One Month of Weslee Grace

   Our little Weslee is officially one month. It really seems like yesterday we were bringing her home from the NICU. I am sure that the is in part due to the fact that all of our days are beginning to run together since sleeping at night has become something of a distant memory (at least for once of us in the Buck household, I'll let you guess who that is :)).

I love Weslee's chunky little self and all of her little rolls. Her hair is still as full as it was when she was born, but I think it has lightened up a bit! I am curious to see if it falls out because mine did not when I was a baby. Also everyone is very anxious to see if she got momma's curly hair! It has been pretty humid this past week and I have noticed that it goes a little more crazy those days, so maybe!! Her little body perks up when she hears people talking, especially about her! She has learned to love our nightly walks, and especially likes it when daddy joins! She loves loves loves bath time, but HATES getting out. We think it might be the speed (or lack there of)  at which daddy gets her all wrapped up and dried :) We love tummy time anywhere, whether it be on mommy and daddy's tummy or on the blanket on the floor. She can hold her head up for quite sometime now! Our whole family thinks she is such a gifted baby (of course we do too!) since she rolled over at 3 weeks old! She has done it about 3-4 more times too! We are in for it!  I credit all of her strength to the steroids we both got when she was inside me, sometimes we might refer to her has steroid baby!

Sleeping..oh sleeping! She absolutely loves to snuggle and sleep on me or Will, and then it is like she knows we are about to put her down and "pop" goes those little blue eyes of hers!   We are getting much better at our night time sleep though. She currently will go to sleep between 8:30-9:00 and will sleep till about 12:30-1:00 and I will wake up to feed her, then on good nights she will go right back down and others we are up for about an hour. She will then wake up between 4:00-5:00 to eat again. This is the time that it is usually extra hard to get her to go back to sleep and many nights we end up napping on the couch and then going back to her crib. She wakes up for good between 6:45-7:00 am. In the beginning she was such a good napper but we have now started fighting go to sleep big time during the day. Currently she is sleeping in her Solly Baby Wrap on me because she has fought sleeping all day today and this was the only way I could get stuff done, and she finally fell asleep! Her little eyes will be as red as they can be but she just has to stay awake to see what is going on! I thinks she is going to be like me, and not want to miss a thing!

When we went to the doctor on June 16, 2014 she weighed 9lbs and 2 oz, and was 21 inches long! I am very curious to see how much she weighs at our next visit which is July 2nd, I can tell by just holding her that she is gaining plenty of weight!

Weslee loves to be rocked and held. Our night time routine consists of rocking and listening to lullabies ( a little bit of screaming) She loves the music, when we put her in our mamaroo we always have music going and she just sits and listens. Daddy learned that she needs to be swaddled at night, though she is not always the biggest fan of it at first, and if she is not completely asleep when we put her down she spends the next 15 minutes working so hard to get her arms out of the wrap. She loves her paci but when she is done with it she will just spit it out! She makes the absolute best faces!! We sit and watch her ALL.DAY.LONG. It is probably one of my favorite things to do! She has also started really smiling at us in the last few days and even gave a big ol' grin to one of Will's good friends when he came over to see her! I think we might be in trouble with the boys later on!

We love you sweet girl and can't believe that you have been here for one whole month! I can't wait to see you grow and change but feel free to do it slowly..it is tough on this mommy's heart to watch you grow and change so fast!

Here is our little one month photo shoot:

