Maylin's 1st "day" in the world...

Later into the evening that she was born, I was moved into my postpartum room down the hall, and our little girl was upstairs in the NICU. I didn't get to see her again til 10 pm that night. Our nurse that night was Debbie...she was absolutely awesome!

This was her tag for on her bed

Her little feets:)

Day 2
Monday July 19th, 2010
Age: 1 Day Old
Gestation: 32 weeks, 2 days

First thing that morningBrock and I went up to see her again.

Check out her little foot in daddy's hand.

It's hard to see your little babe all wired up to who-knows-what, and monitors and IV lines all beeping and going off all the time. Over the course of the night they got her on a C-pap for breathing, which is basically tubes going in and out of her nose to help her breath, even though she was basically doing a lot of it on her own. Her lungs were amazingly developed and so strong. Her x-rays showed that they were fairly clear which is awesome for 31 weeks. All that junk on her head is basically just to keep the darn tube up to her nose!

They also ordered that evening that she should start "eating" every 3 hours so that meant me having to start getting my milk to come in. So there I was, pumping every. three. hours. It was hard since I didn't have her to "stimulate" me and get my milk to start coming in.

Later that evening was probably the happiest moment that Brock and I had in a long time. We got to see our boys=) Keep in mind that Brock hadn't seen them much either since he was gone on his trip and got quick visits from them too. It was fun to play with them in the lobby and out in the courtyard.

Also thru the course of the day we had lots of visitors! But unfortunately not many, except family got to meet Maylin this time around due to security and all that. First "round" was Grandma Kropf, Pastor Rich and his adorable family, Matt & JaNae--who brought the boys some fun play toys at the hospital and an adorable onesie set:) , Uncle Don and Aunt Terry, and later in the evening was Brian, Buff and little Whitney!
Here's Aunt Buff meeting Maylin for the first time

Late that night Maylin was given her 1st bath! Here they are sponging her down....she wasn't a fan:)

She got to have all of her head-gear off so she could get all washed up...so awesome to see her cute little face=)

What girl doesn't LOVE getting her hair washed??:) She liked that part!

Finally in some clothes

Hey there beautiful!

Right after her bath Daddy got a real surprise...he finally got to hold his baby girl for the 1st time!And so did Mommy:) It was the best feeling ever.She's our little sweetie, and we're so in love with her!

"D-Day"

Sun. July 18th, 2010
Gestation: 31 weeks, 1 day

I woke up that morning very irritable, which was showing pretty clearly on the monitors at that point. Breathing was still difficult and a major nuisance! I just couldn't really get comfortable. Since the Mag. Sulfate wasn't doing its job at this point, they went ahead and checked me again.

6 cm.

"Well looks like you're having a baby today or tonight."

So I was taken off the Mag. Sulfate for good this time so it didn't have any more affect on the baby. With that wearing off into the morning mild contractions picked up on and off pretty much most of the day. Nothing really consistent though, and they were nothing like full-out labor to me which was weird.

So with all this new information in mind they started prepping Maylin's new "home" and I tried to rest as much as possible.

Mom and Dad showed up that morning, and so did Kristi. Thunderstorms were in the forecast and it started getting pretty bad out. I was in a pretty good nap in the later afternoon and around 4:30 pm they called a "code white" which meant we had to shut our blinds and no one was allowed to leave the hospital if they wanted to. The doctor had just left at this point.

At about 5 pm I started stirring from my nap and remember Kristi saying "well looks like not much is happening so I guess I'll head home."

...No sooner did she say that I woke up and felt an extreme, warm GUSH! Yep...it was "lake Maylin" as we like to call it!
Me: "Um....pretty sure my water just broke".
Kristi: "Looks like I'm staying then."!

Brock called his parents at that point and the oddest timing happened and they were just pulling in the parking lot of the hospital not having a clue what was going down. That was just a strange coincidence!

In the meantime...after that water broke...things picked up really fast. The nurses were kinda getting things around but not really um...hurrying.

The 2 contractions that followed after were full blown pressure. I looked at them and said I was needing to push. Apparently they didn't believe me cuz they just said,
"Ok, well try to hold her in...don't push."
Me: "yeah right!"
So I look at Kristi, pretty sure she could tell by the look on my face I wasn't joking and needed to do something now so she pulls the blanket away and yep, there was a head!

At this point 1 nurse was just in her scrubs, the other one wasn't, the bed wasn't broken down. Not good! After all that I don't really remember what happened in that small time frame. I remember having to pant like crazy to keep my breathing under control so I wouldn't hyperventilate. That wasn't fun.

Then the nurse finally gave me the "go-ahead" to relax and I didn't even push.

17 minutes after the water broke....out she came. Quick. All 3 lbs, 12 ounces and 17 1/2 inches of her!

The nurses literally had to catch her on the bed when she flew out of there! Crying and all.

