Happy Anniversary to Us!

Out of nowhere, little Miss Eleanor decided she wanted to be our anniversary present!

At 6:07am this morning, I felt a warm trickle between my legs as I was laying in bed. I jumped up instinctively and ran to the bathroom as my water broke into my sweatpants. It was a completely unmistakeable feeling and definitely one I'll never forget.

So we called the midwife on call and I let her know what was happening. She was a little skeptical since I'm not very far along, but decided I should head up to the hospital anyway - no rush.

Once we got to the hospital, Margie, our midwife, came in and did a few tests on the fluid to determine that it was, in fact, amniotic fluid. One of the tests included a ferning test, which is a test to look at the fluid under a microscope to see the pattern the fluid takes on. Margie said the ferning of the fluid was indicative of amniotic fluid and that it was beautiful - a snowflake pattern with large crosses inside. So the initial game plan was to try and keep her in another week or two, but that we wouldn't stop labor if it came.

That's when things began to move much more quickly. The monitors were showing that the baby's heart rate was a bit increased, and that she wasn't handling contractions terribly well. They decided to keep monitoring me and run some more tests, run an IV of antibiotics and fluids, but figured we'd be inducing labor either tonight or tomorrow if it didn't happen on its own.

Next, they brought in an ultrasound machine, at which point we discovered that Ellie was, in fact, breech! So our new plan became to deliver her via C-section either tonight or tomorrow. The sonographers proceeded with a biophysical profile to determine her health in there. The rating scale on that is out of 8 - Ellie scored a 0. Not good. So the new new plan became to take her NOW! Our doctor finished up with another woman's labor and we went right into the operating room. By 12:23pm, Ellie was out and she came out screaming!

I had a chance to kiss her quickly and Tom held her for a few minutes before she was whisked out to the NICU. Tom followed her and I stayed behind to recover for about an hour. As of now, we are both doing great - Ellie scored an 8 and a 9 on her Apgars and has been breathing on her own. She also took a bit of formula at 3:30pm and they are planning to let Tom try to bottle feed her some of the preemie formula around 6:30. Right now, we're looking at a timeline of 1-2 weeks before she can come home, but it's really all totally dependent on her.

So please say a couple prayers that all continues to go well with our sweet girl, that I am feeling well enough to get up and see her tonight, and that she is released soon (as long as she's healthy enough)!