Happy Thanksgiving

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we're having this year -- we're finally all home under the same roof. Hannah was released from NICU to come home on Tuesday. It's been awesome having her home -- we are getting the chance to learn her likes and dislikes and spend some quality time with her. She's more alert now that she's home and likes to have her feet pressed on, likes to have some awake time after feedings and likes to have her head rubbed. She's been waking up to eat every three hours overnight (we had to wake her up to eat every four hours in the NICU) and she usually wants to sleep a bit more during the day.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was pretty busy -- I got to get my staples out! I have been upgraded from staples to steri strips. Overall, everyone feels like I am healing well from the surgeries. I have two follow-up appointments next week to check on the incision again, but after that, I shouldn't have many more follow-up appointments in regards to the surgeries. I'm still going to be unable to lift things more than 5lbs until a full 6 weeks or so post surgery and can't push or pull anything heavy, but other than that, I'm getting around fairly well. They told me I can start to drive in a few days but to ease into it and make sure I can bend and check blind spots well without stretching the incision. I may have to take a few drives around the block just to be sure I can move okay and that I remember how to operate a car. Ha.

Hannah had her first pediatrician visit last night. She has gained 2 oz since being home and everything else looked good, too. We'll have a follow-up appointment with the pediatrician next week to check her weight again and then she'll have her wellness visits, follow-up with the cardiologist in a few months and a follow-up with the physical therapist folks in a few months to be sure she's not falling behind due to being premature. Even though she's almost two weeks old, she's still only 37 weeks old gestation age (as of today) which will play into her developmental timetable.

Here's some pictures! We're so very very thankful to all be home together as a family and that Hannah is doing so well. Thank you, Lord!

Hannah sleeping in her own bed!

First visit to the pediatrician, Dr. Bernstein. 11/21/12

Hanging out after feeding

Tummy time!

Update

Hello everyone,

Wanted to give you a quick update on everything. Hannah is still in NICU but she is doing really well. She's in a transition room at the moment which means we're able to be with her 24/7 if we want to. We have stayed the night with her a couple of times (but the sleeping accommodations in her room are terrible so we've stayed at home the past two nights) and we are spending most of the day in her room at the hospital. She had been in an isolette (one of those big plastic incubator type of things) for several days to help her regulate her body temperature and not spend all of the calories she had been consuming on trying to stay warm. She lost a few ounces once they removed her IV so we were told she'd have to gain weight a few days in a row before she'd be upgraded to a crib in NICU. She gained one ounce from Friday to Saturday but remained the exact same weight from Saturday to Sunday so we were a bit bummed about that. However, when we came in this morning, she was in a crib!! That's the final step before going home. Now she has to be able to maintain her weight and body temperature in the crib for a few days before we can take her home, but just being able to see her and talk to her and not have to keep her in the isolette constantly is awesome. We can actually hold her a little more now if we want (whereas before we were only allowed to let her out for feedings and then she'd have to go right back in the isolette).

Hannah in her crib in NICU. YAY!! 11/18/12

I am doing really well with my recovery from the surgeries and being back at home. I'm still having trouble walking down stairs without holding on to a bannister due to the muscle atrophy from 11 weeks of bed rest. However, I'm trying to take stairs more to build those muscles back up when I can. My pain isn't very severe any more - I've dramatically reduced the amount of painkillers I have to take to get through the day. I still have the staples in but I have an appointment to get them out on Wednesday morning. Most of my current discomfort is getting my clothes snagged on the staples, so I think once those come out, everything else will be pretty smooth sailing. My scar is healing nicely - there are some places where the skin has already healed together and I can hardly see there was even a cut there. Most of it is still scabby, but I think over the course of a couple more weeks, it should be pretty well healed. :)

We still don't have a good estimate on when Hannah can come home - it'll be based on how she does in the crib, but they are hoping if she's able to maintain her weight and temperature okay, it may be by this weekend. We are really looking forward to having her home. She is eating like a champ, though, so that's a huge praise! Thanks for continuing to pray for all of us and thank you to those of you who are contributing to meals for us. I can't convey how huge of a blessing that has been! If you want to sign up, you can follow this link: Take Them A Meal

Thanks to everyone who is or has been helping us and praying for us. We are so blessed by all of you!!

