An unexpected trip to the ER

It is only Thursday and I posted on Monday but so much has happened since then...

Yesterday, I went in to my OBGYN for my 6 week postpartum check up. I should let you know that since having Kira, hemoraghing and needing to have the D & C 6 weeks ago, I had continued to bleed. However, when I called my midwife with my concerns over how much I was bleeding, I felt as though they kind of blew me off and made it seem as though this sort of thing happens to women.

Anyway, all this has been happening these past 6 weeks, despite my best efforts to "take it easy" so yesterday morning at the OB's office, I told the midwife before she examined me my history and that I was still bleeding. She became concerned and told me that it sounded like I may have some retained placenta or membranes in my uterus. So she inserted the speculum and started looking. Her concerns were affirmed when she looked but when she inserted the speculum, everything broke loose and I started bleeding out all over the floor. That's when everything started happening fast because they had to call an ambulance to rush me to the hospital ER. Tom met me there with my mom who watched over the baby.

On the way into the ER, I started

shaking uncontrollably because of the lose of all that blood. They told me my blood pressure dropped dangerously low and I passed out. I received 3 units of blood and another D & C. All this started happening at 11AM and I woke up from surgery at 5PM so poor little Kira had to take a bottle of formula and when I woke up, I was really full of milk it was painful. I had all kinds of wires coming out, they had stuck needles up and down my arm apparently in the ER in an attempt to find a vein (I had lost so much blood, it became difficult to get a vein). I had a catheter (which really hurt), and an IV that they stuck right in the crook of my left arm which made it impossible to bend or I would set off the alarms. This made it difficult to nurse Kira with only one arm so Tom's mom ended up staying in the hospital with me overnight.

Thankfully, the bleeding is much less now, almost gone and I feel so much better. I was discharged today at 2PM and am now trying to recoop at home which is always so much nicer than a hospital bed. But you know the phrase "when it rains, it pours?" Funny thing about that is, with all this happening to me, Tom was really sick with a virus. Those of you that know Tom know that he hardly ever gets sick and this was a nasty one. So when I started hemoraghing, he got the call while he was at the doctor's office to get checked out for his sickness.

Another funny thing is, the day before all this happened, I drove Kira out to visit my sisters and their kids and we had such a fun day together. Praise the Lord I didn't bleed out when I was there and it happened when I was in the doctors office.
Naomi is the one holding her. All the "big kids" were allowed to hold Kira with the help of Grammie but Naomi wasn't satisfied with just holding her once and the rest of the time I was there, kept asking me, "Can I hold Kira now Aunt Dawn?" It was cute.

I know, a lot of pics of her but I am experimenting with the camera

She is definitely going through a growth spurt today, so all I am doing is nursing. Inbetween nursing, I thought I could upload some more pics of her!!!!!

Are you all getting tired of seeing pictures of her?! Since we got our camera last week, I have been working on figuring out the ins and outs of it so here are a few of the shots I took...

It's funny all the pictures are of her sleeping but obviously, when she is sleeping is the only time I have my hands free. She loves to be held by Mommy when she is awake and since I don't have a whole lot better to do than love her, I happily oblige (most of the time :)...sometimes I begrudge it only because I am thinking of all the things I could be doing)

When Tom comes home from work he likes to hold her and she enjoys it as well.

Additional Shore Pics

Our friend went down with us to the shore and, as it is hard for me to take pictures of her when I am carrying her, took some great shots of her so here they are...

By the way, just this week, she started smiling which has been a real treat...

Little Surfer Girl

Tuesday, I took Kira to visit Grammie D at her house. She sometimes works from home and this was one of those days. I have taken her to see my mother a number of times but Tom's mom hasn't gotten to see her as much so hopefully she had a good time...I know we did! We had lunch together and then I took her on a walk around town (and we just happened to walk by Starbucks) while Grammie D worked some more.

Wednesday was Kira's first trip to the beach! On Wed., tom came home from work and asked if I would be up for taking her to the beach. I thought it was worth a try so we hopped in the car and drove the 50 minutes to a nearby beach. When we got there, Tom hopped in the water to use his standup paddle board and I put her in her sling and walked down the boards to get dinner with a girlfriend who came with us. She did so well! She basically slept the whole time and then right before we left, I fed her again and she was fine for the car ride home. What an adventure!

