We are so thankful that you joined our family! You have such an easy going, sweet personality. Instead of screaming in the middle of the night, when you wake up hungry, you either start cooing or you just suck your hand until we come and get you. Every morning you wake up and just stare at the ceiling or the stuffed animals your sisters have gathered around you. When we come up to see you, you always greet us with the biggest smiles! Your sisters are always excited to see you in the mornings. You seem to be mesmerized by them too. Anytime Mia or Ari are around, you can't stop watching them and smiling. I bet you're thinking that you want to be just as cool as them! They are pretty cool, so I can't say I blame you.
We decided to deliver you via c-section, 3 weeks early. My blood sugar levels started to run super low and although the non-stress tests showed that you were fine, we felt like something could be wrong. You also had a significant size decrease between the last two growth ultrasounds and combining that with the low blood sugars, it seemed like a sign that maybe you weren't getting the nourishment you needed. After appointments with all of the Doctors, we finally all agreed that the risks of continuing the pregnancy were probably greater than the risks of delivering you 3 weeks early. Your growth ultrasounds showed that you were around 7.5 lbs, but we just couldn't believe that we could have a baby that small, especially considering that you made it 37 weeks into the pregnancy and your sisters only went 34.5 and 35 weeks in. To avoid having a traumatic delivery, like with Ari, we wanted to do a c-section. I'm not going to lie, the delivery process was super fast and easy, but the healing process was quite a bit harder. At first they said they were going to wait until around 9pm to do the procedure because I had eaten a small snack to help with a low blood sugar a little before we went in. I kept telling them I was starving though because I hadn't eaten much at all that day and we were trying to figure out if we should reschedule for the next day. We thought it would be a while, so your Dad left to go find some food for himself. All of the sudden the nurse came in and said all the doctors involved felt it would be fine to move it up and they were going to start in about 15 minutes. I called your Dad immediately and told him to get back there. He made it back just in time to get into his white suit and then they started. First they did a spinal, so I wouldn't feel the incision get cut. Once they did that, I think it was only about 20 minutes until they brought us into the surgery room. The procedure was only 20 minutes! I could feel a slight bit of pressure during the procedure, but that was it. Apparently, they make a small incision and then blow up my tummy with air, so they can hold you better when they pull you out. The only pain I had at the time, was a slight pain in my neck. I asked the anesthesiologist about it, but he said it was fine. The surgery started at 5pm and you were born at 5:20pm and weighed 7 lbs 13 oz and measured 19.2 inches long. When the nurses gave you your first bath and cleaned you up, they spiked all of your hair. We tried matting it down shortly after that, but you didn't look the same. It had to be spiked for you to look like Callie! Every nurse who worked with us commented on how much they loved your long hair! Your hair was probably what people complimented the most whenever they saw you.
We felt bad that you weren't able to be born at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, WA, like your Daddy and sisters. We wanted to document though, that you were born on a rainy, Seattle-like day. I also brought my Seattle Seahawks Superbowl shirt to the hospital to have a piece of Seattle there with us. Some of the Doctors even commented on it!
Your sisters were super excited that you were born before their bedtime! They couldn't wait to meet you! They got to come see you when you were only a couple hours old. You were even excited to see them and even opened your eyes to see them! You must have recognized their voices from hearing them all day long when you were still in my tummy. Their love and excitement over your arrival could hardly be contained! It was a super sweet moment.
Once we got home, you adjusted well! You slept a lot and posed for pictures. You and I got to snuggle lots too.
You also got to know your sisters better too. They loved taking turns holding you. They also liked to hold their finger next to your hand and wait for you to hold onto it. Whenever you smiled in your sleep, they said you were thinking about them. Every morning, they would come find you in our bed and come lay next to you. Their favorite was when they had a turn feeding you a bottle. We had to supplement bottles with nursing for your first few weeks. It was more work for Mommy to nurse and pump, but it was fun for Mia and Ari because they got to feed you a bottle every now and then. :)
The recovery after that c-section was hard for odd reasons. About 24 hours after you were born, I got super sharp pains in the neck. I could barely turn my head and it made it extremely difficult to hold you and nurse you. I guess it's from that air that they use to expand my tummy before pulling you out. Somehow it travels up the spine and causes pain later on. One of the times I had the worst pain, Daddy had left to bring your sisters back to Tayler and Maria's house and my neck hurt sooo bad. You started screaming too because you were hungry and I could barely hold you and couldn't even look down at you to position you for nursing. The nursing staff had just switched over too, so they were busy in a meeting going over all of the patient's needs. I finally had to press the help button to get someone in there right away to help me with you. It was pretty rough. After that, they prescribed better medication and I stayed on top of taking it regularly better. Things were better after that. Then two weeks after you were born, I broke out in hives. They were so itchy and covered my entire front and back. My eyelids even got hives on them. I called the OB office and it wasn't normal after c-sections and tried to figure out if I had eaten something new. We thought maybe it was a reaction to the morphine from the spinal. After getting them daily for a week, I started taking Claritin, but that made it difficult to keep my nursing supply up. I finally went to a Dermatologist because no other Drs had any ideas. He had some labs done and found that my vitamin D levels were low. Apparently that can cause your skin to be more susceptible to breaking out in hives. I started taking Vitamin D pills and will need to for a while to get it fixed. It definitely was super annoying to be dealing with that at the time, but looking back at it now, it was probably a good thing to figure out. Low Vitamin D levels can lead to Osteoporosis, so hopefully, since we caught it now, I can correct it and not have that come up later in life. The other hard part about the c-section was not being able to hold your sisters or have them sit on my lap. I was super excited once I was able to hold them again, but it definitely took a while. Other than that, my recovery went better than a lot of other people talk about. Three weeks after the surgery, I was able to take your sisters to the Children's Museum with Grandma and take them to the park. I couldn't stand or walk for very long, but as long as we took breaks, I was able to handle it. From what I hear, that's pretty awesome, so I can't complain too much! The main thing that matters is that you were delivered safe and sound and we are all healthy!
We love you, Callie! You make us all smile everyday!
Love,
Mommy
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