Ella is HERE!

We are officially two weeks and a day from leaving the hospital and Miss Ella is 15 days old!  I am not sure where the time has gone!  Alston and I went in on Tuesday, March 6th to have Ella and Jack...it will for sure be a day I will never forget for many, many reasons.  We had to be at the hospital around 10 and my c-section was scheduled for noon.  I can't even begin to explain the amount of emotions I was feeling.  It was also strange driving to the hospital knowing that we were going their to have a baby!

We arrived at the hospital at 10 am and got all checked in by about 10:15 am.  They then took me to the room where I would recover until I was moved to my postpartum room for the remainder of the stay.  I have to say we had the best labor and delivery nurse!  She was amazing, I wanted to tuck her in my pocket and bring her home with me!  They did all the routine stuff to get me ready for surgery.  Mom and Dad and John and Debbie came back to visit for a minute before we went back and Charles Stokes (a pastor at our church) stopped by to say a prayer.  That was really special as my OB also goes to my church and he was there for the prayer as well.  One other special thing about that day was our friend Sarah Thomas was going to be in the OR with us for the delivery.  She is a neonatal nurse and has a lot of experience with what we went through and was there as our friend to support us through everything.  It was such a blessing and a comfort to have her there!

As soon as everything was ready they wheeled me back to get my spinal block.  Once that was set Alston and Sarah came back to the OR.  The whole procedure was very quick and then I heard the first little screams from Ella as they got her head out.  That was such an amazing sound to hear!  They got the rest of her and then gave her to one of the nurses to get cleaned up and weighed.  I was so curious as to see how much she weighed because we all joked she was going to be big....but to my surprise she was only 7 lbs and 5 oz and 19 1/4 inches long!  So perfect!  Once they got her cleaned up we got to hold her a minute before they wheeled us back to recovery.  When I saw her for the first time she had all this dark hair and I joked that she didn't look like us...I didn't think Alston or I had dark hair when we were born, but my Mom brought over my baby book the other day and I did have dark hair!

After Ella was out, Sarah worked with Dr. MacDonald to make sure our sweet Jack was "handled with care".  Sarah was able to get foot prints for us and they wrapped him in the special bunting that was given to us as a gift. I was then quickly wheeled to the recovery room where they checked Ella to make sure everything looked good with her and we got to wait until the funeral home came to pick up Jack.  Alston and I got to spend some time with both Ella and Jack and got to also hold Jack. It was so nice that they let us hang around in recovery and didn't rush us up to the postpartum room and we got to wait to see Jack off.  It was really special for all 4 of us to be together for a short time.

Once the funeral home picked Jack up, we were then moved up to my permanent room.  I have to say that first day and night was a very long one!  We got situated in our room and Mom, Dad, John and Debbie got to come and visit and hold Ella.   There was a revolving door of hospital staff in our room throughout the rest of that day and night and I think Alston and I got about 30 mins of sleep!  Sue was the first visitor to come see Miss Ella!  The next day they removed the epidural and I was put on oral pain meds. I was so anxious to get out of bed for the first time and take a shower!  Kelly came to visit of course along with Mom, Dad, John and Debbie.  Craig came to visit on Thursday.  Friday we finally got to go home!  I guess everyone thought I was doing so well that they let me walk out of the hospital!  Here are some pictures from the hospital stay, leaving the hospital and the drive home.