Welcome Home!

Finally, I'm home!! It has only been 7 weeks 5 days, but who's counting!! This has been such an emotional day. The doctor on call signed my discharge orders this morning, but I was allowed to hang out in the hospital until late this evening. We still had lots of junk to pack, this had been after all, our home away from home. Finally late this afternoon, we were ready to leave, and the nurse wheeled me downstairs to be picked up by my wonderful husband. As she wheeled me closer to the exit door, I started to get a little emotional. It was the first time I had come close to those exit doors since I checked in, almost 2 months ago. I got in the car and we drove off. You have to understand that our house is only 5 mins from the hospital, if even that far. And yet, those 5 mins were so full of emotion. We got to the light at the end of the street and I was in tears. I was overwhelmed, I felt FREE! I was no longer confined to a room, encouraged to stay in bed all day long. I was going home, to my bed, to my shower, to my clothes, to my alarm clock, to MY everything that I had not had in the last few weeks, and it felt SO good! When we got home, my dad was out videotaping my entrance. My mom, sister, brother, and dad had made this a special welcome home! They had hung welcome home signs, as well as "congratulations" and "it's a girl" signs, all over the house.




But there was still something missing....

It's a Girl!

The words still resonate in my head, "It's a girl" the doctor said as she pulled out this tiny baby from within me! I can't put down in words what I felt!! I am so glad that we waited to find out until the delivery the baby's sex--it's amazing to have that element of surprise! I would recommend it to anyone!! They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so let's see if that's true.

Right before baby was born

Immediately following doctor's annoucement that "It's a girl"

These are pictures that my husband took of me in the O.R. What do you think??

So, at 4:08PM we became proud parents of a beautiful 5lbs 5oz, 18 inch baby girl! Katherine Elisabeth, or Kateli as we call her, was born 5 weeks early, and she was perfect. I remember laying on that operating table as the doctor sewed me back up, praying. Praying to our Father in heaven that Kateli was fine; that her little lungs were fully developed, that she would be breathing on her own, and that she would not need to be in NICU. I know that God listened to my prayers, He always does, but He didn't answer them exactly as I had asked.

Shortly after Kateli was born, daddy brought her to me so I could meet our little one--it was the first time I took a close look at little Katherine. Oh, she was the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. Perfect!! Ten little fingers, a button nose, and perfect little pink lips--what else could I have asked for? God is amazing! Then one of the NICU nurses approached me. She said that Katherine was having a bit of a problem breathing and that she would need to be put on oxygen for a couple of days. I was scared--it was the last thing that I wanted! But I trusted that God's hand was in all of this, He had been with us through all of this, I had no reason to think that He would abandon us now. So I needed to let my fears go and let the doctors do whatever was necessary so that our little angel could be okay.

I was taken to recovery, and at 11:15PM that same night, I was strong enough to get out of bed and into a wheelchair. I wanted to go see my daughter one more time before the next day. My husband wheeled me over to the NICU and next to Kateli. There she was, sound asleep and looking so angelic. She had an oxygen cap over her little head.



I touched her little hand and got up real close to her little ear and said "I love you little one" Still brings tears to my eyes to think that as soon as she heard her mommy's voice, she opened her little eyes and looked towards me. It was as if she was saying "I know that voice, I want to see and know her face too". My husband looked at me and said, "that's the first time I've seen her open her eyes, she just needed to hear her mommy" I talked to her softly for a few minutes before I had to go back to my room! I was sad to leave her there. How I longed to have her with me right away.

November 30th -- Baby Arrives today!

