Having a 22 month old and a newborn brings its challenges. While we are lucky we aren’t having to deal with any jealousy issues that people with older children might have to, we are definitely having to learn how to manage our time between two children. Thankfully, Zoey is still young enough that we haven’t had any jealousy problems and she can easily entertain herself if I’m busy feeding the baby. She doesn’t demand my attention very often and just takes things in stride. Maybe it’s just her personality? Or her age? Or maybe a combination of the two. Either way, it has made it a LOT easier being at home alone with two children under two years of age!

Balancing time though has been difficult, especially for my husband. He comes home from work and Zoey is all over him. She is the definition of a Daddy’s Girl. We eat dinner, he plays with her and before we know it, it’s time for him to either give her a bath if it’s bath night or put her to bed. They head to the bedroom at 8 PM and read books and she is asleep by 8:30. Then he spends the rest of the evening with Kiera.. Feeding her and snuggling her as much as he can because before you know it, it’s time to get in bed and start the next day. He is a VERY involved Daddy and puts his girls before anything else, so all of his time is spent with them these days. I know he feels like he isn’t getting as much time with Kiera as he did with Zoey when she was a newborn, but things are a LOT different this time, understandably so! I just hope my girls grow up knowing that their Daddy loved them with all of his heart and did absolutely everything he could for them.

Did you know that I’ve only done the bed time routine with Zoey a couple of times since she’s been born? And I’ve only given her a bath a few times, as well. Not because I don’t want to but because these are Daddy & Zoey times. I spend quality time with Zoey all day, every day and these are two little things that the two of them do together and have always done together. I hope when Kiera gets older she can share special moments and routines with her Daddy like Zoey does.

Having said all of that, I am proud to say we made it to Week 6 of Kiera’s life with full sanity in tact. Well, maybe 90% sanity. Kiera is a big little girl. It is so weird having a NORMAL (or big?) sized baby this time around! Zoey was always so tiny and took a while to get up there on the charts. This time, we are here at 6 weeks old with a 9 1/2 to 10 pound baby. She is chubbing up quite nicely and I absolutely adore her. She’s currently eating 5oz at each feeding. She’s sleeping about 3 to 4 hours between feedings.

No real smiles yet. I got a small one yesterday but I’m not counting it as an intentional one. She’s still in newborn diapers but needs to move up to a 1 or 1-2. Cheapo mommy is trying to use up the last of the newborn sizes before moving up. She is about out of newborn clothes too. The length just isn’t cutting it anymore, so we’ve moved on to 0-3mo. The 3mo sized sleepers are way too big and it’s hard to find 0-3mo these days, so we’re making do with what we have!

She sleeps swaddled in a fleece SwaddleMe blanket at night to keep her warm and once or twice during the day. Other times, she naps in her bouncy chair or the swing. She absolutely hates to have her clothes changed and is starting to tolerate diaper changes a little better, as long as you are quick! She likes baths but hates when you take her out. Her cry is SO much louder than Zoey’s ever was and it startles me every time I hear it.

She’s working on head control and slowly but surely getting there. She has a huge noggin, so I can’t blame her for struggling with it a little bit. She is taking the Soothie paci but not very often. Basically only every now and then when I’m trying to get an extra 30 minutes of sleep and she’s crying because she wants to eat. right. now.!

What an amazing little person. I love her so much and I look forward to watching her grow up. She’s so beautiful, her whispy hair makes me smile and her dark eyes melt my heart. When she holds my finger so tight while I feed her, I feel so complete.

Zoey is finally starting to come around and it makes me full of joy and pride when she looks at Kiera and says “Bebe!” or when she points to her eyes and says “Eyyyyeesss!” and her “Noooooohhh” (nose). She holds her hand, points to her toes and tries to tickle her belly button (I laugh on behalf of Kiera, of course). I hope they have an amazing relationship and grow up having lots of fun together. I’m sure Zoey will just LOVE to boss her little sister around.

From what my husband tells me, I was bleeding a lot right after surgery and the nurses were having to change my pads (the fun part of a c-section) frequently. Add on top of that the fact that I had a fairly large hematoma, which at this point no one knew I had. I guess my blood count was low. I went in with a count of 13 and after surgery it was 8. They ordered 2 bags of blood and got those started pretty quickly. I had to sign my life away before they did the transfusion. I remember the nurse distinctly pointing out to me that my risk of disease from the transfusion was less than my odds of winning the lottery. I was pretty sick at this point but I thought that sounded okay. Keep in mind, at this point I didn’t realize how crappy things were going to get from here on out, so I may have declined the blood if I knew how my luck was going. My OB put me on iron pills and stool softeners and sent me home with a script for them. By the day I checked out of the hospital, my count was slightly higher than it was when I went into the hospital, so yay for that!