Here are some more pictures of Hannah. :)

In my big girl crib in NICU. 11/18/12

Mmmm...food. 11/17/12

Snuggle time with daddy (she likes to hold our fingers). 11/17/12

11/17/12

Being Home

I honestly couldn't believe it when I was told I was being discharged on Monday. I would never have thought after having double surgeries in the wee hours of Friday morning that I would be doing well enough to go home so soon. Leaving the hospital was very emotional for me -- on top of being hormonal, I didn't realize just how many emotions I had bottled up for so long. Being in the hospital was something I knew to be necessary and vital to the well-being of Hannah and me so I accepted it, but obviously that is not how I wanted things to go for 11 weeks. Having no privacy with my husband, having interruptions constantly, being poked with needles every few days, etc. was something I just accepted as "this has to happen" but once it didn't have to happen any more, I finally had to grieve that it all had to happen. I was so busy holding it together to get through to the end that I hadn't really processed all of the time and things I had missed while being in the hospital -- little things like hearing the rain, seeing my dog, being able to spend some quality time before bed uninterrupted with my husband, being able to actually do my makeup, being able to WALK were all things I took for granted before and had to give up at a whim at the end of August. Being able to just experience them all again all of the sudden was just really overwhelming. I have just really missed my life even though I would, of course, do it all over again ... all of the pokings, all of the proddings, all of the needles, all of the missing my privacy and family -- Hannah is worth all of it 100 times over again. But it's still really emotional getting back into the swing of things.

I am doing pretty good being at home, but everything that used to be easy is now a challenge. Paul has to help me in and out of the car, I have to do things in spurts then rest, I have to hold a pillow over my belly to sleep and sit and go up and down the stairs. For the most part, as long as I don't get behind on my pain medication, I am able to manage pretty well. When I miss a dose, though, I can feel it. The most painful part (and the part that was giving me trouble the first couple of days after surgery) is the part where I have to bend to sit/stand. It's also where my pants lie over my hips, so I have a dressing over it to try to cushion that area better, but it's still uncomfortable. The staples are driving me crazy! I think once they come out (hopefully next Monday) then I'll feel better but right now they're uncomfortable and sore.

Hannah is doing really great, though. She is eating pretty well considering she didn't want to eat at all the first couple of days. We've had three successful nursing attemps and today she latched on right away! She's gaining some weight - not quite back to her birth weight yet, but getting there. She's looking a little jaundice so they're keeping an eye on that and they have noticed a heart murmur so she got an echocardiogram yesterday and they found a hole in her heart (common with babies, though -- it usually heals as they grow) and another issue which will hopefully resolve on its own but may require us to make periodic stops to the cardiologist to make sure nothing serious develops. Other than that, though, she is doing great. We're not sure when she'll be coming home yet, but we are hoping it will be sooner rather than later. :)

Don't have any new pictures for this post but hopefully we'll have some soon! Thanks for continuing to pray for our little family.

Update

Sorry for the delay in updating -- obviously we've been very busy and I haven't been on the computer much. I know, crazy, right?

So I'll start from the beginning from how everything started so everyone knows events leading up to and since little Hannah got here.

Thursday was uneventful as usual all day -- I took my nightly sleep medication but was up playing around on the laptop until it "kicked in". I was sitting  at the time and felt a gush around 11:18-11:20pm so I rushed to the bathroom, not sure if I was bleeding or what. I got in the bathroom and noticed that my pants were drenched but it wasn't blood. I walked back to look at the bed and there was a huge wet spot on the bed. I called the nurse and told her I thought my water had just broken, so they did a quick test to see if it was amniotic fluid and it was. They said "we're going to prep you - tonight is the night - call your husband", so I did. Paul was asleep when I called so I think it took him a few minutes to register what was going on, but he was quickly on the way.

