The Story of Addison

Again, I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update my blog with Addy's story, but we've been "surprisingly" busy since last Thursday :) It's been quite a ride and one that I'm so happy to have taken. Below is our story. I've included very few pictures, so if you'd like to see the full album from our stay at the hospital, please visit our photo album here:

Baby Addison: The Beginning

Thursday, 9/18
At 7:30am, we were admitted to Fairview Southdale Hospital to be induced and finally get our little girl out! She was so big I could barely move or sleep comfortably anymore! At 8am, Dr. Leitgen broke my water and started me on pitocin so I could finally get things started. My amniotic fluid was a dark-greenish color indicating that Addy had already had her first bowel movement, making things much more complicated. The doctor explained to us that once she was out, a team would be on hand to make sure she doesn't cry or take her first deep breath until her mouth and lungs were suctioned out of any poo. This increased our anxiety levels for an already nerve wracking situation, but I trusted that they would do everything they could to make sure Addison would be ok.

8am and still smiling after water was broken and pitocin was started

The first hour or so after inducing labor, the contractions weren't so bad. I was wondering what I was so worried about. Then, the second hour of contractions got progressively worse. I'm glad we learned some breathing techniques because they definitely came in handy. As the contractions became unbearable, I told my nurse I was ready for an epidural and the anesthesiologist showed up in a matter of minutes...thank God! Once that epidural was in place, I was in absolute heaven! Then it was just a waiting game for the little girl to come out...that is until the drugs wore off... I quickly progressed throughout the morning for being 0 station, 3cm, 80% effaced to being 0 station, 8cm, 90% effaced by 2:30pm. Then, at 3pm the epidural wore off...OWWWW! After being in la-la land to being in excruciating pain, I could not for the life of me understand why anyone would NOT want drugs...they're a life saver! Once the epidural was redosed, I definitely felt much better.

3pm and feeling much better now that the drugs are working again

It became a painfully long day waiting for our little one to be born, but thankfully we had the support of our families who spent most (if not all) of the day with us. I'm pretty sure we were all equally anxious to finally meet Miss Addison! Then, at about 7pm, I began feeling the pain of contractions again on top of the pressure I was feeling in my pelvis from Addison moving down. However, the pain (not pressure) progressively got worse, and worse, and worse, and worse, to the point that I was driven to tears. No thanks to my nurse who was trying to tell me this was perfectly normal, I knew something much greater was wrong. Good thing I stuck with my instincts and demanded that an anesthesiologist be called again. When the doctor finally came to see me, he found that my epidural had begun pooling in my right leg and my left leg and abdomen were no longer being numbed. Needless to say, at 0 station, 9cm, and 100% effaced, I was in A LOT of pain!!! Thank goodness for my anesthesiologist because he then administered the same dosage of medication that you receive during a C-Section so I was feeling much less pain.

Smiling again after attempt #3 to eliminate my pain

Finally, at 9pm after stalling out at 9cm, Dr. Leitgen finally decided to go forward with a C-Section. After doing an exam, she found that Miss Addison's head had barely come down and only a small portion had formed to come through my pelvis...the rest of her head was pretty well stuck. So, 13 hours after starting labor, I was finally going to get to see my little pumpkin!!! Now we had to totally change gears from getting ready to push to getting ready for surgery. After 10 months of anticipating that this was likely going to happen (given my family's history of C-Sections), I really wasn't scared at all...I was ready! So, we got all geared up and off we went to the operating room.

We're ready to go! Let's go have a baby!

Here we go!

While I was prepped to begin the C-Section, Adam was asked to wait patiently outside the room until they were ready. What was only supposed to be 10 minutes or less ended up being over 30 minutes of waiting...the anesthesiologist was unable after several attempts to numb one of the nerves going down the left side of my abdomen next to my belly button...so rather than being completely numb from the shoulders down, I had one nerve that was only able to be dulled...I could therefore feel much more than I should have during the C-Section. You know what?!? It was totally worth every second given the beautiful baby we ended up with!!! At 10:07pm after a VERY long day, Addison Lynn Loch was born weighing 8lbs, 8 oz and was 21 inches long. Her head had a 14" circumference which is one of the largest my doctor has ever delievered...just means she's going to be super smart like her mama!!!

Addison's first picture! Welcome to the world little one!

The rest of our hospital stay flew by in a flash. We want to thank those of you were were able to come visit us and welcome our new little girl into the world! We really enjoyed visiting with all of you!

• Friday we had several visitors (primarily just family due to the long day we had on Thursday). The visitors included, Grandma and Grandpa Fuchs, Grandma and Grandpa Loch, Meredith and Corbett and the girls (who love their new little cousin by the way), and our friends Tiff and Brian.
• Saturday's visitors included the usual immediate family members, Great Aunt Mary and Great Uncle Cliff, Cousin Sarah, and our friends Tasia, Mai, and Pat
• Sunday's visitors included again the usual family as well as our friends Andy and Mary Jo

Finally, Monday came where we were going to be able to go home. However, after her third visit from a pediatrician, they found that little Addison had a heart murmur. To be safe, the discharging pediatrician wanted to make sure an ultrasound and EKG were done to ensure our baby was ok to go home. This meant that rather than going home at 11am as planned, we "hung out" in our room at the hospital all day and didn't leave until nearly 7pm. Thankfully though, Addison is ok despite the two pinholes that were seen in her heart muscle during the ultrasound. The cardiologist explained that these are common and often resolve themselves on their own. We will have an appointment with another cardiologist in 4-weeks to check the progress of the pinholes and make sure they aren't causing any other issues.

After a long 5 days in the hospital, we were so happy to finally get to go home. I'll be posting weekly updates to show Miss Addison's progress and share some of our favorite pictures that we've been taking. We absolutely can't get enough of her and are so happy she came into our lives! She is an absolute blessing and brings a smile to my face every single day! Also, with the amount that she's sleeping and how content of a baby she is, she has made our transition to being parents a very easy one. I'm not sure what we did to get so lucky, but we are thankful every second of every day for God having blessed us with our beautiful baby girl!

Until next time blog followers! I promise to post our week 1 update soon!