Our days in the NICU

     Friday morning, after delivering our sweet girl Thursday night, began in quite the whirlwind, and none of us expected it to play out quite like it did. I just assumed (and probably took for granted) that I would have Weslee and we would go home as a family of three after a day! Well Friday morning bright and early (around 5 am) the nurses came into take Weslee to be checked over by the pediatrician, which all babies have this done! I was still out of it from all of the medicine and couldn't move because of the c-section so my husband went with the nurses.
    I went back to sleep and told Will to wake me up when they got back, after about 30 minutes he came back to our room...but without Weslee. I immediately knew that something was wrong and a million things ran across my mind. My husband tried to explain to me what they said but he was just as scared as I was so not much was making sense. All I knew that our sweet girl was now all by herself being monitored in the nursery. After what seemed like an eternity, but I am sure was only a few minutes, the pediatrician came in to talk to us.
   The pediatrician told us that Weslee's oxygen levels were low and that she had some type of infection. When she was born she had a temperature of 101 but no one really seemed to think that was a big deal. The pediatrician spouted out a million different reasons that her oxygen levels could be low and why she had an infection but it all just sounded like "blah blah blah" to me. They told us that they were going to monitor her for the next hour in the nursery and have a neo-natologist come check her out and then we would decide what to do from there.
    After about an hour the doctor came back and told us that she was not improving and they would be taking her to the NICU, cue water works. Weslee's oxygen levels were in the upper 60s and low 70s, when they should of been 98-100. They were not certain what the infection was or where she got it from but were going to begin running tests on her, and they started blood work. The sweetest nurse brought her to me before she was taking to the NICU. I was so happy to see her since the previous night was the last time I held/seen her and that seemed like such a blur.

 (I told you that I was a hot mess, swollen and tear filled eyes don't make for such great pictures, but holding my baby girl before they took her to the NICU was just what this momma needed!)

My husband went with her down to the NICU to see where it was and to make sure our lil chickadee was okay, and not alone! It was so very hard to watch them take her away and not be able to go with her, silly c-section! Though I was determined to get down to her as soon as I could, so I think that helped me recover from my c-section fairly quickly! (at least enough to walk..waddle..down the hallway to her!)

The hubby took this oh so sad picture of her when they got to the NICU, and it took me 2 days before I could look at it!..just kept telling him I didn't want to see all the wires.  Poor girl and all of her wires and bruises!

 After I saw the picture I knew exactly what would make this girl feel better...her cute hospital hat instead of the one provided! :)

 I was finally able to go see her that Friday night when Will wheeled me down in the wheel chair. One of the nurses told us that she had been a nurse in this NICU for 16 years and Weslee Grace was the most feisty patient she ever had! Wayta make mommy and daddy proud little girl! They had a very difficult time getting an IV in her, because she kept pulling them out and because of her veins. They tried both of her hands, her umbilical cord (which they ended up having to remove..which made bath time way better once we got home :) ), and then finally had to put it in her sweet little head (they tol dus it took 9 hours until they got the IV's in)..which meant no more cute hat :(

                                         (notice that Baylor Bear blanket..how convenient!!)

Friday night my brother and sister-in-law came in from Oklahoma! I was SO excited to have them there!! Something about having all your family there when you are so scared makes you feel a little better. My brother is finishing up his residency so it was so nice to be able to ask him questions about what everything meant (even if he kept saying he doesn't know anything about newborns, he is studying cardiovascular stuff)! We took both of them back to see their niece and it was so much fun! I can't wait for their sweet girl to be here in October!!

 My parents are the most amazing parents there are! They were in the hospital with us constantly and it was so comforting to have them with us! No matter how old I am..I think I will always need them with me, no matter what! Will's parents were so good as well, and came to see Weslee very often in the NICU! They also helped feed my hungry husband! :)

                                                        My mom and Weslee!

                                  Our sweet sweet family of three...what a lucy girl I am!

We had some of the best doctors and nurses there are in the NICU! The nurses would switch every 7 hours and I remember thinking each time, "UGH I don't want them to switch because I LOVE this nurse and they make me feel so comfortable" but then when they would switch we would just get another amazing nurse! We did have one favorite nurse, Bong, yes that is his name! :) He had such a great personality that really lightened the mood and made it "fun" to come in the NICU constantly.

