Announcing our newest arrival.......

Breanna Isabel Faith
born Oct.25th
weight 4lbs
length 17"

Breanna decided to come early!!lol She is doing good, still in NICU, but hopefully only for a few more weeks!!

I will type up an official birthstory eventually....I endured my very first c-section! Go figure! I suffered a placental abruption which triggered labour to begin and my water to break. Praise the Lord my water broke and Breanna didn't have to be in a womb filled with blood.

Here's kind of a breakdown on what had happened.
Went to bed around 12:45am of the Friday night(oct.24th). A few minutes later it felt as though I was peeing myself and realized quickly that it could not be pee. I jumped out of bed and screamed when I realized that the spot I was lying in was soaked with bright red blood (we have white sheets and I could see in the darkness of our room) Bill jumped and flicked on the light and there I was standing there pulsating blood all over the floor trying to find something to soak it up. Called 911. Paramedics arrived and quickly get to work since I am feeling a little light headed. Off I go in the ambulance, it's 1:25am. (We praise the EMS team for arriving so quickly!!)
Get to the hospital and sent to triage. At this point, the bleeding has slowed and it seems like I am just leaking amniotic fluid and having mild contractions.Within a few minutes it is decided that I will have an emergency c-section and will have to go to the regular OR because of how much blood I had lost (they figure by this point I am close to have losing 3-4L of blood....4cups of that in my bedroom!!)3:15am I am downstairs and getting ready to head in....we are terrified. 3:30am, the alarms start going off as my blood pressure plummets down to 40....38....34....25.....I hear them yell all sorts of codes as my vision and hearing go weird and the anesthesiologist looks over me and says he will give me something and to hold and stay with him. I remember telling God in my head "I promised him I'd be coming out (meaning my hubby) don't you dare take me now!!!! over and over again. Suddenly I feel normal again and I stabilize. Bill comes in just as they're making their cut. 4:01am the yelps of my baby girl echo through the OR!!! I cannot see her, only hear her and I can't believe she's here, exactly 2mos early!!! Off they go with her and my hubby to the NICU. I still have so much they need work on and the freezing begins to wear off (for some reason I metabolize freezing at a crazy rate) the docs don't believe me, but the anaesthesiologist does and tells me he can give me something good to take away the pain and 'remove' me from the situation. I say yes, and WHOA!!! I don't remember too much until the recovery room, where I can feel the worst pain I have every felt before. After three shots of morphine, I can kind of get my head around things. All I want is to see my baby and my hubby, but apparently I wasn't stable enough. Finally, I get wheeled to a room and see my hubby. At 7:45am I climb into a wheelchair to go and see my baby!!
I got to hold her at that time too.

The next few days are the longest I have have ever endured. I looked as though I had been beat up as a hematoma develops in my stomach which causes sever swelling and bruising (my skin was completely purple from the belly button down...my girlie bits were 10 times their original size....all of this without a word of a lie) Slowly but surely I kept walking and getting up (like I wanted to hang out in bed anyways!!lol) My haemoglobin dropped down to 58 (normal is 140) and they want me to have a transfusion. I decline on the basis that I am asymptomatic (my vitals were perfect!!) we agree that I can try to raise my numbers on my own with food and supplements. Then my incision decides to bleed and not stop (like I had any blood left to lose!!!) it just slowly trickles. They can't figure out why and decide that it's from the hematoma and the fluid is just escaping through the closest opening. Then I get severe edema in my legs and feet and develop a rash on them....more cream and stuff. Then I get impetigo on my face (I think from all my crying and nosewiping!!lol) I'm an emotional basket case and cry at anything. The nurses keep joking and saying I should enjoy my 'vacation' away from ALL THOSE KIDS!! UGH!!! I happen to love and enjoy my kids and have never been away from them like this before...I miss them so terribly bad, I can't even talk about now without getting a lump. My family is my life and no one in that hospital seemed to understand that, it was so lonely. I felt as though I had been transferred into a time warp where AP did not exist and everyone relied on medical stuff rather than their bodies. Pump at this time, take this medicine, sleep (but we'll be in here every 10mins for something) eat our disgusting non-nutritious food to get better......unbelievable!!!

I had hubby bring fresh high iron juice from juicer and all my Greens+ supplements including an iron supplement and my Emergen-C. As well as a bag of flax seed bread (THANKYOU to whoever sent that....I was soooooo happy to have that for my pumpkinseed spread toast!!YUMMO!!) the staff poo-pooed my little collection but I knew that my body needed wholesome food to recover, not processed, wilted, crap!

So I am now at home and getting better....so happy to be able to have my juice whenever I want and snuggle my kids. I miss Breanna terribly and hate their protocols, but my goal is to get her home and that seems to happen quicker when they can all have their numbers and volume and all that jazz, so we'll concentrate on breastfeeding when she gets home and I can get her back ontrack. I plan on wearing her topless in a wrap for the daytime and sleeping with her on my chest at night. Hopefully we can re-establish a good latch and she won;t have to have any bottles though. I'm hopeful!!

Thankyou for your prayers!! Also those of you who had emailed me requesting my paypal address it's pennyandbillATshawDOTca (changing the words AT and DOT to the symbols) and I can only accept funded paypal (Nancy, that is why yours wasn't working, try with funded xoxox) since we don't use credit cards ourselves and don't have an American bank acct.

Thank you so much for everything everyone has done. All the blessing we have received have been so very much appreciated! Friends my AP group dropping off meals. a wonderful Friend I met through my mom dropped off yummy meals too. Another sweet friend came by (I swear God sent her that day...I was having such an emotional day) on Monday bearing more good food (she even made sure to include vitamin c and iron rich foods...isn't that sweet?!?!) and the most adorable preemie girl outfits as well as some clothing that her little girl has outgrown. It just totally lifted me, so much so that when Bill had called he said "WOW, you sound so much better. What did you do?!?" LOL!!! Just our heavenly Father taking care of His daughters! ;o)

Time to make my way back to the couch!!! Gotta rest, especially since my incision is still oozing....ugh...I don't have blood to spare! ACK!

God bless,
Penny
PS. I will post pics soon...just have to upload them to the Flickr!