When I had Zoey, my catheter was out that evening! This time? My catheter stayed for over a whole day! My catheter bag continued to show radioactive orange pee. Dehydration was obvious, even though I was hooked up to IV fluids and even though I was drinking a TON of water. They ended up giving me a ton of bags of fluid quickly while they were giving me blood and it helped a lot. I think they were FINALLY able to take my catheter out the next day, late. After they took out my catheter, one of my nurses started a little chart on the back of a sheet of printer paper and wrote “Input” and “Output” and started recording my water intake and my urine output.. it totally made me laugh. Every time I would pee I would overflow the little hat they put in the toilet to measure my urine so she eventually gave up and tossed her fancy hand written chart.

Going to keep this short.. I am currently battling a VERY UNFUN UTI. It hurts and it sucks! There is more to come though.. A few more posts.. ER visit, Breastfeeding, Spinal Headaches and my Shoulder Pain / Hematoma. Oh and a tire blowout, just to add a little spice to the story!

I knew Kiera would be going to the NICU after birth because I had already discussed it with my nurse and my OB before my surgery even took place. I asked the nurse and she said yes but I felt like I should also ask my OB to get his opinion on the matter too and of course, his answer was yes. They both assured me that baby’s born at 34 weeks were ok and might just need a little help with breathing after they’re born. My OB also assured me that if any of his patients go into labor after 34 weeks, he will try to stop it and do what he can as long as their water hasn’t broken. He said if their water breaks at 34 weeks or later, he just lets nature take it’s course because it’s the baby saying they need or want to come out now. They told me about the NICU team being in the OR with me during surgery and I saw the nurse show me Kiera right before they whisked her off to the NICU. Gene followed them and I honestly wasn’t worried. I heard her cry and I knew she was going to be okay, I just had a feeling in my heart. I was so miserable that I never really worried about her or thought much of the fact that she was going to be in the NICU, if that shows any kind of measure of how bad I was really feeling. After I started feeling better and more alert, I started going to the NICU whenever I could. When Gene would come up, he would push me in my wheel chair to the NICU and we would visit. I couldn’t stay for long that early on, because of how tired and nauseated I would get. It is VERY warm in the NICU so the heat wouldn’t help my nausea at all. After I started walking more, I would walk down to the NICU and visit Kiera and drop off whatever breast milk I could pump for her.

Going to visit her in the NICU meant I had to take the elevator one floor down (they were remodeling and had postpartum moved to a different floor) and picking up a telephone to tell them who I was, then being let in through the doors. I had to sign in under her name in a 3 ring binder and then scrub my hands, fingernails and arms up to the elbows for at least 2 minutes with soap and disposable scrub brushes. She had her own little “room.” The first time I went to see her, my nurse had taken me after my CT scan (late in the day on the 19th, the day she was born) and it was a really quick visit because I had just had some really strong pain medicine put in my IV. She had an IV in her foot and little soft sunglasses over her face because she was under the bili lights. She didn’t have any breathing equipment on anymore, but she did have a feeding tube in her mouth. The nurse told me they had taken the CPAP machines off of her several hours after birth and she was doing great breathing on her own. This was the first time I had REALLY seen her. I had a chance to really look at her, study her every crevice. Her long, skinny toes and flat, skinny feet. Her long, skinny fingers. Her wrinkly skin, her tiny little “fat” rolls on her legs and arms. All of that hair! This was a HUGE moment for me and I know I cried so hard, because I remember my nurse stroking my hair and telling me how beautiful she was.

I visited her the next day when Gene came up to the hospital and took me. Just the two of us. Her Mommy and Daddy, together, visiting her. I was shocked and horrified when I saw they had moved her IV to her forehead. I know this is a common place to get IVs for newborns, but I was still shocked. It looked awful and I felt so awful for her. They had moved her feeding tube to her nostril, which actually seemed more comfortable. They did this because they were starting to work on bottle feeding. She was still under the lights but they briefly let us turn the lights off and take her little shades off so that I could see her face for the first time! Another amazing moment.

