The Crib: A Blog for New Parents

Posted by kateriscribe on 10/05/07 - 09:36 AM

After my daughter Kaylysa was born, I just couldn’t shake the “being pregnant” feelings; hungry, moody, and being tired all the time. I kept telling myself that it was because I was 31, not 21. Nevertheless, when the symptoms still had not resolved by the time she was 4 months old, I finally went to the doctor. I could not believe when he told me, “you feel pregnant because you are.” Then he laughed at me. I did not think it was funny in the least little bit. I had been on the birth control shot Depo-Provera since my post natal 6 week check up. Apparently, however, my Madison had already been there for a month.

Throughout the pregnancy, I had ultra-sounds every week, blood tests every other. It was, I thought at the time, the most frightening experience I would ever have. There was no information about the effects that the Depo shot would have on my unborn child or what kind of problems she might face once she was born. The doctors kept reassuring me that everything would probably be fine. But they did not really know.

The baby was due at the end of January; I awoke in labor on December 2nd. Alone in our new house (way out in the hills) with the other kids, no phone, no car, and no husband until 3:30 in the afternoon. Good thing I had done this childbirth thing before, lol, recently. When hubby walked in the door from work, I turned him right around and we headed the 30 miles to the hospital. Madison arrived an hour and a half later.

7 weeks early, 4lbs. 8 oz., and 16 inches long. She fit into the palms of her Daddy’s hands. She was as perfectly healthy as a baby in her situation could be, she had no complications, she was breathing on her own, and she was even able to drink from the bottle when I fed her. She was the tiniest preemie born at Reedsburg Hospital, but because she was so healthy, they did not helicopter her to the children’s hospital in Madison. (No, we did not name her for the city, lol) I was so grateful for that, because we lived far enough from the hospital she was in, and I had to be at home with the other baby and the older kids, that I could not stay with Madison the 10 days that it took her to gain enough weight to come home.

And that was truly the most frightening experience of my life. Waiting for my baby to come home, and only being able to see her every evening for an hour or 2, after my husband got home from work, though the nurses were all really great about not minding that I called continuously every day.

My little miracle will be 5 years old in 2 months, she is healthy and happy and the pokiest child I ever met. Lol, she was in such a hurry to be conceived, and born; now she makes me wait for her constantly. She dawdles while she eats, she daydreams while she walks, she even takes forever to fall asleep, and is impossible to wake up and get going in the morning. But I will happily wait for her forever; she can take as much time as she wants, to do everything she needs to.