As posted earlier, Nola was born Friday morning at 3:53 a.m.  She's healthy and beautiful and all I ever imagined and we couldn't be happier.  I felt pretty close to her inside of me, but this is just amazing.  She's going to be here in the hospital for a while, since she was 6 and a half weeks premature.  She's very tiny, but her health is great and she's meeting and beating her milestones.  All in one day!  

I was doing my kick counts on Wednesday night and I was getting really worried about the baby not moving much.  I had heard that some babies just have "off" days and tried to put it out of my mind.  I woke up at 2:00 a.m. on Thursday morning and she was moving a bit.  Where I was happy to feel her moving, something just felt off.  I went to work on Thursday and she didn't do a whole lot for the bulk of the day.  I called the advice nurse and asked if I could come in for a non stress test. 

I took a late lunch thinking that I would run over to the doctor's office for a quick ultrasound, feel crazy for overreacting, and get back to my desk.  The nurse found Nola's heartbeat instantly, but she only had two movements in 25 min.  After being told "the baby is not happy" and telling the doctor that he was pissing me off by saying that because it MAKES NO SENSE, they said to go to my hospital for "observation".  They wanted to call an ambulance, but I said that I would prefer to drive downtown to pick up Steve from work and then drive over.  They agreed, as long as I promised to be at the hospital within an hour. 

I was put under observation (and allowed to watch the VP debate) for about 2 hours.  They decided to keep me overnight for more observation and I was admitted to Labor and Delivery.  I knew that something was going to happen.  At 3 a.m. they woke me up and said that she would be better and safer outside of me and it was time to get going.  I went to the Operating Room at 3:40 a.m. and Nola was born at 3:53 a.m.  

I had to go straight to recovery, so Steve went to the NICU and spent the morning with Nola.  He would take pictures on his cell phone and come in to the Recovery Room to tell me about her and show me our daughter.  It made the 5 hours somewhat manageable for me.

I met Nola here:

I was just overwhelmed.  She was so tiny that it scared me a bit, but the moment that I touched her I just felt relief.  She was here, she was safe, she was alive, and I lost it.  But in a goofy cheesy can't stop smiling way.

She had lots of visitors her first day.  Tori and TJ came up first and it felt so good to share my joy with them.  Nicole came up in the afternoon and she and Tim again later that night.  With some airline bottles of booze and the most awesome key chain ever. 

It's been an insane 2 days.  Her health is improving quickly.  She no longer has on a cpac to help her with breathing, she moved into the less invasive part of the NICU, and she should be in a crip tomorrow.  We are doing skin to skin holdings twice a day.  We feed and change her every 3 hours.  I'm pumping like crazy and should be able to feed her with all of my own milk in 2 days.  The donor milk program is a great thing and she's doing really well with it. 

I obviously am leaving out so much, particularly the emotional stuff.  I was a wreck on Thursday night and I'm all over the place with joy and fear right now.  Overall though, this is about a million times better than I ever imagined.  

Here is Nola being little and me being super in love and proud:


She looks like Steve, except for my nose:

Thank you for all of your sweet, kind words.  Before the pregnancy and finally getting there, during the pregnancy, now....

xoxo