I got to hold her on the 3rd day and it was an amazing experience. They took the IV out on day 3 because she was getting enough nutrients from the feeding tube. It made me sad that here my baby was, two days old and I was JUST getting to hold her for the first time. I was still so sick and so weak and I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted so badly to just wheel her back to my room with me, like I had done with her big sister. I knew I was not healthy enough to take care of an infant on my own though, so I knew deep down this wouldn’t have worked out either way.

On day 4, I worked on some skin to skin bonding, or “kangaroo care” as it’s often called. I tried to get her to latch and she latched on a couple of times, would suckle a few times and then fall asleep. We both held her, cuddled her, fed her and spent as much time as we could there without wearing her out too much. By this point, we were going up there as often as we could for feedings. Gene was only spending half days at the hospital with me at this point because he was also having to go home and take care of Zoey, so he tried to go down to see Kiera as much as possible while he was there.

Day 5 they took out the feeding tube! What a glorious day! She was taking all of her feedings through a nipple really well and they felt they could remove the tube. I was so happy when I saw this.. One less wire to deal with when we were trying to hold her. Did more skin to skin bonding, fed her, cuddled her. They let us go into a “Private Parenting” room which was a private room with a couch, end table, breast pump, bathroom, shower and a TV. They brought Kiera into us with no machines and let us do a couple of feedings alone, in private. It was so nice to have that privacy and be able to take care of her ourselves!

We spent as much time as we could down there and then I had to go home. It was awful and I felt so sad. Everything felt so wrong about going home from the hospital and not taking my baby with me. She wasn’t on a feeding tube and was doing wonderful and it made no sense to me why I had to leave her there and go home without her. We got home really late.

On day 6, I ended up in the ER for a good portion of the day. The NICU called and said we could take Kiera home if we came and did 3 consecutive feedings in one of their Private Parenting rooms (some sort of test or what?? pretty ridiculous if you ask me!). We agreed to do the 5 PM, 8 PM and 11 PM feedings. My wonderful Mother agreed to stay with Zoey until late that night and we made our way from the ER to the hospital (same hospital) side where the NICU was. We did her 5 PM and 8 PM feedings and they said that was enough and we could take her home! We ended up getting home around 11 PM that night and Zoey was already in bed.

That’s my story of the NICU. I got a survey to fill out from them about our experience. I have mixed feelings. Some things I think were unnecessary and some things I appreciate. I felt like our nurse was fantastic and took great care of her but I hated that they “threatened” to put the feeding tube back in one time because she didn’t completely finish her bottle. Seemed like there would be a nicer way to say something other than “If she keeps that up we’re putting that feeding tube back in!” in a condescending tone. I also hated how she made us feel as if we had no idea what we were doing at some times. I know deep down they don’t have bad intentions and they are just over protective of their babies but there were times where I felt so fragile, emotionally and I felt like they didn’t necessarily cater to that at all times. Overall, I am SO glad she is home. I hated that she had to be in the NICU. I did feel like she was in there a lot longer than necessary. She weighed more and ate more than Zoey ever did in the first weeks of her life and Zoey was never in the NICU. I was looking back at my archives and Zoey was eating 1 1/3 to 2 oz per feeding at OVER 2 weeks old, while Kiera is eating a whopping 3 oz at every feeding already!

One thing that made me REALLY happy and one thing I very much appreciated about the hospital I stayed in was that I was officially discharged on January 23rd, meaning I was no longer in the computer system as a patient in the hospital. HOWEVER, since it was a weekend and they weren’t busy, they let me “room free” because my baby was in the NICU. They let me keep my same room and it would be like a hotel. There wouldn’t be nurses to check on me and they wouldn’t even have on the computer that I was there, but I could sleep there over night that way I could be close to my baby. They said I could stay as long as they didn’t get too busy or too full, but that they reserved the right to ask me to leave at any time if they were to get busy. This was an amazingly nice thing they did and I really appreciated it!

I stayed that one night and went home the next day. The next morning I walked up to the front desk to tell them I had planned on leaving that day (had a TERRIBLE night. I was sick all night long and had no one to help me and was miserable and alone) and the nurse was already telling me that I would have to leave because they were having a lot of patients that day and needed the room. I broke down into tears, bawling, telling the lady that I was just coming to tell her I had planned on leaving that day anyway. She felt so awful and was trying to console me, telling me she had a baby in the NICU too and she knew how hard it was. She talked to me for a while and made me feel a lot better. Gene came up that morning and we did Kiera’s morning feed and then got all of my stuff out of the room and to the car before we headed home.

