Day 12

Today, is the twelfth day that Greta has been in the hospital.  The first 10 days were spent in the NICU and yesterday (because we have been waiting for a bed for a week!) she finally was transferred to the Intermediate Care Nursery.  This is a step down unit as she does not require as much one on one care (yay! progress!).  It is much calmer on this unit, less beeping of monitors as many of the babies here don't require them anymore.  I am more relaxed and I feel Greta is too.  The only downfall is that there seems to be less room around her isolette and the chairs are far less comfy to spend the hours I do with her skin-to-skin.  Our next mission is to see if she will nurse or take a bottle so that we can get her off tube feeds and one step closer to home!

I'm starting to recover from my C-section and able to a bit more so during the times I'm not with Greta, I'm working on preparing her nursery for her arrival home...on and the rest of my time is spent pumping.  I am a slave to my alarm and the breast pump every.two.hours!  Ugh, I would so much rather be awoken by my sweet girl and cuddle her instead of the constant hum of the pump.  It's funny, I've read other "baby/mommy" blog and their constant obsessions with pumping or breastfeeding. Now I see where they're coming from, you want to provide the best nutrients for your little one and can come obsessed.  But, at the same time I grew up a farmgirl on a dairy farm and I definitely feel like a dairy cow hooked up to a machine at 2am (is that a bad analogy?)! haha!

It's been a while: school, pregnancy and a baby!

I started this blog as an outlet to share some of what was going on in my life, and then I got busy with school and had not time to write.  A lot has happened in the last 10 months since I last posted.

School was going great.  I absolutely fell in love with Occupational Therapy and my classmates were amazing - I love the relationships I have formed with this group of people.  September to November was full of school assignments, exams and learning so much information.  Then November and December I got to put that knowledge to use as I complete my first stretch of fieldwork at a local hospital.  It was a great experience and I was so happy to have found my groove and then get a good Christmas holiday in Germany with my in-laws.

Then, 24 hours before the wheels were to go up on the plane that would fly us to Germany, it donned on me - I had been so busy with school/fieldwork that I hadn't realized that I was late (yep - that kinda late).  So, just a few hours before we prepared to fly to Germany (the time in Germany and the flight is enough for a post of it's own!), I'm taking a pregnancy test and finding out that we are expecting! That was one Christmas present I tell ya! We were surprised (which is a whole other story about being told I would have trouble getting pregnant..) and ecstatic!  But, I was also confused - I had one more year of my Masters to complete, what was I to do?  The pregnancy couldn't have been better timed as 9 months meant that I could fully complete my first year; finishing my second fieldwork at the end of June, having July off and baby would arrive in August. I would take the next year a maternity leave and go back with another class to finish my second year.  After meeting with the Dean, when we started tell people it all fell into place.  My classmates were all supportive - threw us a baby shower and were happy to have an honourary OT by the way!

Everything was perfect ... and then ... four weeks into my eight week fieldwork, I woke up in the middle of the night with what I thought was terrible, terrible heartburn, but after over an hour of pain and no relief we headed to the ER.  I was quickly diagnosed with HELLP syndrome - and told that the only treatment for HELLP was to deliver baby as it was her placenta that was causing my symptoms.  So, there I was 30 weeks pregnant, facing the reality that I was one, not going to have the natural birth I had anticipated as I was told c-section was our best option and two, going to be the mother to a preemie born at 30 weeks and would be spending up to the next 10-12 week in the NICU/hospital with our baby girl.

We were able to hold off delivery for two days, allowing me to receive steroids that would help the baby's lungs develop quicker and prepare for life outside the womb. 

Then on June 5th, 2013 at 7:01pm out little miracle Greta Elyse Krause arrived into our lives weighing 2lbs 9oz - and changed our lives in the blink of an eye.

This blog will now be an outlet for me to share out experience of parenthood, the NICU and raising our baby girl. So follow along and watch our little girl grow and become the strong little, feisty girl we know she'll become.  Our pretty prairie life is about to become a lot more interesting!