And nearly a year later...

I kind of forgot that I even had a blog until recently! We've obviously been pretty busy, with a baby and all and I can't adequately recap the amazing year we've had, but I'll give you the abridged birth story since that's where I left off.

Dylan was FINALLY born on 5-10-10 at 5:55pm. After being turned away from the hospital the first night of labor because I hadn't progressed enough to be admitted, I refused to go back until I KNEW it was time! So, I spent about 48 hours having contractions every 2-5 minutes. I bounced on the ball, took a day-long bath (I would just let out and refill the water over and over... it was all that helped the contractions!)and tried to walk through them as much as I could. I waited as long as I could and finally made the decision that I couldn't wait any longer at home and they were NOT going to send me home this time, whether I'd progressed or not, they'd have to call the police to get me out of there! <-- I think that was Chris's sign that it probably was for real this time. LOL!
We drove the 5 minutes to the hospital and it felt like an eternity of bumps and turns. I had to sit in the parking lot of the ER (ER instead of L&D because I waited until after midnight to go so that the insurance couldn't charge us for the whole day before, haha!)through a contraction and Chris ran and got a wheelchair. We came in and got rushed to L&D pretty quickly. They admitted me this time and got us settled into a room.
I was only 4cm dilated, but I was so exhausted because I'd already been in full-on labor for 2 days at this point! I got an epidural just a few hours later because I was so tired and progressing so slowly that I knew it was going to be a LONG day to come and I was worried if I didn't get some sleep I wouldn't be able to do it! Thank goodness I went that route because I ended up pushing for FOUR HOURS! They had me up in all kinds of crazy positions trying to heave this baby out of my body and we were all ready to give up on pushing all together and get suited up for a c-section. It was obvious Dylan was not in a hurry to get here. Dr. Handcock was wonderful though and he insisted that I was making good progress with each push and that we could do it the natural way. So, after waaaay too long, she finally made her appearance to the world. She was 6lb 11oz and 20 inches long with a full head of hair. Chris announced how beautiful she was and took a bunch of pictures.

She had some meconium present at birth (meaning she pooed while inside and they were afraid she inhaled some) so they wanted to suction her and make sure she was healthy before we got to hold her. So, it took what seemed like an eternity to hear her little cry, but after they did their thing, she sang out. Everything after that is a huge blur of excitement. People came to visit, I think we slept a little, I'm not sure.

Then the real chaos began. We were supposed to get discharged but I knew that our insurance covered one more day and I wanted to try and get a little sleep before we were all on our own. Thank goodness we stayed! The nurses had explained that they'd be taking Dylan to do a hearing test in the middle of the night so that they didn't bother us. I woke up and saw she wasn't in the room at one point and knew they'd taken her for the test. I woke up again 30 minutes later and she was still gone for her test. It was past time for her to breastfeed again and I went out into the hall to find someone to let them know they were really cutting into her nursing time. My room was across the hall from a small nursery with a window and I saw 4 or 5 nurses and the pediatrician we'd chosen all huddled around a bassinet. The pediatrician looked up with a worried look on her face, met my eyes and walked straight out of the room to me. My heart dropped. She asked if my husband was here and then said she needed to speak with us both. So, terrified, I rush in and wake Chris up.
She lets us know that the nurse noticed Dylan was having small seizures during her hearing test. We'd noticed some tics the day before and even asked that same nurse if that was normal and she assured us it was! The doctor said that she wasn't sure what was causing them, but that a helicopter was on its way to get Dylan to take her to the NICU in a larger hospital and would be here soon. So, through worried sobs, we start packing.
The nurses hurredly try to reach MY doctor to get me discharged so that I can leave. He talks to me over the phone and can tell in my voice that I'm not taking no for an answer and hesitantly allows them to discharge me even though he really wanted to check my stitches, do a final exam, etc.
We run home, calling our parents on the way there, and meet them at our house to unpack our hospital stuff and repack for a trip that we know no details about. All we know is that our baby is going to be in a hospital in Temple, TX an hour from our house and we don't know how long she's going to be there, so we threw things in a bag and took off.
There is a week's worth of stories surrounding Dylan's stay in the NICU in Temple, but obviously I'm not going to outline them all here. The short version is: they ran a million tests, figured out what they think caused her seizures, got the seizures to stop, had some really scary moments/set backs, and went above and beyond to get to the bottom of the problem and come up with a solution. We were SO impressed with the quality of care Dylan and I both got while she was in the NICU. We will never forget the awesome nurses and doctors we encountered that week.
I work in Temple, and my coworkers were so great too. I called my boss the morning we arrived, crying of course, to get the name of some hotels around the hospital so we could find a place to set up camp. When we got to our hotel, my coworkers had sent a care package full of snacks and water. So wonderful! We stayed in the Ronald McDonald house most of the time we were in Temple and I will forever make donations to that amazing organization. They had a comfortable facility, the staff would cook and leave food for the families, they rented me a breast pump and they were so accommodating. We spent our 1st wedding anniversary in the lobby of the Ronald McDonald house eating our cake(my mom went and got it out of our freezer and brought it for us) and actually met another couple that had done the same thing the day before. It wasn't exactly how we'd expected to spend our anniversary, but it somehow wasn't so bad sharing it with our family and knowing that our baby was being well taken care of.
Dylan was by far the largest baby in the NICU (except for a little boy that oddly enough was born on the same day as she was with the same exact scary story... very strange) and it was reassuring knowing that they could take care of these tiny little 1 pound babies and nurse them back to health, so our baby had to be just fine.
The day we got to go home was such an exciting/nerve-wracking day. I was so eager to get her home, but so nervous that the nurses weren't going to be there to spot it if something was going wrong. She was sent home with seizure meds that she had to take every 12 hours and eventually added reflux meds to that too.

She was a super colicky crybaby for about 3 1/2 months after that. We just resigned ourselves to the fact that she's been a drama queen from the beginning. Since then we've gotten her reflux under control AND weaned her off of the seizure meds. Now, at 11 months old, she's med-free and doing great! You'd never know by looking at her now that she was ever sick in the beginning.
She's been a tiny little thing from day one though... long and skinny. She's never peaked above the 5th percentile for weight, no matter how much she eats, and believe me, she loves her groceries!
We still have follow-ups with all kinds of specialists and doctors and have an occupational therapist come out the house monthly. The OT is just in place to make sure that she's in line with all of her developmental milestones, and I'm happy to report that she's well ahead of all of them! She's got the social skills of a 15-18 month old and the motor skills of a 14 month old. Little smarty pants!
Obviously A LOT has happened in the last year, and I have a million stories that I outlined in her baby book but didn't get down in print here. You'll have to come visit to get the full story of her 1st year!
I'm resolving now to post here more often now that I've remembered that we have a blog. So, check back often to see what Dylan and the rest of us are up to. I'll keep you posted!