Rylee is here!

Rylee is now almost 5 days old and it seems like she has been around forever! It has been an interesting 5 days. She was delivered at 11:37pm on Thursday. We got to our postpartum room at around 2:30 am that evening. I made Evan go home to get some good rest. I had lost alot of blood and had to be given some morphine so I was literally shaking for about an hour after the delivery. The nurses took Rylee to the nursery for an hour after we got to the room. They brought her back because she was fussy and needed to eat. She started to eat but then fell right to sleep. So I laid and held her for the next few hours just staring at her. She is so beautiful!! I was not expecting a full head of dark brown hair. She is basically Evan's clone with my nose. However she has my personality. She is extremly stubborn! She wants to do things when she wants to do them. She is a very good baby though. She does not cry much. We have had alot of visitors and have been blessed with so much help! My best friend Johnnie stayed with us our first night home from the hospital on Saturday to help. It was so nice having her here! We haven't had to cook one meal so far because of friend's and family which has been very nice. Rylee has been having a hard time eating, which has caused her bilirubin levels to go up which causes jaundice. At her pediatrician appt on Monday her level was 22. Because of her levels being so high, they had to order an at home phototherapy crib. I didn't realize how hard this would be on Evan and I. Basically she has to lay only with a diaper in this baby tanning bed at all times unless she is being fed. Even when she is being fed there is a pad that goes on her back that lets off light. Fortunately, at today's appt her levels dropped to 15! We can take her off of the lights at 10pm tonight. Our friend Matt came over last night to help Evan give Rylee a blessing. I truly think Heavenly Father helped her improve so quickly. Yesterday was one of the hardest days I have ever been through. Not only were her bilirubin levels high, but she had lost 11oz of weight and she was vomiting. We felt SO much better after today's dr. appt where they said she looked much better and she gained 3 oz of weight in 24 hours! We are completely in love with our little girl. She truly is a gift that we cherish every day.

Labor and Delivery

Warning: Don't read this post if you don't want to know the details of Rylee's delivery.

That being said, I feel very blessed to have been able to carry Rylee with little to no complications and to have had a relatively normal delivery. About 3 weeks prior to Rylee's due date (4/11/11), we decided that we were going to induce her a few days early. We made this decision because she was projected to be a big baby and I did not want a greater chance of having to have an emergency c-section. Also, our doctor was going to be out of town and I did not want to have the doctor that would be on call that weekend. That being said, we did have to spend more time preparing for labor than I thought we would have. We checked into Mansfield Methodist on Wednesday at 6pm. I was given a cytotec pill to "ripen my cervix" at 7pm. At 11pm I was still dilated to 1cm so they gave me another. The pill seemed to be softening and thinning my cervix but not dilating it. At 4am they wanted to give me a 3rd pill, however my contractions were 1-2 minutes apart and they needed to slow down my contractions to give me the pill. So they started an IV drip to slow contractions. They gave me the 3rd pill at 7am and things started to slowly progress. By 11 am, I was feeling pretty heavy contractions and was in some pain. My doctor came at 11:30 and broke my water. The anesthesiologist came at 12 to give me the epidural. At 12:30 they started the pitocin to induce my labor. At around 4pm, I started to feel some isolated pain on my lower left abdomen that would just not go away. The anesthesiologist gave me a small dose of pain medicine but it didn't really help. At about 7pm I was only dilated to 7cm. We started to worry that I wouldn't make enough substantial progress to deliver and would maybe need to consider a c-section. Little did I know that the pitocin was just waiting to kick in. From 10pm-11pm I went from 7 to 9 1/2 cm. By 11pm I was having quite a bit of back labor. I told the nurse that she better get ready because I was going to push Rylee out. She said I needed to wait 30 min for the last 1/2 cm of cervix to dilate. By that time I was folded over on my side crying and she said "You better get your game face on because this is what labor is like". Needless to say she was kindof a rough nurse. I told her she better check me again because I just made it dilate. She checked and sure enough, Rylee was on her way out! She called my doctor (who had left because I was taking so long) and my doctor basically was running in as Rylee was going to come out. I had to push around 7 or 8 times and there she was! My dr had to preform an episiotomy and give me 3 stitches. One of the most painful parts was when she was trying to get my placenta out. It had torn into 3 pieces and she had to basically dig her hand around my uterus to get it out. (sorry for the graphic) That part seemed like it took forever! Meanwhile Evan was helping clean off Rylee and get her ready to meet the world. Rylee Erin Russell was born at 11:37pm on 4/7/11. She weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and was 21 inches long. She was born with a full head of dark brown hair and the chubbiest cheeks! We are in love.

Getting ready to get into bed for the next 30 hours.

Amanda came to visit me

This picture was taken around 10:30pm, about an hour before she was born. Evan is holding my hand and helping me through the contractions while my mom feeds me ice chips.

Rylee is finally here!

Look at my chubby cheeks!