Today is the day! Baby arrives today. Surgery is scheduled for 3 o'clock! I'm still nervous and scared about the surgery, even though I have prayed and prayed for comfort and peace--and there are many people praying for me as well. I'm also excited and beside myself with joy of meeting our little one for the first time this afternoon. I'm a little sad at the same time--I'm sad because I know that I will miss my belly after baby is born. I've become very attached to my huge belly! After all, that's where baby has resided for the last weeks; baby has been with me everywhere and all the time--when I eat, when I sleep, when I shower, when I dress, when I read, when I pee, and even when I poop. This belly has allowed baby and me to be one until today! I've felt him/her evolve into the baby that we are having today; I've felt her every move, and her every hiccup; and I've survived her every kick in my ribs. After today, no more belly, and the convenience of being with baby everywhere will be gone. Baby will no longer be with me wherever I go, unless I'm carrying a car seat or a baby sling, and a bag of diapers. Don't get me wrong, I've dying to meet this child, but I'm having issues with losing the belly--I wonder if other women have these same feelings--I'm hoping I'm not the exception!

I'm not supposed to eat anything after 9:00am this morning, and I can't have any fluids after 1:00PM this afternoon. So, my parents are coming in early this morning with a huge breakfast so I can actually have something before 9! I'm so looking forward to it--they are bringing huevos rancheros and frijoles...YUMMY! I have some friends that will be here later on today for support and prayer. My parents will be here as I get prepped for surgery, get wheeled into the OR and their grandchild is born! I'm sure they are a little nervous as well, but they haven't said anything to me. My hubby is in scrubs and ready to go in the OR for the delivery of our first born child. What a blessing!

Tomorrow is the big day!

Tomorrow is a big day!! Our C-Section is scheduled for 3 o'clock and we are so excited. I'm also scared, nervous and anxious. Prior to this I had never been in the hospital overnight, and I have never had surgery! The doctor, and the nurses have all gone over what I should expect many times and still I'm scared--I still feel like I really don't know how it will all happen. I know it's in God's hands, and I'm confident that He will watch over us, and that He will be in the operating room with us as well. So I just have to give it over to Him and accept that it's out of my control.

My parents have come in for the delivery; they are overly excited about meeting their grandchild. Up until now my mom has been convinced that we are having a boy--but the last few days she says that she's had her doubts and is not so sure anymore. My dad thinks it's a boy! Doesn't matter, boy or girl, we just want a healthy, strong, beautiful baby! My parents were with us tonight, brought a big meal for dinner and we shared in some family time before the big day tomorrow. Shown are pictures of me with grandma and grandpa-to-be, they are so excited for the arrival of their first grandchild!!

November 13, 2005 A Baby Shower in the Hospital

Our first baby shower! The girls from my group at work organized it and brought it to the hospital. The staff at the hospital has been so great through all of this. They have basically allowed me the freedom to make this stay as comfortable as I can possibly make it. We have continued to meet with our small group every week, I've been able to have friends come visit daily, and stay past the "visiting hours". Today they allowed us to use another ante-partum room for the shower. The girls came a bit earlier to set up and we had a great time. When we were admitted to the hospital weeks ago, I was sad because I thought we would not be able to have a baby shower and celebrate with friends the arrival of our baby. I felt so blessed and loved by these girls who were willing to bring a shower to the hospital for us!! I had so much fun because I got to make myself pretty for the first time since checking into the hospital, and I was able to share laughter and conversation with a few of my friends from work. I was so thankful for those that were able to come--I wish that I could have shared with more people but the location for the shower limited the number in attendance. I could not believe all the gifts that we received! Our co-workers have been so generous with us, it has been a bit overwhelming. We are so thankful for their support through it all! So many of them have stopped by the hospital to visit, some visit regularly, many have called, a few have taken the time to cook and bring us dinners to the hospital, and so many are praying for us and the baby. Every single person has shown us Christ's love--they are a constant reminder that through them God is watching over us and that is so wonderful to know.

