Yeah I'm not too good at this blog thing, but I'm workin on it. :P A lot has happened since our last posting. For starters: we had a baby! Lydia Colleen Hayden was born on January 2nd. Cool fact: her birthday is a palendrome (spelling?). 01-02-2010. So sweet! haha. She was born 5 lbs 1 oz and 17 3/4 in long. She was about 4 weeks early, and had to stay in the hospital for 3 1/2 weeks. It was the hardest time of my life. I had the wonderful help of family to make that time much more bearable. Thank you all.
Initially, the doctor was worried that she wasn't vigorous at birth. Basically she squawked once or twice, but for the most part she looked like she was sleeping, which isn't ideal for a newborn. She had some breathing issues and they had to keep her on oxygen for a day, but she graduated from that quickly. She was just too sleepy to stay awake long enough to nurse, so my milk was fed to her through a tube that went in her nose and into her stomach. After almost a week I got to nurse her for the first time. And over the next couple weeks we gradually added one or two more breastfeedings a day. I pumped on her eating schedule and brought milk into the hospital each day. She also had an apnea problem, which is when you stop breathing spontaneously... scary, right? Well, she only had to be stimulated (the nurses would come over and tickle her or pick her up) once or twice.. the rest of the time she would start breathing again by herself. As hard as this time was for us, we couldn't be more grateful for modern technology. If she were home with me all day and I had to worry about her having an apnea spell I would have gone nuts - as it was at the hospital a little alarm would go off when this would happen. She went 7 days without one before she came home, so that meant she was safe. We really are so grateful for the steps that were taken to get her where she needed to be. What is truly amazing is that Lydia got over this barrier herself. She was supposed to have been in the womb still - resting up and not having to worry about wearing herself down. The hospital did their best to create an environment that was as similar to the womb as possible and slowly got her used to not being there anymore. And she did it and it was so amazing to watch it all happen. Here are a few pics from the last couple months:
Our first family photo
Lydia at 1 week old
Here is she is at 1 month. I love this picture!
And here is she a week and a half ago at 2 months!
