Cali-Gal #2

I know that it's April...but I better update the rest of the hospital drama before I forget it forever...

Wednesday night/Thursday morning

Caleigh was born late on a Wednesday night. I am so thankful to Amber for always being willing to be on call when I am in labor. She was willing to head to the hospital at any time to take pictures for me. I had Caleigh at 9:06 pm and was kept in the hospital room for over an hour because the labor and delivery wing was so full there was no where for me to stay. Not that my experience was anything like Mary’s but it was ironic that Caleigh was born around Christmas and there was no room at the Inn for us either…We were kept in the labor and delivery room until they had prepared my previous ante-partum room. I was wheeled back to the room I had originally started in. Amber stayed till around 3 in the morning when I finally passed out from exhaustion.

Thursday December 30, 2010

I told the nurses that Caleigh was exclusively a breastfed baby, so when she woke up they should bring her to me. THEY DIDN’T! So I woke up around 7 am to Cole Wilkins coming to visit us and they still hadn’t brought her in!!! AHHHH!!!! I was soooo mad. Apparently, the magnesium from labor had to be continued until my blood pressure went down and that’s why they didn’t bring her in. They were worried that I wouldn’t be able to care for her with the exhaustion of labor and the magnesium drip. It didn’t matter though; Caleigh was an amazing nurser right from the beginning. I know it sounds silly but I prayed the whole pregnancy that she would nurse better than Hailey and it looks like it paid off!

Around 10 am Donna brought Hailey over to meet Caleigh and see mommy and daddy! It was awesome to see her. She came in the room and was up in my bed in seconds. Who knew she could climb like that? Matt, Courtney and Walker came by too. Walker had fun playing with Hailey. The Kirkseys joined us later in the day and Hailey and Camryn had a blast playing with my bed and all the buttons. They had so much fun that even after they left I was still reminded of them playing…They had set an alarm on my bed that went off if I got out of bed. The first time it went off I freaked out because it was SO LOUD!

After everyone left I kept Caleigh in the room with the rest of the stay. I figured if they couldn’t follow directions the first night, they probably wouldn’t the next. John went to a near by Red Box and brought some movies for us to watch. I actually really enjoyed the film “Easy A”. Weird premise, but good movie.

Caleigh’s nose was already starting to pop back by the end of today. So I was starting to believe that it would in fact get better. We kept joking that we should call the plastic surgeon.

Friday, December 31, 2010

Dr. Benge came in first thing in the morning and told me that my pressure was not lowering so I was going to have to stay another day. Bummer. It’s New Year’s Eve and I am going to be stuck in the hospital. I told John to head home and relieve his mom and spend some time with Hailey. We made plans for the Kirkseys to come hang out and I planned on just catching up on some sleep. Our TV broke while I was on bed rest so we had to order a new one and it had come today, so Jonathan and John were going to put it together so it would be ready when I got home on Saturday. I stayed in bed all day and ordered the famous Willowbrook Club! I seriously ordered it for EVERY meal while I was in the hospital. It was a sandwich with turkey, ham, bacon and cheese. So stinkin’ good! I also enjoyed tomato soup and grape juice. Had to have them with every meal. J The cook staff probably thought I was crazy!

Around noon the pediatrician came in my room and told me that Caleigh was being discharged. WHAT?!?!? I informed her that I was being kept another day and she would have to be allowed one more day. “No.” What do you mean no? “No. She cannot stay. There is nothing wrong with her, so she cannot stay another day.” I started crying and the pediatrician just stared at me. “Sorry, but she cannot stay. You will have to make arrangements for someone to pick her up.” I informed the nurse that she was a breastfed baby and I couldn’t be apart from her. “It says here you gave her a bottle yesterday.” WHAT?!?!? Are you kidding me? The nurses gave her the bottle without my permission and I have to suffer from it? I could have jumped out of bed and strangled that doctor. That is, if I hadn’t been so sore from pushing out the baby.

The pediatrician finally left, after staring at me like I was the crazy one, and I called in a nurse to talk to Dr. Benge about the situation. He came by to visit me again and informed me that if my pressures weren’t down by 4 pm I would have to stay and Caleigh would have to leave…but he pulled some strings and she could stay till midnight. OH GOODY! My newborn baby can stay till midnight on New Year’s Eve. Great. Then my husband and both my daughters can be on the road at midnight during the craziest and drunkest night of the year. No seriously, that’s a great plan. (Lay on the sarcasm here please). I ended up turning off my phone, and laying as still as possible for the whole 4 hours, so I could leave.