I was really impressed how good Tom was paddleboarding...I think this must take a lot of core strength to be able to do...I stuck my feet in the water to take some pics of him and the ocean temp was nice!

We got to the beach around 6PM and stayed until 8PM so it was a nice little excursion for all of us!

She stayed in her sling the whole time and slept away!

We took these pics when we got home that night...I think she was tuckered out from her time at the beach!

This morning, I took her to her doctor's visit and she is growing nicely...she now weighs 10lbs and is in the 75 percentile for height and weight. She is also sleeping a lot more nicely too lately. Last night she slept for a 4 1/2 hour stretch and the night before she slept for 6 1/2 hour stretch!!! It feels so nice to be getting more sleep lately.

An Ode to Tom

So I know I said our camera was broken and it was. I was actually excited about it because our camera is about 6 years old and I have wanted something that will take better pictures now that I have something interesting to take pictures of. Anyway, Tom came home from work a couple of nights ago and decided to take the whole camera apart and put it back together again...and he actually fixed it! So now it works again but he still let me get a camera anyway. YAY! We decided to get an Olympus Stylus Tough 8000. Sounds fancy but this camera is supposed to be indestructible-you take it out it freezing temperatures, you can drop it from a height of 6 feet and, most importantly to Tom, you can take underwater pictures to a depth of 30 feet! I think this last point was what convinced him that we could get it but hey, whatever works. So I should get the camera sometime next week but in the meantime, I will upload the last of the pics I took of her this past week on our old camera...

Amy lent me this swing for her since I had been having trouble getting her to sleep comfortably in her pack n' play. She takes most of her naps in there and seems to like it. It is nice because if she startles, the swing starts swinging from her movement and it kind of soothes her.

Her "bouncy seat." I put her in here sometimes when she is awake but she will usually tolerate it for at most 20 minutes. She likes to be held!
Daddy giving her a bath in the sink....we had put her in the bathtub in her little seat but as soon as we started pouring the water over her, she pooped so we had to empty out the tub and move her to the sink. She seems to like getting a bath, she doesn't cry when we pour water over her and just looks around, just like in this picture.
Tom holding her. He likes to hold her every chance he gets and I think she likes it too!
Sweet dreams little Kira

Kira's visitors

Since our camera broke a couple of days ago, I have been going crazy without the chance to take pictures of her, missing all these great "photo opps." So anyone that comes over to visit and see Kira, I ask them to send me their pictures...Kira had some visitors Monday night...Tom's aunt and uncle came by to see her. They also brought me all this great food that will last me for the rest of the week and was incredibly kind of them. Tuesday, Tom's mom and cousin (who lives in New York about 2 hours away) came to see her. These pictures are from that night. Tom, who has been working non-stop lately, happened to come in when they were there and wanted to hold her. He is so good with her, he wants to hold her as soon as he walks in the door explaining, "you get to hold her all day, I want to hold her!"

It is neat to watch her grow and change every day, she is becoming more and more aware of her surroundings and is awake for longer periods...
Tom's cousin holding her....
The family!

Yesterday, I went to the doctor to have them check on my hemoglobin levels. The good news is, I have lost 24 pounds so I have 7 pounds to go and my hemoglobin levels are back up to 11 which is still slightly low but much better than the 6.6 level I was at when I was discharged from the hospital.

Besides taking care of her, I have been reading "Polar Dream" the story of the first woman to travel solo to the North Pole. I have also been cleaning...I finally got around to dusting the top of the cabinets in the kitchen, which hadn't been done since we moved in 4 years ago. It was very satisfying to wipe up all that dust even though no one can see it, I knew it was there and needed to be done. As mom can attest, my least favorite cleaning job is dusting so it was pretty nice to feel satisfied in my work, even dusting.

Fun at Mom's

Since Tom has been really busy with work lately and yesterday I knew he would be away all day until after 9PM, I asked my mom if I could make a trip over and hang out with her for the day. Thankfully, she didn't have other plans so we spent the day hanging out and playing with Kira. Kira had some visitor's when she was there too, Grandmom Wallin, Ruth, my cousin Sarah and of course mom and dad.

Sadly, when I went to upload all the pictures from my camera, it wouldn't work. Two days ago, I dropped the camera on the floor and it cracked open. I put it back together and have still been able to take pictures with it but it seems as though I might have broken it since they will not upload. It's a shame too because I got some really cute pics of her in her swing....Anyone have any suggestions on a good camera?
Isn't she cute?