At that point, thankfully the NICU doctor, Dr. Porter arrived and got Maylin all taken care of right away in her little bed.

Here she is! Cutting her huge cord!

Poor babe, swollen little eyes and teeny tiny little body.

Had a full head of dark, beautiful hair! Love it!

Dr. Porter examining her

This was my first and last moment with her for a while...and probably the hardest. It was a quick 10 seconds that I got to hold her and give her a kiss before she went upstairs.

Welcome to the world, Baby Maylin Dawn! We know you'll be the "biggest little fighter" ever! Love you!

p.s. Unlike Kahler's post-delivery experience, THIS placenta came out in the right amount of time, in ONE piece! Thank God!

4th Day in Hospital...

Sat. July 17th, 2010
Gestation: 31 weeks

Woke up kind of irritable, and had more difficulty breathing. Had an ultrasound that morning, which ended up causing more bleeding, so I was put back on the Mag. Sulfate. The bleeding site was predicted to be between the cervical line and the baby.

Grandma K. came to visit again, and Bob & Noralynn came that evening. She brought me snacks and bananagrams which I ended up teaching to Brock that night. What a riot! We tried to have fun and make the best of our stay together.

Day 3 in Hospital...

Friday, July 16th, 2010
Gestation: 30 weeks, 6 days

At noon that day I was taken off the Mag. Sulfate. The bleeding had slowed and contractions were gone. Everything was looking great! My only "complaint" was that I couldn't breathe as easy from laying so much with her on top of me! It was causing some chest pains so I got an elephant looking device that would help me breathe easier.

Brandi and Ben came to visit, which was so nice to get my mind off of baby stuff and talk about other things!

2nd Day in Hospital....

Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Gestation: 30 weeks, 5 days

Quiet day with contractions. Started feeling better and bleeding started to slow.

Dr. Cly had given us an idea of length of stay should everything stay stopped an normal which was Saturday or Sunday.

Grandma Kropf came to visit, then Jeni came and brought us a huge stock of DVD's to watch during our stay, along with some BK!

Mom and Dad brought Isaac and Kahler to see us. It was Brock's 1st time seeing them since he was away since that previous Sunday. That brightened up our night!

The beginning of our roller coaster ride...

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Gestation: 30 weeks, 4 days

8 am.

Woke up to something I didn't expect to see at 30 weeks and 4 days along with our baby girl. After using the restroom, I called the midwives at Fairhaven to see if I should come in. They didn't sound too panicked, and asked me to come in at 11 that morning. Up until then, the bleeding didn't stop and I got myself around the easiest I could when my mom showed up to watch the boys while I went to my appointment.

In the meantime, Brock was working his last day of training out in North Carolina. He'd been gone since that previous Sunday and was scheduled to arrive home at the South Bend airport at 9:30 PM that night.

As I left I didn't know it'd be the last time I'd hug and kiss my boys good-bye until the next day:(

At my appointment Nancy the midwife did an exam on me and guesstimated I was about 1-2 cm. dialated. Didn't know what what going on with the bleeding. She told me she was going to admit me to Goshen to have them check me out.

...That was my breaking point! I could tell she knew something wasn't right.
As soon as I could I drove to the hospital and talked to Brock on the way trying to not let him panic either. As I got to the 3rd floor my sister was working and was waiting to check me in. What a relief! She got me settled into a room and even stuck me with an IV:)

Once we got the monitors hooked up I started having "contractions", only they weren't full blown labor pains to me. I was having a hard time telling if I was just crampy or really having labor. The monitors told us they were happening pretty consistently after a while every 4-5 min. Dr. Borkowski was the one who did another exam on me, which caused even more bleeding and guessed me to be about 3 cm dialated at that point. The deciding factor was whether to wait it out and see if I made more progress, or to go ahead and transport me to Ft. Wayne on the Magnesium Sulfate to stop my contractions. She decided to wait a few more hours then see where I was from there.

5 pm rolls around and she did a cervical ultrasound and checked me again. I had more thinning out for sure and she felt I was dialated even more. So we made
the decision to get me on the Mag. Sulf. and transport me to Ft. Wayne.

About 7 pm the ambulance came and they loaded me up. Jeannie, the nurse rode along with me to Parkview North in FW. On the ride my contractions slowed to every 20 min. or so.

By that point Brock made a change in his flight plans so it would get him to Ft. Wayne airport instead of South Bend. When I got into my room at Parkview he was literally 15 min. behind me!

I got checked in to the room and Brock, Mom, Dad & Kristi were there too. I didn't have any weird flu side affects from the meds, so I was pretty lucky there.

After a long day, we still had to talk to Dr. Cly my OB doctor close to midnight, and then talked to Dr. Porter, the NICU doctor at 4 am! That was hard to handle being extremely exhausted then hearing about the chances of having a pre-term baby. It was a rough night!