Our Little Girl Has Arrived!!

Our little girl, Hannah Marie Woolley, surprised us by arriving about 10 weeks early on January 21, 2008 at 10:21pm. She weighed in at 3.8 lbs and was 16 1/2 inches long. Since we were only 30 weeks (and 3 days) into the pregnancy, our doctor is estimating that she will likely be in the NICU at Riverside Methodist Hospital here in Columbus for about 6 weeks.

We had thought I could stay pregnant another 6 weeks on bedrest at the hospital, but I had some amniotic fluid leak over the weekend (which was technically my water breaking) and the revised timeline was 4 more weeks (after they put me on antibotics to prevent infection and allow me to stay pregnant). I had an ultrasound in the morning and the doctor determined that I'd only lost a little bit of fluid, so it was likely a slow leak of fluid, but everything was still looking good and there were no indications that I'd go into labor right away.

Well, our fiesty little girl must have had other thoughts and kicked me into labor that same day and it progressed quite rapidly, which my doctor didn't want to try to stop. I had some contractions in the morning, but they were irregular. During my normal afternoon monitoring session (around 2pm), they started to get a little more regular and they called a doctor to examine me -- and I was dialated 2cm (YIKES! -- Find Jon!), so they decided to transfer me down to labor and delivery to see if it was "real" or not. I ended up in labor and delivery around 5pm with Jon on his way back to the hospital.

I was 4cm at 7pm when I went ahead and got the epidural, and our nurse in labor and delivery (who had 39 years of experience) was estimating a 2am birth, so everyone (doctor included) was shocked that she was pretty much ready to come out before 10pm. In fact, the nurse didn't tell me how close I was to delivering to give the doctor time to show up and get changed! We'd been meeting with a NICU nurse who was telling us what we could expect when the baby was born and my nurse mentioned that I needed to let her know when I felt pressure -- well, I did, so she checked me again and immediately had my doctor paged! In the end, 2 rounds of 3 pushes each and Hannah came out pink and crying (and breathing on her own)!

My wonderful doctor examined my placenta and told me that his diagnosis of a previa changed once he saw it and he was calling it a partial abruption (where the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall -- it can be dangerous from a bleeding standpoint and from a "nutrition to the baby" standpoint). That was actually good news because it means the odds of an abruption happening twice are low, as opposed to a previa (where having it once makes it highly likely for future pregnancies).

Since Hannah was so little I couldn't hold her right away, but they let Jon go with her to the NICU and I got to touch her before she went up and then visit with her once I was out of recovery. She is doing quite well - initially they put her on a c-pap machine to help keep her lungs inflated so she wouldn't have to work so hard to breathe, but they removed it after about 36 hours and she is now breathing on her own. Right now I'm working to pump enough so I can cover all of her nutritional needs (which is about 8mL per feeding). She is a fiesty little girl who kicks at the monitors that are on her just like she used to kick at the monitors they had on me when she was inside -- she has a mind of her own and does not like to be monitored!

Please pray for her development and health these next few weeks until we're able to bring her home. I was discharged from the hospital last night, so I anticipate spending much of my time at the hospital until I'm able to bring her home with me!