It all ended as well as it could I suppose. By being still and reading my bible I was able to bring my pressures down by 4 pm. It was still high, but not high enough for Dr. Benge to want to keep me. The nurse started the discharge papers, but by the time they were done it was 9 pm. John and I drove home with Caleigh in the back seat. Jonathan stayed at the house with Hailey so we didn’t have to bring her as well. When we got home Jonathan had hooked up the TV and it looked so nice! Hailey was super excited to see me and couldn’t stay out of my arms. J I really had hoped to record them meeting for the first time, but I was soooo out of it from the magnesium and everything that I didn’t have my wits about me enough to get out the flip. We watched the ball drop in New York and ended 2010 with a bang! Or really, a crying newborn. J

Thank you Lord for blessing us with 2 beautiful daughters.

Princess Presto Cake

Here is the play by play (since I made her on Super Bowl Sunday) of Princess Presto!
Cake: chocolate fudge
Frosting: caramel

To get Princess' fabulous "bump" I took 2 paper plates and cut out the general shape. Then I hot glued them together with 2 1/2 skewers glued inside. Make sure to keep the waxie side of the plates are facing out so the frosting won't soak into the plate. Coat the bump in frosting on both sides and stick into the cake as far as you can without damaging the bump. Then continue freezing till both are frozen. Freezing the bump made it a whole lot easier to insert all the way into the cake.

Then I just added more hair to give her bangs. I used the same circular objects as I did on Whyatt so their eyes would be the same size and I free handed the lips. Oh the lips...by far the hardest thing I have done so far. Lips are not easy to get just right. I am still not sure I am thrilled with them. To get the color though, I first made a pink mixture, but when held up next to Princess wasn't quite right. So I ultimately added red and brown until I got the color pictured here.

Waaaaaaa-Laaaaaa Princess Presto to the rescue!

She needs some smoothing out, but that works so much better when they're frozen.

Super Why Cake

Before I could make Hailey's birthday cake I googled "Super Why Cake". I only found one site worth looking at, http://www.5dollardinners.com/ and she was kind enough to give some instructions on how she made her Super Why cake. So I thought I would return the kindness. Here is my version of Hailey's Super Why birthday cake!!

I started with a 6" x 4" round cake pan. I cut the cake into thirds and frosted the center with fudge frosting.

Then I used white frosting, a dollup of fudge frosting, 3 drops of red and 6 drops of yellow food coloring to achieve the "Super Why" skin coloring.

To smooth out the frosting I used my finger and a little bit of water.

I outlined each element with a toothpick and then filled in the outline using the same toothpick!

Waaaaaaaa-Laaaaaaaa! Super Why and the Super Readers, yeah!!!

Caleigh Michele Anderson

I know that I am bad about making/returning/initiating phone calls. I recognize that. So in an effort to share our labor and delivery story with everyone I am going to blog it, then when we get a chance to catch up on the phone we can talk about other things, like how cute my new little baby is! ;-) Here is our story...

Monday 12/27/2010

I went in to the doctors for my regular 37 week appointment. I knew my blood pressure was rising a little because my feet had started to swell, but I didn't think much of it. I borrowed a blood pressure machine from Molly's mom and had been checking it the night before, it wasn't good. 155/106 was the highest I experienced while at home. By the time I reached the doctors things weren't any better. My doctor checked my pressure 6 times; it was, at its lowest, 148/106. Needless to say, I was sent STRAIGHT to the hospital. Dr. Benge wouldn't even let me go home to pick up John.


I was admitted to the triage unit for testing and monitoring, but within an hour I was checked into the hospital. I began a 24 hour pee test that would be looking for protein my urine, which would indicate pre-eclampsia. At this point, there was no thought in my head that we would be induced because I didn't think it was a big deal that I was swelling. Little did I know that blood pressure is one of the only things that my doctor will DEFINITELY induce you for! So, about 10 hours into my pee test my container tipped over and all my pee was contaminated by the ice water in the bucket!! You have no idea how much it sucks to cry over spilled pee! ;-)


Tuesday 12/28/2010

8 o'clock in the morning

After starting my pee test over, I was really trying to stay positive because I wasn't sure what was going on. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to wait long to find out what God had planned for our little Cali-gal! Dr. Benge came in at 8 in the morning and told me they were inducing me because throughout the night my blood pressures never came down. It took 2 hours for them to check me into labor and delivery. We were moved from an ante-partum room to a SUITE in labor and delivery. Seriously, we could have fit a football field in our room. It was awesome.


10 o'clock in the morning

Because of my blood pressure, not only did I have to be induced, but I needed to be treated for blood pressure problems. I was started on an IV drip called Magnesium, which is a natural muscle relaxer. I was not allowed to do anything but lay in bed because of my pressures rising every time I stood. With the blood pressure taken care of I was given Cervadil at 10 am...and then the games began! Cervadil is inserted behind the cervix and it is supposed to soften the cervix so the contractions can help it dilate. The bummer is that cervadil takes 12 hours to work, and at the time of insertion I was only 1 1/2 centimeters.