They continued to monitor sweet girl's oxygen levels and the amount of oxygen she was on to help her breath. At first they thought she may have swallowed meconium because of the c-section causing her oxygen levels to be low and have trouble breathing, then they did a couple of chest x-rays and found that she had amniotic fluid in her lungs, also due to the c-sections. When babies are born normally this fluid is pushed out because of the birth canal and squeezing of the baby and Weslee didn't have that happen to her. In order to figure out what the infection was they took a couple of blood cultures. The blood cultures took 72 hours to come back each time but they kept telling us no new was good news! Then they told us that they wanted to do a spinal tap on her to rule out meningitis. I knew what a spinal tap was because my brother had to have it when he was little, and I just couldn't imagine them doing that on a baby! Of course the water works begin (in front of the doctors no less) and I was just sure they were going to send me to the psych ward with as many times as I had cried in front of them. They were going to do that spinal tap Saturday and we should have the results back Sunday morning! The PA was going to perform the Spinal tap and would come and tell us when they were done. It was the longest wait ever and then the PA came in, he told us that they got a "dry tap" which means they missed the mark and were going to have to do the spinal tap again. My heart just sank when he told us this, and then anger set in because they were going to have to repeat the spinal tap. It was terrible to think about Weslee having a spinal tap but now she was going to have TWO!!! They wouldn't be able to do the spinal tap till the next day, so we were back to waiting.

The next evening they did the spinal tap and so we then had to wait 24 hours for the results. In the meantime they had already started Weslee on an antibiotic that would help with 98% of the infections in newborns so they were pretty sure that they were already treating the problem. Sweet girl's oxygen levels were becoming more stable and they were able to turn down the amount of oxygen she was receiving. I think she knew that her oxygen levels were getting better because she kept trying to take the oxygen out of her nose! Monday morning came around and we got her spinal tap results  and they were great and she did not have meningitis!! This was such amazing news and they told us then that as long as her oxygen levels kept improving and that her blood work came back normal each time (they were watching her white blood cell count) we might get to go home on Wednesday. This was the first time that they gave us an end date so we were beyond excited!

Tuesday rolled around and her white blood cell count was back to normal and she was completely off oxygen!!! Her daddy and I prayed so hard for her as well as many many other people. She was such a strong little girl and quite the fighter according to all the nurses! We still had one more blood test to pass on Wednesday morning but it looked like we were going home Wednesday!

Side note: My sweet hubby began his summer classes that Monday (he is getting his mechanical engineering degree) and was trying to keep his sweet family together! He was absolutely amazing!! We stayed at a hotel that is connected to the hospital through all of this after I was discharged (thanks to my wonderful parents again!) so that I could feed Weslee and so we could be close to her! So Will was going to class all day and then coming back immediately to spend time with her and to make sure I was still holding it together. He got up with me at night and early in the morning to go and feed her too! He was exhausted but put Weslee and I before anything else! I knew he was going to be an amazing daddy but this completely reiterated how lucky us girls were!

Wednesday morning my mom and I went to see sweet girl bright and early! I was trying so hard to not get my hopes up about going home that day but it was hard! We got there and the buzz around the NICU was that we were going home!! It was quite the big deal because they said normally babies don't get discharged from this section of the NICU that they usually have to work their way down the NICU levels (apparently they are three levels and we were on the middle level) before they get discharged! Weslee's doctor came about 10 minutes after we got in there and told us that her blood work still looked great and that her oxygen levels stayed perfect all night long!! She was GOING HOME!!!!! Weslee needed one more dosage of the infection (which we never knew exactly what it was, but she probably got it once again from the c-section) and we would be on our way home!

                                         One happy momma...we were going home!!!

A little photo shoot before we headed home! Sweet girl looked so so precious! Since Will had school my mom and dad took us home from the hospital! I am such a lucky girl to have such amazing parents that will drop anything to help me and to make sure we are all taken care of!

Here we are in our carseat ready to go home! It was such a sweet moment to finally be going home after 6 days at the hospital! I know that we were also so blessed to be going home so soon! Some of the sweet families we met in the NICU had such a long road ahead of them, and I can't imagine how hard it is for them! We feel incredible blessed and thank God for taking care of our sweet girl! Will and I truly had to lean on God and that fact that he was watching over Weslee and guiding the doctors the whole time!

