Sadie's Story part 1

Saturday, February 2nd: After of month of just awfulness, I was finally able to get off bed rest and those terrible pills that helped to stop my contractions. Everyone thought I was going to go into labor that weekend, but I knew I wouldn't. In fact, I was seriously so sure that I wasn't going to go until my due date, which was still a month away...

Sunday, February 3rd: I felt totally fine, went to church for the first time in a long time and had family dinner at my parents. Before I left I made a joke about going into labor that night, but knew it wasn't going to really happen.

A few hours later on Monday, February 4th: It was around 12:30am and I started getting irregular contractions, I had a funny thought to go set up the car seat that I had just taken apart the day before to wash down and get ready for the baby to come home in. I just laughed at the thought and went to bed. One hour later I woke up with a very painful contraction. I laid in bed for about another two minutes until I had another one. I got up and starting pacing while another one came and another. My body instantly started feeling super nervous (like it always does when I am in labor) it's so weird how your body just knows what is going on. I got in the tub and started timing them exactly and they were about 2 minutes apart. I got out and asked Dan to say a prayer for me, we decided getting to the hospital asap was probably the safest thing with my history. 

We called a neighbor and he was over in 5 minutes so we didn't have to worry about the boys. When I got to the hospital I was dilated to a 4. They watched me for an hour and I progressed to a 4 1/2 and then an hour later I was a 5 so they decided to admit me because apparantely I was having a baby today! What?? I was in complete denial. I really thought I was going to beat the odds and be pregnant for another month. Even an hour later when I was getting an epidural I remember telling Dan that I really thought I wasn't going to have her today. The doctor came in and broke my water and two hours later I was ready to push. When my doctor came in and started getting ready to deliver her it finally hit me that we were going to have our baby girl today. I started crying. I just couldn't believe she was coming and I was so nervous that she wasn't fully developed or something was going to go wrong. I just didn't feel ready for whatever was going to happen. I started pushing and less than two minutes later she was here.

It was amazing to be so close to her and to hold her right after I delivered. I kept telling myself she looks healthy, she is breathing and crying, you are going to bring her home with you. The NICU team was in there to evaluate and watch her closely because she was early and we had a history. They weighed her 6lbs 4 oz and 19 inches long. She was a big girl for coming a month early, which was a great sign! I started feeling hopeful that everything would be normal. But after all that was done they just kept watching her. They would watch her breaths and then look at each other and whisper something. I kept telling myself that everything would be fine. I did everything I was supposed to. Took those pills every stinkin day and didn't get off the couch for that whole month. I even got two steroid shots that were supposed to help her lungs develop quicker. So why? Why did something seem wrong?

They took her downstairs to watch her closely and by the time I got down there she was already on CPAP. So many memories rushed through my mind of being at the hospital with Gabe and him having to keep going back on CPAP. Don't get me wrong, I am SO thankful for what hospitals can do. They have saved ALL of my children. I just didn't want to go down that road. Again.

Sadie's doctor came in and took a look at her chest xray and her breathing and decided she needed this medicine that helps your lungs to fully expand when you breathe, because even being on CPAP she was struggling. The medicine helped, she continued to stay on the CPAP and got admitted to the NICU.

My heart was broken. Not for me and what we would have to go through having a baby in the NICU. My heart was broken for Sadie. That she would have to stay at the hospital while we went home and get pricked every day for lab tests and have a tube down her throat to feed and not be able to meet her brothers until she got home and have an IV needle in her little arm and just so many things that she was going to have to go through. And to have to go through that without her mom being there with her the whole time. That's probably the hardest thing for me, is the guilt I feel in that. Feeling like I am not doing all that I can because no matter what I try to do, I can't be with Sadie every second of every day when she is in the hospital. One thing that has brought me comfort is a talk I read in the Ensign. In it was said that little babies in the hospital have guardian angels all around watching over them. I truly believe that.