10 o'clock in the evening

After the 12 hours of "softening", I was a whopping 2 centimeters!! They began pitocin at 10 pm to help my contractions start up, which sounds ironic since we have been trying to stop my contractions for the last 7 weeks! Remember that magnesium though? It's a muscle relaxer, so all of my contractions that I had been having for weeks were now being stopped by my blood pressure medicine. BAH HUM BUG!!


Wednesday 12/29/2010

9 o'clock in the morning

After contracting all night long and feeling the effects of the magnesium (which includes, but is not limited to headache, flushing, dizziness, nausea) I was barely, barely, barely 3 centimeters. To help get things going, Dr. Benge broke my water around 9 o'clock in the morning. I am actually surprised at how getting your water broke feels. It really didn't hurt at all; it was actually a HUGE relief to let all that water out. They inserted an internal monitor to help monitor my contractions and a catheter so I wouldn't get up to go to the bathroom anymore.


1 o'clock in the afternoon

It took me about 4 hours to dilate another centimeter, which is really unfortunate considering I was a second time laborer and I should have dilated 1 centimeter/half hour. But because of the magnesium it was slowing all of my contractions to 2-5 minutes apart, so instead of increasing my progress I was slowing my progress. What a sad sad predicament, my health or a fast delivery. On hind sight a fast delivery may have helped my health, but I'm not a doctor!


3 o'clock in the afternoon

First epidural inserted. I wanted to try this delivery naturally, but with the conflicting medicines being used on me I couldn't handle the overwhelming contractions and the overwhelming SUCKY feeling from the magnesium. Sadly, the first epidural didn't take. My whole right side was numb, but my left side was not. I could feel everything on the left and the worst part was that Caleigh was on my left. So each contraction squeezed her and I felt each one.


5 o'clock in the evening

Second epidural inserted. The anesthesiologist must have seriously upped my epidural meds because when it did take my legs were so numb that I couldn't feel a thing. BUT only my legs and stomach were numb, the only thing NOT NUMB was the center of my body (including my who-ha!) Again it took me another 4 hours to dilate another centimeter. SAD SAD! It was at this point that the nurses informed me that if I wasn't 8 centimeters by 8 o'clock they were going to take me for a c-section. Yikes, at my current rate I wouldn't be 8 centimeters for another 12 hours because it was taking me 4 hours per centimeter.


7 o'clock in the evening

Yay, I was 7 centimeters! Getting what little relief I got from the epidural was apparently enough for the nurses to turn the pitocin all the way up and get me going. And I must say that I was praising God at this point because I really didn't want a c-section; not because I was afraid of surgery, but because I knew I could do it if I was just given enough time. I told every nurse that came in my room, "Tell Dr. Benge, I can do it!" They must have thought I was crazy, but it was very important to me that I be given the chance to try.

8 o'clock in the evening

8 centimeters…9 centimeters…9 ¼ centimeters…9 ½ centimeters…9 and just a little at the top centimeters. At one point I told the nurse I needed to push, but was shot down because just a few minutes earlier I was still on 9 centimeters. The nurse actually walked out of the room and told me I needed more time. That’s when I looked at John and said, NO REALLY I NEED TO PUSH! That’s when the nausea hit…Let’s just say that when you can’t move and you’re flat on your back, throwing up isn’t pretty! I literally threw up the worst bile I have ever seen/smelled/heard in my life! It was in my hair, in my ear, down my back, on my blood pressure cuff, and pretty much EVERYWHERE on the right side of my bed. The nurse the n walks in and says, “Oh she must be ready to push; vomiting is a sign of delivery!” REALLY?

I started pushing with every contraction, but because of the magnesium each contraction was about 2-3 minutes apart, which sounds lovely because then I could “rest” in between each contraction, but when the baby is in your birth canal you don’t really WANT to extend the time in between each push. You just want them OUT! It took me about 20 minutes to get her head to crown (which sadly is ALL the time it took me to get Hailey out; 19 minutes flat!) And that’s when they asked me to stop pushing. I know it’s for my own good to wait, but that’s probably one of the most uncomfortable and painful things to do when they baby is crowing, stop pushing!! I tried to wait, but ultimately I couldn’t. I pushed her out before the doctor and my body were ready. It was such a relief though to have her out!

9:06 in the evening

Caleigh Michele Anderson was born!! She weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 20 inches long. She scored a 9/9 on her apgar, which means she was very healthy from the moment she came out. Her head was misshaped and her nose was broken, but we were assured that all of that would go back to normal overtime.