In the meantime, my Ambien had kicked in so I wasn't panicking. I had an order for Ativan (relaxant medication) to be administered if we were sent off to delivery for any emergencies (and this counted) so I was given that. Thankfully, both of those kept me relaxed as they prepped me in my room and as they wheeled me down to surgical. One of my most favorite doctors was on call which also gave me a ton of relief. I was able to think of other things during the spinal so didn't freak out too much during that administration. Paul came in the room soon after the spinal and I focused on him instead of all of the things going on around me. Not long after, Paul walked Hannah over to me and I got to see her for a couple of minutes. I remember Paul turning to leave as they got ready to do the splenectomy and I don't remember much after that until I was almost to my new room in the Women's Surgical wing. Hannah was born at 1:59am.

Hannah was taken up to NICU right away and given a CPAP to help her breathe since she is premature. Paul was able to go with her and spend time with her until I was out of surgery.

Once I got to my room post surgery, I think I slept for a little while. I'm not going to lie, Friday (right after surgery) until about mid-day Saturday was horrendously awful in terms of pain. Between being given pitocin to get my uterus to shrink (hello cramps!) to being on pain medication that only lasted about 30 minutes at a time and having to wait for the next administration (ugh!) to having incredibly sore abdominal muscles and being unable to move or adjust myself (someone move my leg) to having to get up to use the restroom due to all of the fluids being pumped in me but being unable to use those muscles TO use the restroom (running water did not help) to having sharp, stabbing pain in my shoulders from the gas that was pumped into my abdomen during surgery (AAHH!!!), those 30 hours were the most excruciating, most horrible hours I've ever had. I didn't even get to go see Hannah until nearly 2pm which just added to the terribleness.

On Saturday, they finished administering my last dose of IV medication which meant I was able to switch over to pain medication in pill form. HELLO RELIEF! I was still very sore on Saturday and unable to move myself too much but the pain wasn't nearly as bad. On Saturday night, I walked with the aid of a wheelchair (I basically pushed it down the hallway) all the way to NICU and back, which isn't a short walk. Today, I have been up and moving really well, able to maneuver myself, and walked to and from NICU twice without assistance. Overall, the staff is really impressed with my progress considering I had more than just a C-section. They say that I may be released tomorrow (Monday) or Tuesday. I still don't quite know what to think about being released from the hospital - it still seems kind of like a foreign concept.

As for me, I have been told repeatedly that everyone is surprised just how smooth my surgeries went. God showed off BIG TIME. The doctors and surgeons have had many weeks to consult with each other and make a plan for every possible scenario and there are so many things that could have gone wrong. My previa could have caused me to bleed a lot and my body could have compensated by pumping a lot more than usual which would have put a lot of pressure on my spleen all at once which, in turn, could have caused the cyst to burst during the C-section. They had ordered blood in case I were to need an emergency blood transfusion and they had put in extra IVs just in case. But instead, I ended up losing only 250 units of blood total which I guess is extremely LOW. They said no one that read the report that wasn't in the room would probably believe them. They did a vertical incision from my bikini line up to about 2-2.5 inches above my belly button. And they said the spleen removal was also smooth sailing - they didn't have any trouble at all. I begged them to get a picture of it for me and they did. After seeing it, it's SO OBVIOUS to me how much God was working through all of this. Click here to see my spleen. Warning: it's graphic. The huge portion is the cyst -- my spleen is supposed to be closer to the size of the smaller side in the picture. Now how Hannah made it to 35 weeks with my uterus as large as it was and to still have this huge spleen inside me without bursting is a miracle. I honestly can't come up with any other explanation - the spleen is a pretty fragile organ and it looks like that thing could have burst at the smallest problem. I am so in awe of how God protected me and I am so beyond grateful for those of you who have been praying for us constantly during these weeks and months. I honestly don't know what would have happened if God hadn't intervened.

