In addition to a discount on The Chocolatier’s Wife, you can also celebrate Celebrate Chocolate Day with some free prose from me!

Back before Sarah was born, I went and banked some blog posts, figuring that for a couple of weeks when I was too frazzled to write, I would be able to just click “Publish,” and the posts would go out into the world.  Well, it turned out I was too frazzled to just click “Publish,” so I’ve had these things languishing in a file, some of them long past the time when they were relevant.  This one seems to have become relevant again, so:

If you haven’t seen it already, I donated a vignette last year for use in promoting WickedFaire.  To publicize this year’s theme, Jeff Mach set up the virtual Wicked Chocolate Factory, which includes individual rooms written by different authors.  Each room contains a vignette or piece of flash fiction, an illustration, and a link to the author’s Web site.  At present, the factory consists of two stories by Jeff, one by me, and another by the lovely and talented Sara Harvey–who, I might add, recognized “Garden of Dreams” as mine even early on when a glitch had the vignettes up without the authors’ names.

Enjoy!

Normally I would feel frustrated at having to delay by a couple more days, but this is mainly because I’m afraid it will be hard to establish a nursing routine.  Since Rachel has concocted this plan in consultation with 2 lactation consultants and a case manager, it seems likely that this will have a much more positive effect and make it easier for her to be ready to feed Sarah the way nature intended when she comes home.  However, this does leave Rachel kind of enervated, having to increase an already strenuous regimen when she’s already sick. So any good wishes are welcome. You can contact Rachel through LiveJournal (and follow her chronicle of Sarah’s tribulations) at 

Sarah has moved up from the Level III NICU on the 2nd floor of the hospital upstairs to the step-down clinic on the 3rd. That’s an important step up, because it means she’s that much closer to coming home, so that Andrew can stop resenting his sister for taking us away from him and start resenting her to her face. I hope we can manage better getting Andrew and Sarah to get along than we did getting Andrew to get along with the cat.

Rachel caught my cold, and she had a high fever and malaise yesterday, so after her appointment at the midwife’s I took her and Andrew home, and I went to visit Sarah on my own. Got there just in time for the 8:00 feeding, and Sarah was wide awake and crying when I got there. I managed to calm her down while the nurse warmed the breast milk I brought from home, and I gave her the bottle. She took most of it easily, and there was less than 1/5 of an ounce left at the end.

The nurse gave me a bit of a hassle when I talked about letting Rachel breastfeed Sarah when she comes in tomorrow–but that was the night nurse; someone else will be there in the daytime.

These are low-detail images, because I wanted them to be easy to upload. If anyone out there wants high-res files, let me know.

1. Rachel feeding Sarah. The NICU is timid about breastfeeding because Sarah has been having trouble eating and breathing at the same time (so much to keep track of!), so Rachel is giving her expressed breast milk in a bottle.

2. Rachel feeds Sarah while Andrew and Grandma Susan watch on

3. Me holding Sarah while my mother pretends she’s not plotting to steal my child and take her home to Michigan.

Anyway, Andrew woke up as I was putting these online, so I’ve got to go now.

Update:  Rachel called as I was putting up this post to let me know that they let her breastfeed Sarah.  Unfortunately, the breathing and eating thing is still a problem, so she had to pull the breast away and pump, and Sarah will need to take the rest from a bottle.  Sarah’s got a good suck reflex, though, so Rachel should be able to breastfeed her as soon as her nose gets a little unstuffed.

But I got to hold her for a long time before my shoulder got tired and I passed her off to my mother.  It’s a wonderful thing to hold your baby for the first time. 

The bad news from tonight is that there was another baby being admitted shortly after we arrived, so we had to spend about 45 minutes in the waiting room while they did that and then did rounds (because the times coincided that way).  And while we were waiting, Rachel was thirsty and got an iced tea from the vending machine.  But Andrew was there (they let siblings visit on Sundays, regardless of age) and got too much of Rachel’s iced tea.  Which made a terrible mess of bedtime, because the excitement and the caffeine had him jumping on the bed for way too long.

Will post another picture soon. Got a lot of good pics tonight but haven’t had time to go through them all.

