If you are friends with Jeff or I on Facebook, then you likely know what we have been up to for the last five months. But here's a recap!
On October 8, 2014 Jeff and I went to Atlanta. The next day we got to the hospital and I quickly went to pre-op. After
pre-op (where I passed out when they gave me my epidural) Jeff and I went to the OR. Our baby girl, Virginia Madison "Madi" was born at 1:20 pm on October 9 via cesarean at
Northside Hospital. She weighed 7 lbs 4
oz and was 18 1/2 inches long. The doctors and Jeff saw immediate movement in her legs
(we were so dang excited!!) and I got to see her, talk to her, and kiss her cheek before they whisked her away to the NICU.
As soon as Madi was gone they had a serious bleeding complication with me related to the way I healed from my previous c-section. My 25 minute ceserean turned into a 5 hour ordeal. I got 4 units of blood and platelets and who knows what else. It was kind of crazy and very scary. I was supposed to be able to see Madi again before she left my hospital and went to Children's at Scottish Rite, but when they got her packed up and ready to move, I was not in the recovery room where I belonged, I was still in surgery.
Madi, on the other hand, was doing awesome! They got her
settled into the NICU at Children's and she was really just showing
out. :-) She was
moving all over the place in her your little isolette. In fact, they had to
keep moving her back into the middle of her bed because she was moving
and squirming so much that she kept bumping her head against the top
wall.
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| Madi's NICU space. She has a deluxe penthouse space with a window! :-) |
Madi had her spina bifida closure surgery at 9 a.m. Friday morning,
October 10th. Dr. Reisner had previously told us the surgery might take
up to 4 hours. After only 2 hours Jeff was surprised to get a call from
him that he was done. The doc said that on a spina bifida scale from 1
to 10 with 10 being the best possible situation regarding her nerves
and feeling et cetera below her lesion, she was a 20! He said that he
had not had an SB closure surgery that easy in years. We were amazed at
her and SO grateful to God. :-)
I was able to go from my hospital to hers on Sunday and see her again for the first time since she was born.
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| This was her first bed space. She moved to the penthouse space the next day. |
It took what seemed like forever (14 days), several head
ultrasounds, and finally a CT scan to determine that her hydrocephalus
required a shunt. She got her vp shunt when she was 15 days old on
Friday, October 24th. It was a hard day. She reacted poorly to the pain
meds after her back closure so
they were trying to manage her pain after shunt surgery with only
Tylenol. That didn't work at all so for several hours I tried to sooth
her by holding, giving a paci, sucrose, feeding....but
that was all a no go. They eventually gave her some morphine (a very
small amount) which helped her finally nod off and me relax.
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| Me holding my girl one day in the 2 weeks between surgeries. |
We finally got to bring Madi home the following Tuesday! That was a GREAT day! We were welcomed with balloons and posters form our friends and Ben got to meet his little sister! :')
