Baby Emma

So here's the story of our little Emma Margaret Briscoe.  Be forewarned, this will be a long post with lots of pictures.

So a couple of weeks ago, I noticed I went from having very mild swelling to CRAZY HUGE ELEPHANTITIS feet.  Don't worry, Dustin googled "Elephantitis" and confirmed for me that the resemblance was uncanny.  (Dustin made me put this picture up)

So, I started propping my feet up whenever I could and they went back down to normal and only puffed up when I had been on my feet for longer than normal.

Sunday, February 12th I noticed my feet puff up like crazy again, but when I woke up Monday morning my face had puffed out like crazy as well.  So, I decided I should probably take my blood pressure when I got to work that day since you can't help but read about all of the crazy complications you can have during pregnancy, and I wanted to rule out pre-eclampsia.  Sure enough, my blood pressure was around 175 over 100 or so.  Long story short, the doctors office got us in and didn't find anything.  We'll suffice it to say that it was a less than pleasurable experience because I had to see the on-call doctor (Dr. L), who happened to be the doctor we originally had but dropped due to having so many problems with her.

So, I monitored my blood pressure throughout Tuesday, and they were a little lower but still really high.  At three o'clock in the morning I woke up for my usual bathroom run, but I couldn't go back to sleep because I was having high abdominal pain and lower back pain.  After about an hour of not being able to sleep because of the pain, I decided I needed to call somebody.  I didn't want to be one of those people that call the doctor for EVERYTHING, so instead I called my insurances 24 hour nurse line.  I told them about the blood pressures and the pain, and she told me to call my doctors office right away.  She thought I was having contractions (I didn't buy it, but whatever).  So, I called my doctors office and talked to the on-call nurse there, and she thought I might have a UTI. So she told me to go to the hospital right away to labor and delivery to get checked out for a bladder infection since they wouldn't open until much later.

So, here I am at around 4:15 in the morning on February 15th waking up my poor husband to take me to the hospital.  We get there, they take a urine sample, they take some blood samples.  Bada Bing Bada Boom I've been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia.  They call in Dr. Cole, my doctor, and she consults with another doctor.  A few minutes later, she comes in and tells us that since I'm 35 weeks, they want to deliver the baby for both of our safety.  So I was thinking something like this: WHAT!? I haven't packed a bag, we haven't even had our baby shower yet! Holy Cow!  I had a month left for finishing touches, and now I'm going to be a mom just like that. We don't even have  a newborn outfit.

So, they put on about 5 billion IVs, but the big ones were the magnesium drip to keep me from having a stroke due to my high blood pressure/to bring down the pressure and the other one was the inducer drug, which I can never remember the name of.  This went down around 9 or 10 am on Feb. 15th.  Then we waited, and waited, and waited.  I wasn't really going ANYWHERE until 4 pm when Dr. Cole came back and broke my water.  Then we waited and waited and waited.  The nurses were betting I'd have to have a c-section.  Finally at around 6:30 am on Feb. 16th, I had reached 8-ish cm, I think I was almost at 9 cm!

Now, Dr. Cole was not on call that night, so I knew she would only deliver my baby if it was after 8 am on the 16th.  The on call doctor was not very patient friendly, but I was ok with her delivering the baby.  HOWEVER, turns out she ended up being in surgery with a different patient at 7 am, so the nurse said another doctor would have to do it, to which I responded, "As long as it is not Dr. L."  Guess who it was...oh yes.  So, I burst into tears (after all I was pregnant/hormonal, it had been an eventful 24 hours, I wasn't allowed to eat, etc...I think tears were justified).  So, the nurses quickly realized Dr. L really was not a good option.  The nurses I had were all SO good to me! Luckily, it was about this time Dr. Cole called in to say that she was going to come in a little early depending on where I was in the ball game.  I was SO afraid she wouldn't make it in time.  At around 7:30 they turned off my inducer drug and tilted me back to try and keep drugs/gravity from making the baby come before Dr. Cole could get there.  She arrived just before 8 and I started pushing.

Then, at 8:53 am on February 16th, Emma Margaret Briscoe was born.  She weighed 4 lbs and 2 oz.  I still don't know length...correction...I just found out...she was 17 1/2 inches.  Because she was a premie, they had to take her to the NICU, but they did let us hold her briefly before taking her away.

She was perfect.  She was so content to be in our arms.  When I said her name for the first time, she looked right at me.  We had been waiting to decide on a name until the baby came, but both Dustin and I had experiences that made us think she needed to be Emma.  Dustin hadn't been able to stop thinking about the name Emma all day and for me it was the last time we went to the temple.  One of the names I did was Emma and when I first saw it, I had  a strong impression that that was her name.

The other cool thing about when I held her that first time was when she smiled at Dustin.  Dustin came over and we were together for the first time as a family, and Emma looked up at him and had an non-mistakable smile.  Now, I realize that most "smiles" from a baby that young are usually more like the response to gastric pressures in the system or what not, but this seemed unbelievably special to me.  There is something very special there between Dustin and Emma.  I can tell already that she is going to be a Daddy's girl.

Now for all the pictures...

Hello world!

"My life is such a struggle"

I couldn't believe how big that stethoscope looked against her 

Dustin says she looks like me in this picture...hm....I don't know what to think about that...

Getting all cleaned up. Dustin got to help for the first bath while I was stuck in bed for the next 12 hours. Yuck!

Dustin got to feed her before I did too...now he'll have no excuse for not getting up in the middle of the night.  bwa haha 

Dustin thought she could use some "light" reading

I just think this picture is adorable...the way she is holding on to Dustin's finger like a comfort blanky or teddy