Having a baby in the NICU was rough, mentally and emotionally. I missed her so much and felt like I wasn’t getting to know her and bond with her like I did with Zoey. I was worried about missing a bond with her but I can tell you that was not the case and we are as close as ever. I love her so much and don’t feel distanced from her at all. My daughter was only in the NICU for a week and it felt like an eternity, I can’t even imagine what Mothers go through that have their babies in the NICU for months and Mothers who have really sick babies in the NICU. I’m thankful that Kiera was okay, despite being born early.

Stay tuned.. More to come! Spinal headaches, Hematoma, Blood Transfusions, an ER visit just a day after I was discharged.. More fun ahead!

Sadly, I am going to have to break up her birth story into segments. Because there is SO much to document and detail. So I am starting off with the main part of how I went into labor, had her, etc. I’ll write up separate entries over the coming days to document each individual thing that I experienced after surgery and what happened. Look forward to FUN TALES about hematomas, spinal headaches, blood transfusions, having a baby in the NICU, breastfeeding, etc. Ok so anyway.. Here we go…

Where do I even begin with this birth story? It’s going to be a LONG one, but I want to remember everything, regardless of how traumatic it might have been. What a whirlwind. I guess my girls just don’t like to come into this world on an uneventful occasion.

Looking back and knowing what I know now, I guess it all started back on Sunday (January 16th) night. I woke up Sunday night a few times having some major leg cramps, or Charlie Horses, as you might know them by. Severe pain! I was holding my legs and crying out to Gene to help me. I finally got them to go away and went back to bed. Didn’t think much of it at that time. And never really thought much of it until one morning I was sitting in the hospital and watching one of those morning shows and they were discussing top signs of dehydration. Guess what the very first and top sign was? LEG CRAMPS. Wow, had NO idea. It started to make sense at that point.

So Monday, all day long, I felt sick. Couldn’t eat or drink much, felt nauseated and tired. I pretty much stayed on the couch all day long while Zoey watched movies and played by herself. That evening I still felt bad but started having terrible pain in my abdomen. I spent most of the evening in bed while Gene took care of Zoey and I just laid in bed holding my stomach in pain. The pain would come and go, come and go, all night long. I got pretty much zero sleep that night and had Gene stay home from work that morning. I started getting paranoid around 4 AM that maybe my gall bladder was going bad or maybe I had appendicitis. I got up in the morning and took a shower and we decided to head to Labor and Delivery at the hospital to be checked out. We checked in at L&D around 9 AM and they sent my urine down to be analyzed and hooked me up to the contraction monitors. I was immediately having full on contractions every 2-3 minutes spaced evenly! I realized right then that all of the pain I had been experiencing the day and night before were actually contractions. They came back and gave me a shot of Brethine to stop the contractions and they did slow down a bit. Urine test came back showing a bladder infection and dehydration. They gave me a bag of fluids and another shot of Brethine and the contractions pretty much diminished. About 6 hours later they discharged me and we went home. I rested the rest of the afternoon because we were so exhausted from being up at the hospital all day.

I want to stop here for a second just to note that the hospital put us into a triage room, meaning a tiny room with a curtain and a VERY uncomfortable gurney for me to lay on, FOR SIX HOURS. Not only was this uncomfortable, but we had Zoey with us! A 21 month old, in a tiny triage room, FOR SIX HOURS. At one point, I had decided that I needed to call my Mom up at work and see if she could leave work and come get my child. I knew that this was not going to go well and I needed to get my toddler out of the hospital because it was looking like we would be there for a while. I had Gene hand me my phone and the first thing I see is a message from my Mom from earlier that morning, telling me that she had a fever, was vomitting and had stayed home from work today. Ugh!! I told myself not to panic, so I put my phone down and was trying to think of what to do. I later decided to call my sister, so I have Gene hand me my phone again only to have JUST received a text message from my sister telling me that she was at work, sick and throwing up and to please come get her and if I couldn’t, find someone who can. Oh and she wanted me to call my Mom and tell her. I replied to her text message saying basically: Mom is at home with a fever and throwing up, I am in the hospital in labor and Gene is with me but that I would call Dad. So I call my Dad, tell him that Mom is at home sick, which he already knew and that I was in the hospital in labor and Layla was sick at work and needed someone to go pick her up right away. Can you believe this crap?!?!?? Could this not have been worse timing?? My Sister and my Mom ended up having a TERRIBLE stomach virus that lasted days upon days. My Mom luckily started getting slightly better after a few days and was able to help watch Zoey and eventually come up to the hospital to see Kiera. But you’ll notice I had to call on my dear friend Malinda to come help with Zoey the first two nights that I went to the hospital because my family was so ill and couldn’t help! Thanks a LOT, Kiera! Great timing, little girl! By the way, Zoey ended up doing GREAT for being stuck in the hospital with us for SIX HOURS. She had one MAJOR break down, in which a sippy cup of milk and a short nap on Daddy’s lap cured. I was so proud of her considering the circumstances. Anyway…