November 11, 2005

I started experiencing strong contractions earlier this month! I always wondered what a contraction felt like, now I know. It's not real fun, and luckily mine have not lasted too long. The nurses have been really on top of it in making sure that activity is kept to a minimum. The doctor has me on medication that I have to take daily to keep contractions down. Against my will, because I would prefer to do this without drugs. While the doctor has checked me to make sure that I'm not in preterm labor, she has advised that it is not wise to be checking me regularly because it could cause some change in my cervix and that is what we are trying to avoid. Our goal is to make it to Nov 30, and have the baby as scheduled without anything happening unexpectedly. She explained that I could simply be having contractions and not necessarily be in preterm labor--which is fine. But as soon as those contractions start to cause changes in my cervix--it is considered preterm labor and she would not have a problem delivering after 34 weeks. The reason they are giving me this daily medication--Procardia--is because they want to make sure that I don't start to have the contractions that will cause changes in the cervix.--and because she cannot check me weekly, they are treating ALL contractions as potential preterm contractions. Confusing, I know!! On really bad days I need more than just a daily dose of the procardia; when procardia didn't take, I was given the tributaline. Tributaline was NOT fun to take, it made feel really sick and shaky for hours on end. The days that I did have to take tributaline, I was not in the mood for visitors and I spend all afternoon just laying around depressed--read on...

Last night and today have been really hard times. I have been experiencing much more contraction activity than in the last few weeks, and the contractions have been much stronger. While on the monitor last night, there were four big contractions graphed, so I was administered the additional procardia at midnight. Then I woke up in the morning, feeling a little more crampy than usual, and asked the nurse to put me on the monitor. I was administered another procardia at 6 in the morning. The procardia helped for a few hours, but by 2:20pm, I was again having contractions so I was given the tributaline. It was not a fun afternoon. I was in bed all day, feeling shaky and with my heart racing. I was not in the mood for visitors that evening and I feared that the doctor’s check had caused changes in my cervix.

October 26, 2005 -- Wednesday

Yesterday we had another ultrasound, which was supposed to be a follow up to view the previa. I found out this morning, from the doctor, that they didn’t do what had been requested, and instead had done a growth ultra to see baby’s growth and development. I had another ultrasound this morning to follow up on the previa. Even though it was the wrong ultrasound yesterday, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing our baby and knowing how well he/she was growing. My favorite of the new pictures is a head on shot of baby’s face! It is amazing how much detail you can make out on the picture—even though it is not as clear as what I saw on the monitor. You can clearly make out baby’s eyes, little nose, and tiny lips—and of course baby’s cheeks!! I remember that at 20 week ultrasound I was convinced baby looked like daddy; now I think that baby looks like more like me!!

October 25, 2005 -- Tuesday

Today has been a day full of mixed emotions. I've had a horrible morning, overwhelmed with depression and feeling that Satan iss attacking me from every direction. Until this morning, the doctor had been estimating that the baby would be born at 35 or 36weeks, which I was okay with, hoping that it would actually be the later of the two dates. I learned this morning that the doctor has scheduled our C-Section for the 30th of November, which is at 35weeks. I pleaded with the doctor, that if everything was okay and I wasn’t having any trouble, couldn’t we wait until 36weeks. She was very firm in her answer and said, “I’m not waiting until 36weeks, we are going to deliver at 35 weeks. I don’t want to run the risk of something happening between 35 and 36weeks. We want you to have a healthy baby…” I realized then, that there was no changing her mind and the baby would be born as scheduled. I struggled with that thought all morning, and started to feel sorry for myself and question why this was happening to me. I didn’t expect to experience pregnancy this way, things like “why couldn’t I have a normal pregnancy? What if I hadn’t exercised so much during the pregnancy? What did I do to be in the hospital with this condition? Why couldn’t I carry this baby to term?? Why does my baby have to be born prematurely?? And through a C-Section??” I was just overwhelmed with negative thoughts, “whys? And “what if’s?” In the midst of so many negative thoughts, and feeling sorry for myself I was beginning to forget that God was still at work through this situation and He had not abandoned me or my husband or our baby. I finally decided that I needed someone to talk to, someone that would listen to me and help to see God in all of this—I picked up the phone and called Maria. Maria was able to calm me down, which allowed me to begin seeing how God’s hand was at work in our lives.

