Strange days

The minutes are clicking down to 12:01 May 26. That's the moment I heard my daughter first scream.  I barely caught a glimpse of her as the nurse full on ran out the room with her.  My husband and I just stared at each other, mostly.  It was like every emotion I was experiencing I was also experiencing the flip side at the same time.  The series of events that brought us to that moment were from the mundane to the emergent.  I could write volumes really, but my head spins a bit with it all so I'll spare you the hyper detailed rant which is how I remember it.  

Averleigh showed up 10 weeks early and quite unexpectedly, as in I worked until 2 pm that day.  Not only was she early, but basically she had stopped growing probably several weeks before her birth.  I had almost no amniotic fluid left and she was the size of about 25-26 weeks, not the almost 30 weeks she should have been.  I was sick with nausea and vomiting my whole pregnancy but everything seemed fine with her the whole way until it suddenly wasn't.  It was as simple a thing as when I lay down to bed the night before her birth, she didn't do her normal kicking.  Instead it felt like she was turning a different way.  I had an OB appointment the next day so I thought, huh, I should probably mention that.  She didn't think much of it but suggested I go to the hospital if I wanted and just sit with a monitor for a bit and make sure everything was fine.  So I did. What was supposed to be 20 minutes, turned into an hour, then "a little while longer" then... we've booked an ultrasound.  That became here's a steroid and an ambulance to take you to a hospital with a level 3 NICU.  By the time I was hooked up there I could really hear the monitor, I could really hear the gaps where there was no heartbeat.  Within the hour I was having an emergency Cesarean. 

Then time dragggggged like never before.  I had to listen to someone else giving birth and joyously celebrating the arrival for over 2 hours, in the room next door.   Then I was moved and told to get some rest. Uh yeah sure.  I didn't sleep for one second.  I didn't get to speak with Averleigh's nurse, by phone, until about 10 am.  Now that is torture.  The 56 day hospital stay that started that day was no picnic either and again I could write volumes.  There would be way more swearing than is probably appropriate too. 

Hm, I've got 1 minute left.  Think I'll end here to say I gotta get some sleep since there is a little girl who will be celebrating being 2 tomorrow and I couldn't be happier about that!