I plan to update our blog with all the hospital and health drama tomorrow. Thank you for all of your prayers, support and love. At this time I am still on bed rest, so please feel free to stop by. We would love to show off our newest addition!

Love you long time,
JME

Doctor Check Up

Hey everyone,
I just wanted to let you know that I am going to the doctor this morning (11/15/10) to find out what Dr. Benge wants me to do. I have 9 more weeks before Caleigh is due, so please pray for Dr. Benge to have the wisdom to make the right decision for both me and Caleigh. A part of me wants to go back to work so there isn't a financial burden on our family, and the other part of me wants to stay on bed rest so we can do what we think is best for Caleigh. I don't know which is right, but I am praying that the doctor will give me an exact and confident answer based on all the information; the medicine is working at slowing the contractions, but they have not stopped.
Thank you for all of the prayers,
JME

Shaky Mc Shakerton

That's my new nickname. Shaky Mc Shakerton. The medicine they put me on to stop the contractions has made me EXTREMELY shaky. Not like full body, arms flailing kind of shaking, just constant tremors in my hands and arms, feet and legs, and most annoying my jaw. It makes my heart beat a little faster too, but that's not nearly as disturbing as the tremors. I know that in the end this is all worth it, to have Caleigh come later, so I am trying to keep a positive attitude. Although, when I spill the milk because of the shaking, I do want to cry a little.

Please pray family, that things will go as God has planned. I believe that this was known by Him before it even became a problem, so I know He has us in His hands. I also believe that this is the reason I felt so strongly about going back to work when I found out I was pregnant. If I had stayed home to watch my friends' kids I would be really struggling to find someone else to watch them right now, and it would NOT be good. As God would have it though, I now have paid disability and great insurance, so all of the testing that had to be done Tuesday was free and we can rest easy knowing that I will eventually be paid by disability for this bed rest.

I love you all long time and thank you for all of the prayers. Now that I have some free time I will do better about updating you on our family's progress, especially Caleigh's.

Love you long time,
JME

Bedrest

I figured I owed it to several people to let them know I have been put on bedrest, but didn't know how to contact them all at the same time so I am writing a blog about it. At least this way I can answer as many questions as possible all at the same time.


I have been having mild contractions since 22 weeks with this pregnancy, but up until the last couple of weeks they have been just mildly annoying, not anything to worry about. At the start of my 28th week (10/26) however they began to become more than annoying. As of Monday (11/8), when I finally started writing down the times of each contraction, I realized how many I was actually having. From 6 am - 9 am I was only having 1-2 an hour, but after that things got a lot worse. I started having anywhere from 4-6 an hour and that is NO GOOD at 30 weeks. Yesterday (11/9) I was consistently having 6 an hour and that prompted me to finally call the OB. The nurse told me that this was not ok, and that I needed to come in immediately. I called John, and was prepared to go to the OB alone because he has been carpooling to work and didn't have a ride home. I didn't want to pressure him because I knew there was nothing he could do, but I really wanted him there.


I was so blessed when I got to the doctor's though, because both John and Amber came walking towards me from her car! When Amber overheard John at work talking about what was going on she told her boss she had to leave and drove John to the hospital. Thank you so much for ALWAYS being there for me Amber. You would think it would be awkward for her to be there, given the private nature of the visit, but she was there when I delivered Hailey. And you don't really ever see more than that, ever! ;-)


Fortunately for me, while Dr. Benge was running very late, I was rushed into the office and put on the fetal monitors. I was indeed having contractions (glad to know it's not all in my mind) and was seen immediately upon his arrival from labor and delivery. There were a lot of angry pregnant women in the waiting room when I was rushed back, who had been waiting to be seen a lot longer than me! And trust me when I say, that's a scary sight when you're 7 1/2 months pregnant and couldn't run to save your life!! Fortunately, they were all pregnant too so the fact that they couldn't run either, kept me safe!


I'm not going to lie, I have been very scared the last couple of weeks, but, I have learned a lot in the last year meeting with my mentor Candy and I just keep reminding myself that God is in control and there really isn't much I can do about the situation.

I was given a shot of Terbutaline to stop the contractions and a prescription for management control. Dr. Benge has put me on bed rest from this point forward. My appointments are now every week (that's not supposed to start until you are closer to 36 weeks), and he will evaluate me each week to see whether I can go back or not. I truly plan to use this week off to take it easy. Since mid September I have either had a photo shoot, family party or huge event that I have needed to be at every weekend, so this is finally time for me to relax. John is taking Wednesday and Friday off to help me, so that will be nice.

Please keep our sweet Caleigh in your prayers. We can wait to meet her.

Love you all long time,
JME