It was God, who had allowed the doctor to find the condition! If it wasn’t for His hand in this, I would have gone on thinking of this as the perfect pregnancy, and carried the baby to term. Now that the condition has been found and we know what the risks are to our baby, I cannot imagine having gone through the end of the pregnancy thinking everything was fine, only to have something happen to our baby at the time when I went into labor or when my water broke. I am so thankful for the amazing God that is in control of my life and my baby’s life. It is so easy to get sidetracked from that and think that I am the one in control, so I am blessed to have friends that are able to get me back to seeing the real truth. Maria prayed with me over the phone, and we asked that baby would grow strong and healthy so that he/she would be ready to be born at 35weeks, we prayed for comfort so that I could be okay with delivering the baby so early; wisdom for the doctors, and that His hand would be at work through the doctor.

October 15, 2005-Saturday

Today was a very scary day. There was blood in my urine for the first time and I was really scared about what the meant. I had been doing well all day, a friend came by to visit in the morning and kept me company for a couple of hours. In the afternoon, Rachel, a close friend of mine, came by to keep me company, and we watched a movie. Sometime during the middle of the movie, I got up to go empty my bladder. I noticed that there was a slight pinkish color on the toilet paper after I wiped, and I looked down at the urine. It had specks of blood in it! At the moment when I walked out of the bathroom, my husband and my dad had just walked into the room. I looked straight at hubby and said, “I’m bleeding…” I must have been white as a ghost and looked really scared, I only noticed that his facial expression became very serious and all I could see was concern. My dad walked out of the room immediately as the nurse came in. I told her that there was blood in my urine, and I felt my heart racing like never before. She was very calm, and asked if I wanted to be put on the monitor to listen to the baby and make sure everything was okay. Once she hooked me up to the monitor, she went and took a look at the “potty hat” (I had not discarded the urine yet). She then approached hubby and I, asked me to calm down, and explained that everything was okay. She said that the amount of blood was very minimal and not alarming, that it could have been that the baby had disturbed the placenta and that is why I had bled. She also mentioned that with a previa it is common to see some bleeding once in a while, and it was okay as long as it was minimal. She said that I needed to calm down; my heart rate was so strong that the monitor was not being able to detect baby’s heartbeat. It took me about 20mins to finally get my body out of that fear state, and felt relieved that it was not an “emergency” situation. My husband and I were so grateful to have had such a calm nurse that day that could explain to us what was going on, and why it was no reason to become alarmed. The doctors had failed to mention to us that minimal bleeding was not a reason to be alarmed! The only thing I knew, from what the doctor’s had said, was that if I started to bleed it could be very risky to the baby. I had a second episode of blood in my urine that same afternoon, but then it stopped as the nurse predicted. It was very scary, the only thing that was going through my mind, when I walked out of the bathroom was, “I’m bleeding….this is bad, please God, let the baby be okay!” It is an awful fear to have, the thought of losing our baby is devastating.

Oct 11, 2005: A perfect pregnancy with a bit of a surprise...

We got the most unexpected news regarding our pregnancy. I was diagnosed with a condition called Vasa Previa, which put the baby at high risk if I went into preterm labor, or my water broke too early and I started to bleed. Vasa Previa, as it was explained to us, is a condition in which the vessels to the umbilical cord do not develop within the placenta as they are expected to do so. Instead the vessels are free flowing, and in my case, one of them was crossing my cervix. The doctor advised us that I would have to have a scheduled C-Section, unless the vessel moved out of the way--chances of that happening are very slim--and I needed to be admitted the hospital immediately to keep baby and I under 24hr medical supervision. Neither my husband or I had ever heard of the condition, nor had many of our friends. We learned more about this condition and came to terms that we were in the right place and under the right supervision should anything have gone wrong as we waited. You can get more information about vasa previa, and read personal stories of other families who have had this condition, at http://www.vasaprevia.com. The more I read and learned about vasa previa, the more I hoped there was more testing upfront to diagnose the condition in time, as was our case. Often times, this condition is not found until it is too late.