Weslee Grace came home on June 4, 2014 for the first time and we have been loving every moment of it...even those nights that we don't get any sleep, or the days she just cries to cry!  Having our sweet girl stay a little extra time in the hospital really opened our eyes and made us realize we need to cherish and enjoy every moment with her!

Welcome Weslee Grace Buck - Birth Story

   We welcomed our sweet girl, Weslee Grace Buck, into the world on May 29th at 11:14 pm. She weighed a whoppin' 8lb and 10 oz, and was 20 inches long. She made quite the entrance into the world, and she let us know how loud she could scream from the second her little head popped out! I have never heard such a reassuring sound in my life, especially since right before we went in the doctors told me not to worry if I didn't hear her right away.

Little miss was quite the stubborn baby and did not want to come out into the world on her own, though I can't say I blame her! She had it made inside my every growing stomach where she was warm and comfy. Since she was not ready to come out at 40 weeks and 3 days and my doctor was headed to the Bahamas, we were scheduled to induce on Thursday May 29th at 6:00am. The whole night before it felt like Chistmas. I did not sleep a wink..the husband on the other hand was out like a light! 

We got to the hospital a little before 6:00 am on Thursday morning and were checked in right away and brought back to our room. We got all situated and then the real fun began! Here we are before all the fun began, I love how happy and oblivious we are! 

Right after we took this picture they started the induction process, first they gave me a gel and told me to "hang out" for a couple hours. I remember thinking.. how am I supposed to hangout while waiting to have a baby!  The husband on the other hand had no problem at all...

The gel did not help our situation at all, so they told us to go on a walk. Now mind you I wasn't allowed to leave the labor and delivery part of the hospital so we were walking in a TINY circle over and over again. We came back from our 30 minute walk and they gave me a pill to help get the party started, I can't remember the name of the pill but it is what made things get interesting. 

I was hooked up to monitors that were monitoring my contractions, sweet girls heart beat, and my blood pressure. It was really fascinating and we were all pretty much glued to the monitors just watching the numbers because we were curious. It was fun to watch when I was having a contraction and to see if I could feel anything. My dad was in the room with Will and I at this point, keeping us company and just hanging out! He was in the middle of telling me story about how when my mom was pregnant with my brother that they had some issues with my brothers heart beat for a little bit, before he could finish telling the story the monitors started beeping, my dad stopped talking, and about 10 doctors and nurses rushed into our room. I had no clue what was going on but knew that it couldn't be good. They were in the room for a total of probably 10 minute but it felt like hours. The first thing I remember is the resident doctor asking if I had an epidural yet, and before I could even answer she broke my water (YIKES!!) and placed two monitors inside me and attached them to sweet girl's head. I had no clue what was going on still, and they kept moving me into different positions. Later on I learned that Weslee's heart rate was scary low for about 7 1/2 minutes. They were turning me from side to side, and in all types of positions to see if they could get it to come up. I remember looking around just trying to make eye contact with someone to see if everything was okay. I looked up and saw my OBGYN just standing in the background watching everything with the most calm demeanor. She smiled her every so reassuring smile and I felt a  huge relief, and knew that we were both in great hands. Then they gave me a shot of something that reversed the pill that they had given me earlier to start the induction. Right when they gave me the shot I heard what seem to be a sigh of relief in the room and "it is working" meaning her heart rate was starting to climb. We were very close to doing an emergency c-section at this point, but they decided to hold off once her heart rate started to climb. 

We had an amazing resident doctor that stayed back and explained what all happened, and we were so grateful for that. Apparently the pill that they gave me was causing the contractions to happen so fast (even though I wasn't feeling them at the time) that Weslee's heart wasn't able to recover in between contractions so it was causing a lot of stress on her , which in turn caused her heart rate to drop down to 60. 