That evening Gene did the normal routine and put Zoey to bed. I wrote up a grocery list of things we needed for the coming weeks to accommodate my Gestational Diabetic diet and he made a late trip (9 PM) to Walmart to grab some stuff. I sat down on the sofa and started typing up a blog post about the day we had just had. It took me a while to write and I finally clicked submit, after writing something along the lines of hoping this little girl would stay put a little longer.

Felt the urge to pee. Went to the bathroom, peed. Walked into the kitchen and took my blood sugar, it was getting low (81). The second after the 81 showed up on my glucometer, I felt a VERY small gush of liquid down my leg. I thought, weird I JUST peed why would I be peeing my pants?!?! It felt SO involuntary. It only took about a second for me to have all of these flashbacks of my water breaking with Zoey and realizing it was the EXACT same feeling I had with her. I walked quickly to the bathroom, as my heart pounded. Put on some new underwear, stood up and walked out of the bathroom. About three steps and I feel my underwear soaked and stuff running down my leg. Oh no. I did the thing that I pretty much HAD to do and smelled my underwear and I realized this was NOT urine, this was definitely my water breaking. I went through about 3 more pairs of underwear (just to make sure) and called Gene. This was about 10 PM, at this point. He was leaving Walmart. I said “You wont believe this” and he said “What?” and I said, “My water just broke”… I tried to calm him down, because NEITHER of us were ready for this. He came home, threw the grocery bags down in the entry way floor and started trying to get things ready in a hurry.

I called L&D at the hospital to tell them my water broke. The nurse says “Ok, tell me what makes you think it’s your water breaking” (She’s probably thinking, ok this lady just peed her pants) and I went on to explain that I had been up at the hospital all day for contractions, that my water broke with my daughter and I knew what it felt like and the most important fact of it all, that I smelled my soaked underwear and it had that distinct bleach-y clean type smell. She died laughing and said “Wow, I’ve never heard anyone describe it like that before, but I guess you’re right, it’s like a saline type smell.” She told me as long as I could feel baby moving, to eat something and take a shower and try to come in within’ a couple of hours. I wasn’t feeling baby move (it wasn’t her normal awake time of 1 in the morning yet, lol) but I knew she was ok. I ate a couple of peanut butter cookies and started to panic about what we were going to do with Zoey. Remember, my Mom and Sister had come down with a TERRIBLE stomach virus that day and could not help watch her and I really was not OK with waking her up and taking her up to the hospital with us. Gene needed to be in the operating room with me during my c-section, too.

I called my friend Malinda crying, telling her my situation. Because she is SUCH a saint and a sweet, wonderful friend, she didn’t even hesitate to come over. She was at my house within’ a good 30 minutes and Gene and I were preparing to leave. He gave her the low down on what to do with Zoey if she wakes up and what to do in the morning when she got up. I put groceries away, we finished packing a few last minute items and headed out the door. We were checked into the hospital at 12:01 AM, according to my hospital bracelet.

They got me put into a nice room. Hooked up to monitors and all comfy. I asked if my OB would be doing my c-section in the morning? The nurse said oh no, my OB would be here in about 45 minutes. WHAT?!? I think it REALLY hit me at that point. I couldn’t believe he would come in that late to do a c/s. She said he was at the hosital next door doing something and he would just like to swing by on his way home to do the c/s before he got home and got in bed. Seriously?!?! Haha.. I laugh at this now. At the time I was too much in shock! They gave me a bag of antibiotics due to my bladder infection news earlier in the day and also shaved my tummy. Threw Gene’s scrubs at him and he was busy getting the camera ready and txting my Mom and Malinda to let them know what was going on.

