Eden Taylor Ahlstrom

Eden was born earlier this month, and it was quite the experience. Dr. Koperek decided to induce me, which was just fine! We got to the hospital at 7 a.m. that morning and by 10 a.m. I was all hooked up, my water broke, and her heart monitor on her head. She was a little dramatic when they broke my water and her heart rate went down for a few minutes, but it finally came back up and everything was good.

Russell was sick, so they had him wear a mask the whole day. Bummer.

Me all hooked up and just waiting and waiting.

At about 1 p.m. I finally got an epidural, and it was heavenly! Then about 7:30 p.m. I was totally ready to push her out, but the Dr. was in an emergency c-section so I had to wait. I think they should have more than one Dr. there! Finally we got started, and I pushed for about an hour. The pushing really wasn't that bad, but my hands and arms were totally numb and hurt like crazy.

She was born at 9:42 p.m. weighing 7 lbs and measuring 17 inches. Because she had some meconium in her lungs the NICU team was there to suction her out, which took forever. She stopped breathing at one point, and they had to breathe for her for about 30 seconds. Drama Queen!

The NICU team working on little Eden.

Eden all cleaned up!

Then after everything and everyone was cleaned up, the Dr. came back in and told us that because Russell was sick and had a fever and because I had gotten a fever during delivery (and because they are paranoid and assumed that Russell had the swine flu) we would not be able to hold Eden for 48 hours. They wanted me to take Tamiflu for that long to make sure I didn't have anything even though I didn't have any symptoms. Dumb. So they took her away to the nursery and eventually we went to sleep.

The next morning they made Russell leave the hospital because of his fever, and so then I was alone with no husband or baby. Definitely not the ideal situation for any of the three of us. That night they ended up moving Eden to the NICU in order to give her two different antibiotics because her labs suggested that she had some type of infection. My mom flew in that night and was able to go hold her in the NICU since she hadn't been around anyone that was sick.

The next day I left the hospital, but Eden had to stay for a week to finish her antibiotics. They wouldn't let Russell in to see her, even once he felt better, so my mom and I trekked back and forth to the hospital twice a day and put on gowns, masks, and gloves to go and hold her. I couldn't wait to hold her without all that junk!