It has taken a little while to get this updated, b/c we are TIRED. Tired in a way that I've never been tired before. But, Cami is being so, so cute and adorable that I can't complain. Here's her birthday story:
We were supposed to head to the hospital at 6:30am on Tuesday morning, but at 4:15am I got a call that between scheduled c-sections and inductions and all the women that randomly went into labor Monday night, there wasn't any room for me. They asked me to call back at 8:30. So, needless to say, I didn't go back to sleep and it was a long wait until 8:30. I called back and they said, nope, still no room, call back around ten. At ten, they asked me to call back at noon. Finally, at noon they asked us how fast we could get to the hospital, and if we could get there before one, we would get things started. We got our stuff in the car and headed off to St. Luke's.
When I arrived, they were still shifting around moms that had already delivered, so I started in L&D triage. My (awesome) doctor came in to break my water (and checked me....there was absolutely NO progress since my doctor's appointment the week before so I was glad I was being induced), and then we sat around to wait for a bit. We were texting with friends and family while Cami's greeting part (i.e. grandparents) gathered in the waiting room. They moved us to a room around 4 and started my Pitocin at 4:30pm. I made a little progress, got an epidural, and then almost passed out. Yep. Almost passed out. My epidural made my blood pressure drop in a serious way so I got a little epinephrine shot and we were back in business.
I got checked around 8:30 and I was fully dilated. My nurse told me not to push (um, ok) and paged my doctor. My doctor showed up about fifteen minutes later and started cracking me up (she really is AWESOME) which totally relaxed me and made me less nervous. James was right by my head and kept telling me how awesome I was doing and a few pushes through two contractions later Cameron Elizabeth Galloway was born at 8:54pm.
They handed her straight to me so I could see her and give her a little cuddle, but then took her over to the warmer b/c she had a lot of fluid in her airway. James followed her over and kept smiling the biggest proud daddy smile ever and watched her while she got her big "I'm here" cry going. I just couldn't stop staring. Once they got me all taken care of and Cami warm, they brought her back to me and she nursed like a pro right away and then we brought everyone in to meet her.
Cami immediately had everyone wrapped around her little finger and she made her little faces. Everyone watched as she got her first bath (she LOVED getting her hair washed in the warm water, go figure) and then we got her dressed and swaddled. She was so good the first night, but I barely slept at all because I just kept watching her and listening to all her little noises. She had so many visitors her first full day and everyone got to show her some love. Night two was fairly rough; Cami was so congested we were worried about her (apparently a lot of babies are super congested when they're born, but it sounded like she couldn't breathe to us) so they checked her out in the nursery (I burst into tears as they took her out of the room) to make sure she was getting enough oxygen. She was (phew), but then our nurse told us that she would keep Cami in the nursery for a bit so we could get some sleep. I had only gotten about two hours in the prior 36 so I was game for the suggestion (even though I teared up again when she left), and James and I got five glorious hours of sleep.
When they brought Cami back to us in the morning, she had had all of her screening tests done, including her heel stick for jaundice. Her "bili" levels were pretty high, so we had to put her through a pretty rough day. She was a serious trooper though. She had to be mostly naked under blue lights to work her bilirubin levels down. And she had to wear goggles to cover her little eyes. We could take her out to feed her and change her, but then immediately had to put her back under the lights. We felt so bad every time we recovered her little eyes with the goggles!! But, if we didn't put her right back under, that would only mean that she potentially would have to do the treatment even longer, so we tried to be really good about it. Luckily, her bili levels dropped to low risk throughout the day and we were told we could go home and didn't have to stay another night.
We brought Cami home and showed her her room and her crib and her changing table. Then we set up the pack and play in our room. After weeks of my big talk of her staying in her own room right from the start, we are having her sleep in our room. We have the slight excuse of her jaundice and congestion and wanting to check on her, but really I'm just a wuss.
We've had so much help from family the past few days that it's made the transition of having Cami home as easy as it could possibly be (even though we're still exhausted). She is just a little cuddly, beautiful baby and we are so in love with her.
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