I'm Nicole: the Mommy of the group and an LPN for a nursing home near us. I also sell Living Lockets for Origami Owl, because they tell a story and mean a lot to people (and myself). http://fergusonfamily.origamiowl.com if you want to look at the products! Bryan: the Daddy and an awesome Real Estate Agent for Keller Williams. We have 4 wonderful kids. Cassidy is 5 and Zachary is 4, they are from my previous marriage. Liberty is 20 months and Harmony is going on 5 months.
Harmony's Beginning:
In February of 2012, the whole family got sick. We got this awful stomach bug that was "going around" and everyone got it one right after another. The pattern was, a little sick the first day, a lot sick the next and then no sick the day after. Well, this pattern stayed the same until I kept getting sick....for almost a week. I guess it was time to take a pregnancy test. I took one and it was positive! There were a lot of mixed emotions, we weren't prepared for this, we just had Liberty 8 months ago! And, I was on birth control, called the "mini-pill" which my dr. gave me because I was breastfeeding. Well, all at the same time, Liberty started refusing my milk, we were all sick, and now I'm pregnant!!
I went to the dr. in early March and he was as surprised as me that we were pregnant again! He said "I honestly can't believe you got pregnant using the "mini-pill". So we did a regular ultrasound at the same time to check for dates. We were due October 13th! 7 months away!! Our kids were only going to be 15 months apart...not quite Irish twins...but close! :)
As a concerned Dr., he also wanted to set me up for a Level II ultrasound at 20 weeks, "just in case". Now we had to wonder, what was "just in case", what did he see that we didn't? What wasn't he telling us? So, worried, but hopeful, we went to the Level II ultrasound near the end of May 2012.
It's a GIRL!!! YAY!!! We love girls...and our boy...but little girl clothes and bows and tutus are just SO CUTE!!! I got to see a Dr. I used to work with and she was pregnant also, so it was fun to talk about our babies and have her explain, in detail, everything they were looking at on the ultrasounds. Obviously, we found out the gender and she looked at her brain, heart and other organs. She said everything looks great, she just wanted to see us about every 8 weeks to keep checking on her. We scheduled our next appointment and got to go home with some great pictures of our new little baby girl!
The next appointment was mid-July 2012. We came in and were told that our Dr. was on maternity leave and we will see someone else. They checked the same things, the brain, heart and organs, the bone structures...everything looked great!
Everything was so great, in fact, that the dr. didn't see any reason why we need to come again in 8 weeks for another ultrasound. We, again, got to go home with some great pictures of our developing baby!
The next 12 weeks were uneventful. They dragged on, as most 3rd trimesters do. We were just excited to meet the new little girl and have her brothers and sisters meet her as well! She moved and kicked and we just kept building up to meet her!! In October, she still hadn't decided to come on her own, so the dr and I came up with a plan to induce on 10/12/2012. (We were hoping she would come on her own on 10/11/2012....10-11-12 would be such a fun birthdate to have! and, especially knowing that we had "scheduled" her to come the next day!) She was stubborn, though, and decided to wait for us to begin the process without her.
We were to report to the hospital at 5am (!!) for the induction. Of course, we couldn't sleep the night before because we were so excited...so we show up exhausted!! The IV and medication started at like 6 or 6:30am. Everything was going well, and started to go fast around 11am. I got my epidural and I was comfortable enough to take a nap. Then, my dr. told them to "hold off" for a couple hours as he was scheduled for a procedure in the OR at 1pm. Ok, so everything then slowed down, and they really hoped that the meds wouldn't be needed anymore at this point, and I would just keep progressing. That didn't happen, Harmony was still not ready to do this on her own! So, around 2:30, the medication started again and things started to go well. I was still comfortable and we were getting impatient to meet our new baby girl!! About 4:00, the nurse walked out and I started to feel like it was time. So, we immediately called her back in, she checked and then called the dr. It was time!!!
Harmony arrived at 4:25pm on 10/12/2012!
She was a loud little one!! She came out screaming! Bryan says the dr. jumped out of the way of the fluid that followed Harmony upon her arrival. Bryan describes it as "gallons". (TMI, I know). She was 6 lbs. 14 oz. My smallest baby...and the loudest!! She stayed in our room all evening and she was loved on and cuddled a lot! She got her first bath and hated it....she was swaddled and held and loved it!! I breastfed her a few times and everything went great. She did start to gag a little after her feeds, but we didn't think anything of it and the nurses didn't seem worried either. Looking back, that was our first little insight into what we would be dealing with later...acid reflux issues. We had them take Harmony for a couple hours overnight so we could get a little sleep. The next day, the pediatrician came and said she looked fine but that they did the hearing screen and she failed, so they will try again tomorrow because sometimes it just says "refer" for no reason, and my dr. came to see me to see if I was ok. We were concerned about the hearing, but other than that, we were just happy to have her in our family and couldn't wait to share her with our family!! We had visitors and everyone loved her and held her. She seemed happiest being held and swaddled. She hated being alone in her hospital crib.
We spent another night at the hospital and the next day they did the hearing screen again and then referred us to Audiology for further evaluation, as the test they did didn't gather enough information on her hearing. We were, again, concerned, but the nurses said not to worry as "only about 3% of babies really have a hearing issue after getting a "refer" on the hospital test.". Ok...well, we hoped she could hear and we didn't want there to be any issues with our perfect little one that just arrived in our world!! We were also told that we could go home, but that Harmony had lost about 10 oz. while in the hospital. This was not concerning because it wasn't 10% of her total weight, but it was close. We were to follow-up with our pediatrician in about 3 days and schedule the audiology appointment as soon as we could.
We got to leave...finally!!
Back at home, we were busy!! We scheduled our appointments and settled into our home with our new little one! When we fed her, she would still gag, so we elevated her a little in her bassinet. She didn't want to be alone so she ended up sleeping in our bed the first couple nights, while being breastfed nearly all night. During the day, she really liked her little vibrating bouncy seat and being swaddled. She slept a lot and cried a lot. Life with a new baby.
We went to her first dr's visit, and found that she had lost 2 more ounces. How could this be?? She was eating ALL the time and spitting up a bit, but we still didn't think aything of it. She got a heel stick for her bilirubin level and were told to come back in a week for a weight check. That week, her spitting up got a little worse and she seemed to be either crying or eating and sometimes crying while eating. We got a call that her bilirubin was pretty close to normal, but to supplement her with a couple bottles of formula anyway, to get the level to come down a little more. So, that's what we did. At her weight check a week later, she was down 3 ounces. Now, we were stunned and confused and the pediatrician was too. What could be causing this? The dr. told us to come back again in 3 days and if she was still dropping, we would have to be admitted to the hospital. We certainly didn't want that, so we tried to feed her all the time, and take a diary so we knew when she was eating, how long she was eating for and then her diapers (I'm a nurse, so it was like doing our I's and O's - Inputs and Outputs). We tried to be vigilant so that we knew that she was going to gain SOMETHING!! Well, 3 days later, and she was down again, just one ounce, but enough that the dr. was concerned, she was now 5 lbs 14 oz. He told us to go straight to the hospital...
We weren't ready...we weren't packed...we had unpacking still to do from being in the hospital to bring her into the world...but we off we went to Admitting....
To be continued....
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