So today was a big day. Tomorrow should be bigger. Will be the last day my parents are here, the first day Rachel’s father comes to visit, and the day when siblings are allowed to visit.  So we’re gonna bring everyone and hope they bend the rules on the number of visitors per day.

Hope to have a pic of Sarah up soon, once I’ve figured out how to upload them to the blog, and once Rachel and I have conferred on which one to use.

Rachel is home from the hospital tonight but still in a lot of pain.  Sarah is still in the NICU.  She’s breathing normal air and eating through a feeding tube, so things are looking mostly positive, but there are a few other issues that will keep her there through the weekend. 

Hopefully we’ll know soon if she’s getting out by Monday or staying a little later.

Rachel’s water broke around 11:30 on her birthday (12/28).  We called our midwife, our doula and our parents (both Rachel’s and mine, who also doubled as our childcare), then got what sleep we could and, when contractions still had not begun the following day, drove in to the hspital at 1:00 pm, leaving Andrew in care of my parents.

By 2:30, there were still no contractions to speak of, so the midwife ordered pitocin with our consent, at a lower dose than was used last time.  Labor progressed steadily but painfully (Rachel had to be in bed because of the monitors and had to be monitored because of the prior cesarean), and at 8:00, with transitional labor beginning, received an epidural at her request.

Shortly after the epidural was completed, the fetal heart rate fell precipitously, then returned to normal.  The midwife ordered a delivery team on standby for cesarean, then, when heart rate returned to normal, decided to proceed with vaginal birth but keep a surgical team on standby.  Rachel was fully dilated and the baby was fully effaced with her head very low in the pelvis–in other words, just about ready for delivery–when the heart rate fell again with the second push and the midwife ordered cesarean delivery.

 The surgery was more difficult than previously, because of scar tissue from the first cesarean.  Rachel needed additional pain relief, and the anesthesiologist sent me out of the room almost as soon as I’d come in because she needed her full attention on Rachel’s condition, without a nervous husband/father sitting there to distract her.  Further complicating the birth, the umbilical cord was wrapped several times around Sarah, including once around her neck, and as soon as the uterus was opened, she squirmed to the side and tried to block the doctors with her hands and feet.

At birth, Sarah had difficulty breathing and required resuscitation but became responsive almost immediately.  However, pulse oxygen remained problematic, and they put her on continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP).  Her chest x-ray is normal with some fluid in the lungs (mostly Rachel’s blood from the surgery, as far as anyone knows), but Sarah has been transferred to St. Joseph’s as a precaution in case any other complications arise. 

The transport team from St. Joseph’s suctioned the maternal blood from Sarah’s lungs, and she seems to be breathing much better.

The doctor who was supposed to be the backup for the cesarean missed most of the delivery because River Road was closed off by a traffic accident.  However, he arrived on the scene and tried to clear up some of the adhesions and scar tissue before the final closure.  He also came by this morning to debrief us.  He expects Sarah to be out of the NICU in a week or less, though, being a medical professional he knows better to make any promises, and we knew better than to ask for one. 

I was beating myself up last night about allowing it to progress this far, but after considering the facts and discussing it with Rachel and with a couple of professionals, it seems very clear that the complications that prevented vaginal birth had nothing to do with the previous cesarean, and the only complication caused by the prior cesarean was the scarring and adhesions that made the cesarean delivery so difficult.

I will be going shortly to visit Sarah in the NICU.  The NICU nurse has reported over the phone that the CPAP tubes have been removed and Sarah is currently on observation.  She will probably remain in the NICU for 5-7 days because she needs antibiotics (Rachel swabbed positive for strep B before delivery).  It will most likely be a couple of days before she can take milk (she is currently being fed intravenously), but her bowels appear to be functioning properly.

All in all, I’m very happy with the job done by our entire birth team, especially our doula, the anesthesiologist, the midwife, the doctor who gave us the report afterwards, and the physician overseeing his transport (I haven’t asked for consent to post people’s names just yet). We are all hopeful for a swift recovery and return home. 

 I don’t know if any updates are likely to happen until a day or two after the baby is born.