A week early.....Welcome home!

Our sweet tiny miracle has finally left the comforts of heaven to join our little family!! Baby Alexa JaeAnna Laufer joined our us on March 18th at 2:37A. She was 8lbs 3oz, 20 inches long and beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We make good babies (if I can say that without bragging). Although I am very excited she is here, everything that could have gone wrong, DID! So where should I start?? I guess the beginning. On Monday at around 6:30am I felt like my water broke. I waited a few hours then called my Doctor and they said to head to the hospital. when we got there they took a test and determined it was not my water that had broken but the mucus plug (sorry for all the info). Anyway I was having contractions but was just starting to dialate. They had us walk around for 2 hours and then come back. When we got back I was at a 3 and they admitted me. After being admitted Dr. Ainsworth broke my water (I now know the huge difference between water breaking and liquid from the mucus plug). When I got to a 4 (around 3p) I got an epidural which slowed everything down. To start things again I got petosin (who knows how to spell it) and the contractions started getting stronger and more often. Every time one was coming I would get sick and a few times i threw up. I asked the nurse if there was any correlation and she said no (I still don't believe her). By that time it was about 12:30a and the nurses aid told my mom and becky it would be a long time til anything really got started (although they never checked me to see where I was at)so they went home. By that point i could feel my legs and the contractions (something was wrong with the epidural). I asked the nurse about it at least 2 times and she said that was normal and it would help me push. I told her I was in pain and felt like needed to push......finally she checked to see where I was at......big surprise I was at a 10. She seemed shocked and finally decided to start paying attention to me. While they called dr ainsworth alex called my mom (who had just walked in the door) and told her to get back up there (In Paradise). Once they put my legs in the stirrups I went numb again and could only barely feel the contractions. I started pushing at 2am and she arrived at 2:37am. When they started cleaning her up my tailbone started hurting, almost as much pain as the contratcions. They gave me 2 vicadins and that pain stopped........no one came to check on us again until the morning shift came it. By then my tailbone hurt, I had a debilitating headache and I felt weak and tired. The first thing the new nurse asked was when the last time I peed was. I hadn't gone since before the epidural. She was shocked, I guess the night nurses were suppose to take me. She gave me a catheter and there was 900 cc's of pee.............WAY MORE THAN THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Once the pee was gone my tailbone stopped hurting. Then she checked my blood pressure and it was dangerously low. I had been hemorrhaging and lost too much blood. she quickly set me up with an IV (another thing the night nurse should have caught). Once that IV was done she got me up to move around and thats when I realized I had a neckache/headache that only came when I sat up or stood. It was like a migraine each time. They gave me medication for it and nothing worked (it sure makes breastfeeding hard. poor alex had to pretty much do it, I just sat there while he latched her on) That headache continued until Wednesday when they decided it may be caused by the epidural (the dural sac was punctured). It is very rare to get and they do another procedure called a blood block. they put your own blood back in there and its suppose to block the puncture and the pain goes away within 20 minutes. Well, not for me, it didn't work. As a last resort they gave me a caffeine drip and of all things that worked. At that point I was pain free (except for the normal pains of delivery) and soooooo ready to go home. By the time we got home it was 9:30 and we were tired. That night was hard, all I did was breastfeed. The next day was the same. All Alexa wanted was to eat, eat, eat. They had given me a breast shield to help ease the nipple pain but with sooooo many feedings I was HURTING. I was starting to worry about Alexa, she never seemed full, she wasn't having wet diapers and all she did was CRY!! I was loosing my mind and had pretty much decided I was never having anymore kids. For some reason I decided to feed her without the nipple shield....what a difference. She drank so much she couldn't keep in all in her mouth. The shield was keeping her from getting any milk and she was STARVING. Once she finished eating (only a 20 minute process, not 3 hours) she fell right asleep and didn't wake up for 3 hours...............
Today was the first good day!! All she did was sleep and eat, i didn't have to hold her or feed her for hours at a time. I could get use to this. I now understand why people have more than one. I am so grateful for her and my husband, he really helped me through all of this! Without him I surely would have been in the mental hospital!! Sorry I didn't get to call everyone and tell them in person about her delivery, but as you can guess from this LONG story, I was having a hard week.