Right before surgery, my OB came into my room to talk to me, with a cup of coffee in hand (reassuring). They actually had me walk down to the operating room, which was also a surreal situation. Had to walk with a towel between my legs from my water leaking so much. The first spinal didn’t take and I ended up having a second one that did work.

The surgery itself was VERY traumatic. They had trouble getting her head out. They were having to push and pull my body. For those of you who have never had a c-section before, you can’t feel pain BUT you can very much feel tugging, pulling, etc. They were having to push and pull so hard and so much on my body, I felt like my entire body was being thrashed around. I felt like my organs were having extreme pressure put on them, especially my lungs. I had to ask for nausea medication from the anaesthesiologist almost immediately and I remember feeling SO miserable. Not from the nausea, but from the tugging and pulling and pressure being put on my internal organs. I moaned, groaned and I remember thinking that I just wanted this to end. I just wanted to be done with this and I couldn’t believe how miserable I felt. I remember distinctly feeling like: I wish they could give me general anaesthesia so I could be out of it. I wasn’t even that concerned about seeing the baby. I knew Gene would take care of her and love her enough for the both of us at first. I just wanted to be put out of my misery. Just thinking back on this experience brings tears to my eyes. It was bad, very bad. She was out, they opened the window on the curtain and I saw her little blue-ish body. The NICU team was waiting and taking care of her. Gene took pictures, the nurse brought her to me to see her after they cleaned her off and then they whisked her off to the NICU. Gene followed. They stitched me up, put me back on my hospital bed and whisked me off. I remember VERY little after this point.

I remember being sick. Nauseated. Freezing cold, sweating profusely, not feeling well at all. Very miserable feeling! Gene said I was bleeding a lot right after surgery and that they were having to give me pain medication in my IV just to get me to roll to my sides so they could change my pads. I don’t remember this at all. I do remember that they were putting me into a new room (post partum/recovery room) and my hospital bed’s functions were not working correctly so they wanted to put me in a new bed. I remember sitting there, feeling sick and nauseated and pretty much dead to the world. I remember a very awful, young, reddish blond, freckle faced nurse (young, about my age, I would guess) trying to get me to scoot to the new bed. They pushed the beds side by side and she wanted me to scoot my body over to the new bed. According to Gene, this was only a few hours after surgery. I remember my legs were bricks. The anaesthesia was wearing off around my upper abdomen but my legs were still as solid as ever. I remember trying with my arms (even though I was SO sick and didn’t even want to move at this point) to move over and could not even move a centimeter. How do you scoot or move when your entire body from under your breasts and down are completely NUMB and you feel sick and DEAD on top of that??? She was getting frustrated with me and got down and said, “Listen, I’ve had two c-sections and I know how it is. So let’s do this.” in THE MOST CONDESCENDING TONE I’VE EVER HEARD. Are you effing kidding me?!?!?? She walked out and a very sweet, Indian (as in the country India, not Native American, not that it really matters) nurse suggested to me to stay in my jacked up bed until I felt better and could feel my body and then we could switch to a new bed. I said YES that would be great. Or actually, I probably nodded while dry heaving. They finally told the Wicked Witch this and she left me alone. For some reason they decided the room I was in was not big enough so they moved me down the hall to another room, which was slightly larger. I didn’t know why they were doing this, but I was too sick to really care. For a comparison of how sick and out of it I was, I just want to throw in here that when I had Zoey, I was talking to my Mom on my cell phone 45 minutes after my c-section about Zoey’s birth. This time? I don’t think I talked to ANYONE until much later in the day. I don’t even REMEMBER the first 8 hours, if that, after this surgery.

Now, I can’t remember a timeline of how things happened after this point.. The coming days in the hospital were a blur. I was so sick at first and had so many complications that I can’t remember dates and times of what happened, so instead of continuing in timeline fashion, I’ll just outline the things that happened that I remember in future entries. Look forward to those in the coming days!

Kiera Claire
January 19, 2011 at 1:15 AM
6lb 10oz, 18.5 inches

She’s a beautiful little girl. Love, love, love her. Working on the birth story. It’s going to be a LONG one. It was anything BUT an uneventful birth experience. Traumatic and think I will be recovering for several weeks. Still in a lot of pain. Thankfully I have this adorable little girl to remind me every day that it was worth everything that I’ve been through.