Piper Madeline

Well, she's here!  Not without some trials and tribulations, though. 

Piper was born at 2:11 pm on Monday, April 28th, weighing 5 pounds, 8 ounces - with her cord wrapped twice around her neck.  Yep.  You read that correctly.  She had to be cut out of it.   My doctor tells me that we are very lucky we had the C-section already scheduled for the date we did.  Had I gone into regular labor with the cord where it was, or had we had scheduled delivery for a few days later, we could have had terrible results.  Again.  A week before she was born, the cord was exactly where is should be, but somehow between then and delivery, she got herself tangled.  The odds of this happening to another one of my babies is insanely low - yet it did.  It makes me even more grateful that she's here and alive  - and I don't have to go through another tragedy of losing my baby.  I am fairly sure that would have ended me.

 I had a pretty bad reaction to the anesthesia during the C-section and then to the pain medication afterwards, and Piper, being slightly early, needed a little oxygen.  So, she was whisked off to the nursery, and I was basically out of commission for the rest of the day - either vomiting or too foggy headed to focus.  I didn't get to hold my little girl until late Monday night, probably close to 10 or 11.  

Now that I have her home, I can hardly believe it sometimes.  My baby is alive!  She cries and sleeps and squirms.  Mike and I aren't getting a great deal of sleep - not because she's up all the time because she's actually a pretty good sleeper herself  - but because we are constantly checking on her to make sure she's still breathing.  We have both talked about how we are always on edge that this will all be taken away.   We are working on that, but it's not easy.  

Obviously, I still miss Kenley very much.  I always will.  And her little sister will know how special both of my girls are to me.  Life will always be bittersweet, but I'm so grateful for the extra sugar Piper adds to it.

Piper and Kenley

My Beautiful Rainbow