Our Dramatic Little Girl

Well, Layla officially has more spankings coming when she arrives.  We have been to the hospital 3 times in 5 days.  Our first trip was Saturday night.  I noticed L's movements had decreased over Friday and Saturday.  Luckily, I was at Phi Mu recruitment with Dr. Sessums so she called ahead and then gave me instructions on getting in.  We were hooked up to the non stress test machine (my new best friend) and she looked fine.  She even started moving!  But...the on call doctor came in and said I was having contractions.  I had no idea!  Contractions were so bad that he checked me and I was dilated 1 cm.  They gave me two rounds of drugs to stop the contractions and a steriod shot to help her lungs grow.  We had to go back 24 hours later for another steriod shot.  

Tuesday was my regular appointment for a biophysical profile.  Miss Priss decided not to move during the sonogram and ended up scoring a 2 out of 10.  That's NOT GOOD.  I could tell Dr. Washburne was worried.  She said I was being direct admitted to the hospital for monitoring and that if things didn't look better, we were going to have a 32 week 3 day old baby.  I didn't even get to leave the the facility.  Robert had to go pick up clothes for me once we were in a room.  Luckily, our sweet drama queen did well all night.  We had another BPP this morning and she didn't move as much so I was a little worried again.  Thankfully, she had such a good performance on the NST and the doppler scan that followed (along with good breathing movements) that she scored a 10!  We were released today.  I will go back for another BPP and doppler scan Monday and it is just going to be a monitoring game over the next few weeks.  Everyone's best guess on her random lack of movement is that she has a very long, hard sleep pattern.  Sound like anyone else we know?  Her daddy!

We have realized that we are going to have an early and small baby.  She was estimated at 3 lb. 2 oz on Tuesday.  Our sweet RN helped me realize that maturity is more important than size.  Layla needs to be able to breathe, eat and swallow on her own no matter how much she weighs.  That made me feel a little better about her small size.  In exciting news, we got to see that she has lots of flowing hair and is still looking like her dad but with chubby cheeks!  

I've learned that things don't always happen like you envision.  I thought I was to going to go into labor whenever Layla was ready to meet the world (no induction, no csection) and come home with a perfect little girl to a perfect little nursery.  Well, this week, without a nursery, I almost had a little girl via c-section that would have most likely been staying in the hospital while I came home.  Somehow I was so strong and had so much faith that she was in God's hands.  Whatever His plan is for her, I trust it.  If she is truly better off in the NICU than in me, that's where we want her to be.  Thank you to all our friends and family for all the prayers, texts and calls.  Robert and I are very lucky to have so many great people in our life.  We just ask that everyone keeps praying that L continues to grow and thrive so she is mature as possible when she enters the world.

I stole this from a friend's blog and now it is my motto for LG.

I prayed for this child, and the Lord answered my prayer and gave him to me. Now I give him back to the Lord. He will belong to the Lord all his life. I Samuel 1:27-28

32 Weeks 3 Days