went well) they checked her blood sugar. It was too low, so she had to have a bit of formula. Fortunately I was able to nurse her once more while she was in the nursery area, and her sugars stayed up, so she was released back to our room after the mandatory six hours were up. She was still having a slight problem regulating her temp, but it wasn’t bad enough to warrant keeping her under the warming lights.
My recovery has been much better this time! I’m already off all pain meds, and have been for a couple days. I’m not back up to speed yet and still have to take it easy, but I’m doing much better than I was at this point last time.
Eleanor has been a very loving older sister, and has been wonderful with Willow. She does get a little too rough at times, and we limit their direct interaction a bit. She’s also requiring a lot of attention, which is understandable. My DH is able to take off about eight weeks from work so between the two of us we’ve been able to manage everything pretty well. I’m finding myself much less overwhelmed and depressed this time around, which is interesting. I would have thought it would be worse with two kids to care for, but I’m just so much more confident as a parent now that a lot of what really bothered me last time is barely fazing me now. It’s nice and I feel like I’m able to truly enjoy Willow’s infancy so much more than I did with Eleanor. And I feel like I’m able to be a better mom to Eleanor than I had anticipated with a baby in the house. I had been really worried about that.
I’m attaching some pics. The first is my last belly pic. Second is of me “meeting” Willow while I was still on the operating table. Third is Willow with gooped-up eyes in the nursery. Fourth is Eleanor and Willow meeting each other for the first time. And fifth is one of Willow at five days old.
