Ella's exciting entrance

The day that Ella was born started much the same as most every other day but it ended rather excitedly.

The day before she was born I was in a stressful family situation.  I won't mention specifics of what or who was the cause of the stress here....knowing that I was under stress is all that really matters in terms of Ella's birth.  Because of this stressful situation I was in I started to have contractions even though I was receiving progesterone shots to prevent preterm labor.  I decided the best thing for me to do would be to stay home and rest on my left side.  The next morning I had an OB appt anyway so I figured I would address the contractions at that time.

The next morning (9/30/08) at 830 I went to the Dr.  He decided to err on the side of caution and do a non stress test.  This test showed that I was having some pretty strong contractions every 4-5 minutes.  I was immediately rushed to Hamot's L&D.  At the hospital they gave me a shot of brethine to stop the contractions and a shot of steroids to mature Ella's lungs if she was born premature.  The brethine caused my BP to bottom out but the contractions stopped.  Later that evening they wanted to do another non-stress test to check on Ella especially with my low BP.  They said that the heart rate on the monitor was mine.  I thought that 80's were too high to be my BP.  To make me feel better they ordered a sonogram to check on Ella.  She was resting so her HR was in the 120's during the sonogram.  A little bit after the sonogram they tried the non-stress test again.  This time they were getting readings in the 70's.  Again they said it was my HR even though I felt for sure it was Ella's.  This went on for 4 hours.  Finally the Dr came in and said that the HR on the monitor was in fact Ella's and I would need an emergency C-section.

When they did the surgery they found that she had a knot in her cord cutting off her circulation and thus causing her decreased HR.

She endured several set backs while in the NICU for 18 days....she had a hole in her lung and needed a chest tube.  She had severe jaundice and required the bili lights for 10 days.

  She also was on CPAP for 7 days and required oxygen for 10.  In addition she kept having what they called bradycardias.....this is where her heart would become too low or sometimes stop.  She ended up leaving the NICU on an apnea machine to track and monitor these episodes.

Finally on October 18th she was released to go home weighing a whopping 4 lbs 9 oz!