Throughout the pregnancy I tried to take pictures of my expanding belly every week; this picture is one of the last ones that I took of myself before being admitted to the hospital. I cradled my belly and looked forward to meeting baby. Little did I know that we would be in the hospital for 7 weeks and 1 day before her delivery.

The following few entries are straight from a journal that I kept while in the hospital as we waited for our little angel to come into this world. I was admitted to the hospital at 28weeks, on Oct 11, 2005.

August 17 - We take a little peek at baby...

Today we got to take a little peek at baby! This is a picture of proud parents to be on our way to the ultrasound appointment. We had no idea that we would be able to recognize anything on the ultrasound, but we knew for sure that we did not want to find out the sex of the baby. We had decided that we would allow ourselves to be surprised the day of the delivery--and daddy was going to make sure the tech didn't slip. The first words out of his mouth to the tech that morning were, "we don't want to know the sex of the baby." It was so funny!

God is wonderful and His creations amazing. We were in awe of this little being that was growing in my belly, so perfect, so beautiful and so real! Baby had not yet started moving, and although my belly was expanding everyday it still seemed surreal. Not anymore! We saw baby, and he/she is so real and within me. We saw each little vertebrae on baby's spine. We saw baby's fingers, hands, feet, and toes. We saw baby's head, and baby's face. We saw even baby's heart beating. I was in tears of joy--I couldn't believe my eyes!

April 21st 2005

As previously stated, I found out today that I am pregnant. I have to come up with a clever way of sharing the exciting news with daddy-to-be! I knew I would be home before him, so I swung by the grocery store and bought a small flower arrangement, a card, a balloon, and a purple stuffed bunny rabbit. I've signed the card, enclosed a little note to daddy on behalf of baby, and left it all on the kitchen counter. I know he won't miss it when he walks in the door. The note from baby read something like this:

"Daddy,


Mommy has a little secret and she wants to share it with you, but she asked me to bear the wonderful news! Have you guessed the surprise yet?? The nurse called mommy today at work and confirmed that I’M INSIDE OF MOMMY’S TUMMY!! Will you put your hand up to her tummy and say “hi”? You cannot imagine what it felt like in here, when mommy found out that I was already growing inside of her; I think her heart skipped a couple of beats!!

The doctor says that mommy’s about 5 weeks pregnant. I have to live in this cozy little place for the next 40 weeks, but daddy, I’m looking forward to meeting you and being held in your arms. Mommy thinks I’ll be born on the 1st of Jan 2006; but I could come sooner or later than that! Believe it or not, I know my gender, but I’m going to keep that a secret and let it be a surprise. You don’t mind do you?


I hope that you are just as excited as mommy and I are about the next 9months and the rest of our lives!


I love you daddy, and I know in my tiny, quickly developing heart that you already love me, even though you don’t know me yet.


XOXO

Baby Marsh"

It really all started last April

Yes, it really all started last April when we found out we were pregnant! Around that same time, I was seeing all kinds of doctors about an annoying eye twitch that I had and was hoping to have resolved. Because I wasn't sure of the type of treatment that would be recommended, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't pregnant. I didn't suspect it at all, but I knew we had not been avoiding it either. So I took a pregnancy test. I didn't tell anyone, because I figured it would be negative. When I looked at the test, I stood frozen staring at the result. Turns out there was a very faint second line--which meant PREGNANT. I was in disbelief, and decided to wait until the next day to take another test and confirm the result--it was still my own little secret. The next morning I got the same result! I still couldn't believe it so I went to see my OB. I explained to her the results I had gotten from the two pregnancy tests. She ordered a blood test to be sure. Two days later, on April 21st, the nurse called back. I will never forget those words "Congratulations girl, you are pregnant!" I was beside myself in excitement. I found out it was very early into the pregnancy and was probably only 4 weeks along!

Just getting started

I am just getting started and familiarized with our new blog spot. I have created this blog as a means of sharing with family and friends updates on our daughter, Kateli. She is now 6 1/2 months old, so bear with me as I try to backtrack 6months and post from the time of her arrival. Thank you all for your patience!