Ayla's birth

Ayla was a planned c-section due to the type of surgery I had to have with Aiden - I was not able to even try to deliver her the old fashioned way. She was also scheduled to arrive at 37 weeks at the recommendation of the high risk doctor that delivered Aiden, in addition to having a vertical c-section scar inside, Aiden was so small that my uterus didn't really grow that much - so I was a high risk for a uterine rupture. So, we headed to the hospital at 5:30 in the morning to have our little girl!

See how I look all calm in this picture? About 5 minutes later I looked at the clock and got nervous and started to freak out. I was scheduled to go in at 7:30 and I was only 15 minutes away. C-sections really are not that fun. The epidural, the cold bright room, all the people in surgical gear around you, the odd feeling of feeling everything they are doing but no pain...it's just...weird. It's all tolerable, of course, because you get this beautiful little baby at the end, but really I would rather give birth the all natural way any day! I guess if you have to have surgery, the best kind to have is the kind that results in you meeting your new baby ;) Anyway, they started the surgery around 8am and Ayla came into the world at 8:18am- it is quite amazing how quickly they get the baby out after they start the surgery.

I can't even tell you what it was like to hear her sweet little cry after going through Aiden's birth where we heard nothing. I breathed a huge sigh of relief to hear her tiny cry and to know that she was out safely and ready to be loved on. She was still a little early, even though 37 weeks is considered term, so she still had a lot of the waxy vernix on her when she came out (aka "the white stuff"). And, surprise #1, all that dark hair! I was expecting a little bald blondy like Aiden!

They took all her vitals and gave her APGAR scores to us - which was an 8 (Aiden was a 2 for comparison). Then they cleaned her up, wrapped her up like a little burrito and handed her over to her daddy.

Jeremy brought her over to me so I could see my daughter for the first time and give her a kiss on the cheek. I was a little drugged up, but I was so happy to see my healthy little girl. All I could think of was how amazing she is, how crazy it was that she was already here and how much I wanted the surgery part to be over so I could hold her.

We got a few minutes of cuddle time while they were finishing up with me. The nurses took her back to our room a few minutes later to get her settled in and weighed. Jeremy went with them so her could stay with Ayla, but I wasn't alone very long, they were done with me pretty quickly and wheeled me back into the room about 20 minutes later. It was really nice to be able to be with her right away, I know some hospitals make the momma recover in a different room for a couple hours and they don't get to be with their babies right away, so gold star to Mercy Folsom for their c-section set up :)

And now for surprise #2 - 4 pounds, 9 ounces! I was expecting  a 6 pounder at least!

She was so tiny, I think it freaked out the nurses a little bit. They wanted to monitor her for a little while and watch her oxygen saturation, her temperature, her blood sugar, her bilirubin levels - all the things they worry about with a little baby. She was a champ though, everything they were worried about turned out to be just right.

As soon as they wheeled me into the room they put little naked Ayla on my chest and let us do some skin to skin bonding time. This helped her keep her little temperature up where it needed to be, too.  After I was a little more stable (i.e. not drugged up and able to wiggle my toes again) they let me sit up a little bit and breastfeed her. There were lots of threats of her needing formula and they watched her blood sugar every half hour for that first day, she didn't need it though, momma's milk was enough to keep her a happy girl!

They decided not to give her a full bath until later that night since her temperature was always right on the border - so she just laid on my chest for hours and the 3 of us had some good bonding time. Nana Robyn was watching Aiden that day and she came to the hospital to meet little Ayla just in time to help Jeremy and the nurse give her a sponge bath.

The rest of the hospital stay is kind of a blur to me, I was pretty tired and recovering from the c-section. There was more worry over her bilirubin levels and over her weight loss - she got down to 4 pounds, 3 ounces before she started gaining a little back and when we left she was right around 4 pounds 7 ounces. We managed to get out of the hospital as soon as we got the chance, they wanted us to stay a 4th night to keep an eye on her weight gain, but we just really wanted to be home, so we came home Sunday the 9th with our little precious package!