As for Hannah, she is doing really well! She's a preemie so she's got a few issues and will have to stay in NICU for now. However, she was on assisted oxygen only for about a day (as a precaution) and was breathing well enough on her own that they removed it early Saturday. Today, they stopped giving her antibiotics to prevent infection as she's showing no sign of any infection. However, she is not wanting to eat at the moment - she's taken some food by mouth, but for the most part, she has no interest in eating. That's issue #1 she'll have to overcome before she can come home. Issue #2 is that she is unable to control her own body temperature at the moment. However, once she puts on some weight and starts eating, that should resolve itself. There is no estimate, really, as to how long she'll have to stay in NICU. Both of these issues will resolve as the days pass so it's ultimately going to just depend when her body "catches on". That could be in a couple of days or it could be closer to her original due date (which was December 13th). I desperately want her to come home with us, but considering we thought we might have to deliver at 24 weeks and again we thought we'd have to deliver at 28 weeks, we are both just ecstatic that she made it to 35 weeks and that her biggest problem is not wanting to eat. That will obviously be something that is easily remedied as the days pass. Thankful, again, for all of you for praying for her all of these weeks and months. Considering all of the issues she could have, these are very minor, and we are praising God for His protection and provision for our daughter.

Here are a few more pictures since our last post. Thank you to all of you for your support and prayers - we can't wait until you're all able to meet her. She's just amazing.

First official family photo - November 9, 2012

Mommy and Hannah November 10, 2012.

Took the tubes out of her nose November 10, 2012.

Sleepy Hannah November 10, 2012.

Mommy and Daddy get Hannah to take a couple of swallows November 10, 2012.

Mommy and Hannah skin-to-skin time November 11, 2012.

Daddy tries to get Hannah to eat. November 11, 2012.

Daddy burps Hannah. November 11, 2012.

Hannah. November 11, 2012.

Welcome Baby Z

She is here! And despite the fact that we've been calling her "Baby Z" for pretty much the extent of the pregnancy, we have had a name picked out for quite a while (I know some of you were worried).

Welcome to the world, Hannah Reagan Grace Zoller

We decided on Hannah, which means "Grace of God" or "God has favored us (with child)". In the Bible, Hannah was one of the two wives of Elkanah. Elkanah's other wife was able to have children but Hannah was not and she was very grieved by it. In her grief, she prayed for God to give her a child, and He answered her prayer by giving her a son, Samuel (1 Samuel). We have longed for a child of our own for so long and have prayed and prayed and prayed that God would give us one in His timing, and he answered that prayer with Hannah. We are so thankful.

Paul originally wanted her middle name to be Grace, but I have liked the name Reagan for the longest time and after discussing which middle name to give her, we decided to give her both!  Reagan (a derivative of the Irish name Regan) means "of royal blood" or "child of the King" and as we feel she's the daughter of the King of Kings, it seemed appropriate. Besides, we both like Ronald Reagan. :) Grace means, well, "grace", or better yet, "of divine favor". She has exhibited divine favor through all of the hardships we've experienced since conception. She overcame a blood clot in the uterus, previa that could have caused her to come as early as 24 1/2 weeks and again at 28 1/2 weeks (but she held on!), AND a parasite. At every doctor visit and every daily check-up since I got checked into the hospital, all of the medical staff has consistently commented on just how strong her heartbeat has been for her gestational age and how active she has been. We can't wait to see what God has in store for her life as He has blessed her already!

She arrived on 11/9/12 at 1:59am and weighed in at 4lbs .9oz and 16 inches long.

The surgeons were able to remove Amber's spleen during the C-section and she is sore but doing fine. Hannah is in NICU but is doing great so far. We can't wait until we're all able to be home together!

 

"I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him." -1 Samuel 1:27