I was then told I needed to stay on my side for the remainder of the labor....oh man did my hip begin to hurt! We waited about an hour and then they gave me Pitocin to see if that would help me progress. At this point she still had not dropped and I was about 2 cm, so not much action. It was probably about noon now. After they gave me the Pitocin I had the worst shakes, and Weslee's body wasn't very fond of the medicine either because once again her heart rate was dropping every time I had a contraction. The difference now was after the contraction it would come back up on its own, so the doctors and nurses were a little more okay with this scenario then the one from earlier in the morning.  We were both monitored very closely and had wonderful nurses and doctors! For the next 9 hours the doctors were turning up the Pitocin and then turning it back down depending on how Weslee was doing, I had to wear an oxygen mask for Weslee to make sure she was getting enough oxygen as well. Due to having my water break so early in the morning they were also pumping fluids back into my bottom to see if that would help stabilize Weslee's heart rate..and by fluids I mean 6 WHOLE BAGS by the time we were done! My face, legs, arms and whole body were so swollen, needless to say the pictures were quite attractive...I was not making much progress and she still had not dropped. I was having contractions that I could for sure feel now. 

During my whole pregnancy I was told that I would not be able to have an epidural because of my low blood platelets. It was to risky for me to have the epidural because of bleeding by the spine. Though my doctor told me that the day of the delivery we would test my blood and if my platelets were 100,000 or above I could have an epidural. Well they came in a told me that my platelets were102,000 so I could have an epidural!! Thank goodness!!  I had been on steroids the last 2 months of the pregnancy to try and help this situation, but still they had not ever been above 80,000.  At about 5:00pm the gave me an epidural, and much to my surprise it didn't hurt at all! I am not sure if it was because I was so tired or if the doctor was just that good! The only thing that bothered me was that when they injected the medicine it burned going in because it is acidic. 

At about 10:00pm my doctor came and checked on me again and I had progress to about 4 cm but Weslee still had not dropped. At this point she told me that even if I had progress to 10cm and she didn't drop there was not much she could do! Little girl was just comfy inside! So my doctor was going to go home and say goodnight to her kids and then come back in a couple of hours. We sent both families home and told them that we would call if something changed! After my doctor left I got another round of my epidural medicine because it was wearing off. Not 5 minutes after they gave me my epidural medicine my doctor rushed back in and told me that Weslee's heart rate was not stable and we were going back for an emergency c-section to take her out right then! WOW!

The next bit was quite a whirlwind. I remember them throwing scrubs at Will to put on and giving me more medicine to get ready for the c-section (mind you I just had gotten a second dose of the epidural medicine so I was full of medicine). At this point I was quite scared and all of the medicine inside me was causing me to shake uncontrollably, which made me more concerned. I still had the oxygen mask on which I was not fond of apparently and within 5 minutes we were in the OR ready to go. Side note: Don't watch 4 seasons of Grey's Anatomy before delivering a baby :) 

According to my husband I was a terrible c-section patient. I kept trying to take of the oxygen mask (that I had to wear to help make sure Weslee was getting enough oxygen) because I told him I couldn't breath, I think I was feeling claustrophobic. I also told him that I HAD to move my legs and that I was going to keep trying until I could do it, mind you there was not way that I could do this and at this point they were cutting me open. oops! 

We went into the OR room at about 10:30 so I was exhausted from the day and they had the brightest lights (which I know was a good thing, so that they doctors could see, but they were blinding me!) so I kept shutting my eyes. Every time I would shut my eyes my husband would yell my name and wake me up,so sleeping was not an option! The whole procedure took about 45 minutes and then we had our baby girl! I was so out of it after the c-section that when they gave me her I could barely hold her and was still shaking. I was so relieved that the process was over but the drugs were really hard on my body. I know lots of people that I talked to LOVE their c-section experience, but this girl was not a fan! My body did not have a reaction to the medicine so it was not fun, I know it was the only option for our little girl but yikes!

We then headed up to our recovery room with our sweet girl. 

This is the first picture my husband showed me of her...ahh!! She looks giant to me here and obviously not happy! This was also the picture he decided to send out to his friends and my family!! Clearly not the picture I would of preferred :) 

Here is our sweet girl once we got her cleaned up and in our room! 

Check back to read about the next few days, and our stay in the NICU. Also for lots more pictures of Miss Weslee Grace!