Let"s Try This Again

Hey everyone!! I said I would email and post pictures right after I had my baby but... we all have good intentions. I had a very rocky start with the whole blogging business and I hope I will do better. I think now I will finish Sharli's birth story that I have been sporatically working on all this time.

She was born Monday, March third, a week over her due date. My first birth experience wasn't exactly a good one. But it’s true that the baby makes it all worth it. Sharli is wonderful.

I went in Sunday night to be induced. After about 20 hours of labor, I hadn't dilated past a 3 so the doctor said that a he would do a c-section if nothing happened in about 2 hours. So two hours and a c-section later, Sharli Jean Pruett was born and, yes, we finally decided to be nice to her and just spell it Sharli and not Kjarli. Some of you are not aware of the development of Sharli's name so I will fill you in.

"Kjærlig," pronounced "Sharli," is the Norwegian word for love. Preston and I knew that we wanted to name our baby "Kjærlig" but debated over the spelling. There was Kjarli, Skjarli, Sjarli, Sharli, Sharlie... but by the time she was born, we had narrowed it down to Kjarli and Sharli. After three days of thought, we finally decided that the more Norwegian spelling would be too annoying to explain over and over so Sharli won. She got the middle name of Jean mainly because she was born on Preston's Grandma's birthday, whose name is Jean. I already wanted Jean for her middle name because my mother's name is Jean but Preston wanted Anna for her middle name. Though when she was born on March 3, we felt Jean fit the occasion.

My c-section was different. The bottom half of my uterus walls were thin so when they tried to stitch it up, it just bled around the stitches. So needless to say, I lost more blood than normal and later received a blood transfusion. Preston watched the whole c-section and thought it was one of the coolest things he’s ever seen. I don’t think I could have watched something like this.

After the surgery, I was supposed to have been wheeled through the Intensive Care Nursery so I could see Sharli but the nurses forgot. You would think that that mistake would be easily corrected, just wheel me through later but they said that I couldn't go see her until I could stand up. So I kept trying to sit-up/stand-up because obviously I wanted to see my baby, but every time I did I threw-up. Finally almost 2 days later, they brought Sharli to me (which I don’t understand why they didn’t in the first place), IV’s and all.

Sharli had to go to the Intensive Care Nursery (ICN) because of low blood sugar and higher than normal levels of amniotic fluid in her lungs. Plus, any baby that goes into the ICN has to have antibiotics which take 2 days to finish up. So her IV was giving her antibiotics and regulating her blood sugar level.

My first night in the hospital was a nightmare. I had the shivers and shakes and it was all I could do to remember to breathe all night. To make it worse, I had a very green nurse that night who wasn’t much help. Any question I had, she would have to go out and ask the other nurses for the answer. To be fair, I realize she was new and that she was probably doing all she could to help me. She seemed like a very nice person. But there was a point of understanding that everyone has and it varies on how you are doing mentally. I was soooo out of it and so I didn’t have much understanding. I needed assurance and answers and she couldn’t give them to me. I’m sure this was a good learning experience for her but why did she have to learn on me? All I wanted to do was to see my baby and sleep. Both of which were pretty much impossible.

Sleeping was hard because of my breathing. I had a CO2 monitor on me that beeped when the levels got too high. It kept beeping so the nurse gave me an oxygen mask. But another problem arrose: when I started to fall asleep, I stopped breathing. Okay, whether or not I actually stopped breathing, I’m not sure, but I felt like I stopped breathing. Either way, when I finally started to sleep, the CO2 monitor would beep, wake me up and then I would breathe deeply until it turned itself off. Then I would start to fall asleep again but the evil cycle would start again so I didn't get much sleep. I finally got some sleep when the greenie nurse left and next nurse came in and gave me some medicine that helped me sleep.

I later found out that Preston talked to the other nurses and asked to never have the greenie nurse assigned to me again. Preston took such good care of me. I was so grateful he was there. He also managed the crowds to make sure I had enough time to rest.

All the rest of my nurses were very helpful and calming. They made the rest of the stay there wonderful.

I stayed in the hospital until Friday, 6 days after I first arrived at the hospital.

During the stay, Preston’s parents were in town and they worked on the house (we’re remodeling… sorta) and came to visit me often. Debra kept saying that she couldn’t wait till I saw the baby’s closet but I didn’t understand why. I knew that one of the reasons they came down was to finish the closet but the last I heard, the plan was just a normal closet. To my surprise, Craig had done it kind of special. I love it. It is alot easier to use than a regular closet would have been.

Craig and Debra had to leave while I was in the hospital but my mom was coming to stay with me for at least a week on Saturday. It was really nice to have her there to help out and stuff. We got to talk and do crafts and I think she enjoyed her stay. I got the impression that she didn’t really want to leave because she kept extending her stay but finally, the men awaiting her at home finally convinced her to return.

Sharli was a really good baby. (She still is but we'll get to how she is now later.) The first two nights at home were interesting because she didn’t really want to sleep but after that she was really a good sleeper, at least compared to the horror stories that I have heard about newborns. She would sleep for atleast 4 hour incraments allowing me to sleep quite abit. It was really fun getting to know my little Sharli and I look forward to seeing her every day. She is healthy and strong and I am greateful.