Pregnancy - Alexandria

Olivia turned a year old and I was ready to start THINKING about having #2. We had planned on starting to try in fall 10' to get a spring/summer baby. I knew we wouldn't have an issue getting pregnant due to the fact that it only took 2 cycles to get pregnant with Olivia.

Obviously since Alex is a winter baby, our plans didn't work out very well, and I found out I was pregnant May 8, 2010 on Mother's Day and Olivia's 17th month birthday.


My estimated due date was January 18, 2011. *My OB's office had it down as 1/20/11, which is why she was born on 1/13/11, at 39 weeks*





On August 24th *my 28th birthday*, we found out we were having another little girl. We decided to tell all our family and friends that we didn't want to find out the gender of the baby until his/her birth day. I kept that a secret for 19 weeks! I would buy her things and stash them in the car if the grandparents were babysitting for us. I'm so sneaky. :) Also on that day, we found out our little girl had an echogenic bowel. It was a bittersweet day, the tech told us it could mean absolutely nothing or it could be a soft marker for a bunch of different genetic disorders including cystic fibrosis and Down's Syndrome. We scheduled an appointment the following Friday at our hospital for an Level II ultrasound and a meeting with a genetics counselor. I knew we would not terminate no matter what, so I declined all genetic testing. Our odds for a healthy baby were in our favor, so I had no doubt in my mind that she would be alright. It didn't stop me from worrying about her for the next 19 weeks though. I had multiple ultrasounds checking on her, making sure she was growing normally, etc.

They also found that she was in the breech position, pretty much since the beginning. At 36 weeks, the week before Christmas, it was confirmed that she was frank breech. The following week, I scheduled a c-section for her birth.

This is her birth story:

1/13/2011

I was told not to drink/eat anything after midnight, so I drank some juice and had some toast before heading to bed. BAD idea. Baby was doing all kinds of dancing around in there for HOURS. I was so anxious as it was, but now I had this very active baby kicking and poking me. I ended up getting about 2 hours of sleep.

8:00am
Woke up, took a shower, shaved my legs because I figured I wouldn't be able to for awhile. Got dressed. Got Olivia up and gave her breakfast. Spent my last hour with her as a family of 3.

10:00
Got to the hospital and checked into registration. Thankfully, I had pre-registered a month ago, so I didn't have to fill out any paperwork. Got my hospital band on and waited for the nurse to take me back to Pre-Op.

10:15
Walked back to Pre-Op. Got undressed and laid down on the very uncomfortable beds they have down there. The nurse tells me she's going to get someone down there to scan me to make sure of baby's position before doing anything invasive. Meanwhile, she took my vitals and baby's vitals. Just sat around talking and answering 100 questions.

11:00
Finally, someone came down and scanned me. It seemed like baby was in transverse position. They used one of those hand held u/s things, so my doctor wanted to come down and scan me herself with a full size ultrasound to see how this baby was laying. If she was transverse and back down towards my cervix, I would have to get a vertical insicion. While we were waiting for my doctor, they started the IV. A young nurse tried on my right arm and kept poking around in there. I got very light-headed, and was about nearly passed out. They even used smelling salts on me to get me to come back. The older nurse took my left arm and just did the IV while I was half passed out. After about 5 minutes, I felt a lot better and IV fluids were started.

11:30
My doctor comes down for the ultrasound. Baby is complete breech. *sitting Indian-style, head up* She plans on the normal bikini line cut and gets ready in the OR for me.

11:40
Doctors doing my spinal come talk to me and ask questions. I sign the consent forms. Nurse shaves my belly and uses some wet/cold antiseptic to clean the area.

12:10pm
I walk into the OR. Get on the table. The nurse gets me into position for my spinal and she holds my hand the whole time. Asking me about Olivia and how excited she is to be a big sister. The spinal is done, didn't hurt at all. My bum goes numb and I'm quickly put into position on the table. They're moving my legs around, but I can't really feel what they're doing. The doctor kept poking me asking if I could feel this or that. I could feel, but I couldn't. Very strange feeling. The drape was put up and Russ was brought back in. I heard the doctor say she was starting. I felt a lot of josling around and pressure but nothing painful.

12:39
Alexandria Kay was born!
7lbs 5oz
20.25 inches long
3 minutes before her big sister was born!

The next 20-30 minutes were me being stitched back together, cleaning the baby up, and Russ leaving me to go into recovery. Alex stayed with me the whole time, but I didn't get to hold her until I was wheeled back into recovery.
I couldn't hold her for about 3 hours afterwards because I was shaking so badly from the spinal. It happened with the epidural with Olivia as well. I was also a bit out of it because they had me on some pain medications through my IV. I think we were in recovery for about 3 hours.

She had her cord wrapped around her neck, but otherwise was a perfectly healthy little girl.

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