Savannah’s Birth and First Few Days

Savannah’s birth story really begins with my 40 week checkup on Wednesday, April 29th. Let me set the stage: At my previous appointments, I was never dilated, and Savannah’s head was always “really high.” I’d been having some cramps and a few contractions (I thought), but I wasn’t really expecting to have made any progress at my 40 week checkup. I was assuming that we would make it all the way to May 5th when my c-section was scheduled for. Hahaha. Anyway, that morning Melanie Gougar was hosting a “Mother’s Morning Out” at her house for the babies/toddlers at church, so I dropped Brooklyn off over there around 9 AM. My appointment was at 11:15 AM, so I planned on going to Publix, dropping off the groceries at our house, and meeting Travis at the appointment. So, that’s just what I did. By the time I got the groceries unloaded, I had approximately 4 minutes to sit down and rest before hopping back in the car. Looking back, I wish I’d gone to get a pedicure instead of going to the grocery store! :)

The first thing they did at the appointment was take me back to ultrasound to check my fluid levels, which were fine. The only reason they were checking was because my doctor mentioned doing that just to make sure everything was still looking good. Next, they checked my blood pressure, and it was much higher than normal, especially the diastolic. I figured it was just anxiety because I was getting nervous about ending up with another c-section just like last time. We had to wait on my doctor to get back from surgery, so after rechecking my blood pressure multiple times, the nurses decided to hook me up to the monitor and do an NST while we were waiting. Basically, they were looking to see that Savannah’s heart rate would increase when she moved at least two times over a 20 minute period. So, we waited around to finish that, and we ended up failing the NST. I figured there would be no issues because she was definitely moving around during that 20 minutes, but apparently it wasn’t enough to get her heart rate up. At that point, it was getting close to 12:30, and I needed to pick up Brooklyn by 1 PM at the latest. (I assumed that wouldn’t be a problem when I dropped her off that morning!). So, we were still waiting on my doctor at this point, but I decided to send Travis to go get Brooklyn and bring her back to the office.

Meanwhile, the nurses decided to take me back to ultrasound to do another test called a BPP (biophysical profile). It is scored on a scale of 0-10 (10 is the best), and there are 5 categories worth 2 points a piece. One of the categories is the NST, so we had already missed out on 2 points right there since we didn’t pass that. We ended up scoring a 6 out of 10, which is not very good. The other 2 points we missed out on were because Savannah didn’t practice her breathing movements for 30 seconds during a 30 minute time period. Since my doctor was still in surgery at this point, one of the other doctors in the practice came in to talk to me. She checked my cervix, and there had been no change from the previous weeks. (Her direct quote was that “it feels like I am reaching for your tonsils.” No wonder it hurts when they check me every time!). Anyway, she said that they needed to take me over to the hospital to check me for pre-eclampsia because of my high blood pressure plus the results of the NST and BPP. Basically, they would do a bunch of lab work and put me on the monitor. Depending on the lab results, they might decide to let me go home or they might need to deliver Savannah that day. I should mention at this point that I had already cried multiple times over the past hour or two that I’d been at the office. Just like last time, nothing was going “according to plan.” I pretty much knew at this point that I wasn’t going to get the VBAC I was hoping for.

So, Travis still wasn’t back from picking up Brooklyn, but I called him to let him know that they should meet us at the hospital instead of the office. One of the nurses wheeled me over to L&D, and they took me back to a triage room. I should mention at this point that the only thing I had with me was my purse (basically my keys, phone, and wallet). No hospital bag, camera, or anything else. I also never got to eat lunch, and neither did Travis. Once we got in the triage room, I changed into my gown, and then Travis arrived with Brooklyn. My nurse hooked me up to the monitor and started an IV on me and drew labs. Not too long after that, my doctor arrived. In that short amount of time on the monitor, it showed that I was having decels (Savannah’s heart rate was dropping) even though I wasn’t even in labor…not good! With everything that had happened to that point, we agreed with my doctor that it was best to just go ahead and get her out to make sure she would be okay. I wouldn’t call it an emergency c-section, but they were definitely not waiting around. I think I was probably only in the triage room maybe an hour before they wheeled me back to OR.

Overall, I can’t even describe how much better this c-section experience was than the last one. It was just better in almost every way. The only negative (and it really wasn’t that big of a deal) was that it took the anesthesiologist two tries to get my spinal in. But, the spinal worked way better than the epidural I had last time, so I was much more alert this time around. I felt like I could actually hold my eyes open and process what was going on. The scariest part of the day (and the moment when I knew we’d done the right thing) was when I heard the doctor say as she was pulling Savannah out: “Cord around the neck times 1, times 2, times 3, times 4.” When she said that, I hadn’t heard Savannah cry yet, so I was immediately worried that something was wrong. (Travis said she was already crying at that point, but I just didn’t hear it for some reason). Apparently, the umbilical cord was extremely long, and Savannah must have been flipping around a good bit to get it wrapped that many times around her neck. My nurse later told me that she’d never seen a cord wrapped 4 times like that before. (The NICU doctor in the room had the cord sent off to pathology, so I’m not sure what kind of results we should be expecting, but he and the pediatricians who have assessed her all say she looks great.) Anyway, knowing that about the cord makes me extremely thankful I had high blood pressure that day. If I’d attempted a VBAC with her cord wrapped 4 times, I’m sure things could have ended really badly. So, even though things didn’t go how I’d hoped or planned for them to go, I can confidently say now that they went how they were supposed to go. I think God definitely had his hand on Savannah that day keeping her safe.

She weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and was 21 inches long! (She was a pound bigger and an inch longer than Brooklyn at birth…)

After the NICU doctor assessed Savannah and made sure she was alright, they weighed her and brought her over to me for some skin-to-skin time. It was the neatest thing (and something we didn’t get to experience last time). She was crying hard the whole time until they laid her on my shoulder, and she immediately stopped crying. How cool is that? She must have known who her mommy was! We got to snuggle for what seemed like a good long time while they were sewing me up, and then they took Savannah to the recovery room for a bath (and Travis went with her). After a few more minutes, I was able to join them in recovery, and after Savannah laid under the warmer a little while, I got to try to breastfeed her! She latched on like a champ almost right away…it was so neat!

Here she is in recovery after her sponge bath :)

Feeling pretty good just a little while after the c-section finished!

Once we’d been in recovery long enough, they took all of us to a room on the Mother/Baby floor. I guess I should also mention at this point that things were so rushed that the only person who made it up to the hospital before the surgery was Cici. We are so thankful she could leave work to come up there and take care of Brooklyn for us. Otherwise, Travis wouldn’t have been able to even been in the operating room with me! By the time we got to the room afterward though, we started getting visitors! :) We were so surprised and excited to see Aunt Jenn and Aunt Emily, who had both driven a long way to come up on short notice. Same goes for Paw and Rae Rae, of course! Baugay was also there for a little while Wednesday afternoon. Everyone was excited to meet our new bundle of joy! :)

 

Brooklyn also got to meet her new sister for the first time that afternoon. When she first got into the room, she was most excited to “see Mommy”, of course :) She wanted to sit in the bed with me and snuggle, and so we introduced her to Savannah that way with both of them right there in the bed. Brooklyn seemed somewhat interested in her sister, but overall she didn’t pay her too much attention that day. We weren’t sure if she even understood that this was the same baby that had been in my tummy earlier that day. That’s a lot to ask of a 2 year old!

  We were in the hospital through Friday afternoon, so Brooklyn came back to see us two more times before we got home. Each day, she seemed to be a little more interested in Savannah. She even got to hold her for the first time in the hospital (with Rae Rae’s help!).

We also had several other visitors while we were in the hospital. We didn’t have nearly as many  as last time, so that gave us more time to just rest and relax. We enjoyed having the visitors that we did have though!

We didn’t get pictures of them, but Aunt Vicki, Uncle Allen, Aunt Debbie, several friends from pre-op (Laura, Natalie, Julita, Jae, Rose, and Cristy), and Kelly Milstead and two of her kids all came to see us too :)

We were already able to notice some differences between Savannah and Brooklyn even before we left the hospital. Brooklyn was much more alert on the day she was born; we have so many pictures of her with her eyes open. Savannah, on the other hand, was a sleepyhead the whole time we were there! We only got a couple of pictures of her with her eyes open. On Thursday, she was so sleepy that she went like 7 hours without nursing because she just wouldn’t wake up. Overall though, Savannah has been better at nursing from day 1 than Brooklyn was. Part of that may have to do with the fact that I am more comfortable with it too, but Savannah just seemed to know what to do from the beginning a lot easier. She latched on right away in recovery, and she just didn’t have the same latching issues that Brooklyn did in the hospital. That was a welcome relief! We also noticed that Savannah was perfectly content most of the time; the only times she cried were when she was woken up for a diaper change or to get her dressed/undressed. When she did cry though, it was a lot more “shrill” than I remember Brooklyn’s newborn cry being.

Here’s an interesting comparison of Brooklyn and Savannah during their first couple of days. Don’t you think they look pretty similar?

 And, here are a few more pictures of our sweet Savannah:

Overall, this hospital stay was a lot better overall than last time. I didn’t feel as crazy or exhausted by the time we were discharged this time around. And, although I was initially very upset that things weren’t going the way I’d hoped they go (as far as delivery), since then I have felt so much peace about it all. My doctor gave us the option of going home on Friday or Saturday, so we jumped at the chance this time around to go home earlier. I didn’t think we’d get to leave until Friday evening sometime, but we actually left around 2:30 PM. It was great!

I will save the details about our time at home so far for a separate post…otherwise, this one would be even longer than it already is! So, check back for that. Hopefully I can get it written in the next few days :)

Thanks for reading!