Jaundice Nightmare...

Poor little Austyn had a rough go with Jaundice unfortunately. Her levels were a little high when we went home from the hospital on the 13th, so we had to go in the next morning to get her blood drawn and levels tested. We got a call that afternoon saying that her levels went up so we had to go get tested again the next day. We went in on Sunday and unfortunately when they called with the results, we got the news that she needed to be on lights because her levels went up once again.... Ugh! We weren't too happy about that, but I was bound and determined to get her off those lights ASAP. 

The dr. told me to keep her on for three hours and then let her off for 30 minutes while I fed her. At this point I was nursing her so I decided that I was going to be strict with this. Unfortunately Austyn wasn't a fan of the lights (but seriously who would be) and SCREAMED while she was on. I literally stayed up all night with her, holding her hand while she SCREAMED. I called the dr. after a while to see if this was normal or if I could take her off to comfort her. I was told to keep her on the lights except to feed. (The dr. was an on-call dr. and not our normal dr. I sure am glad that she isn't our pediatrician).

During the night as Austyn continued to scream, she began spitting up brown curdled milk. I was worried about this and again called the dr. I was told that this is normal and probably had a little blood in her milk from nursing. We went through the whole night and we both got about 30 minutes of sleep. 

Riley had a meeting on Monday morning and when he got back at 9, he could tell that I was EXHAUSTED. He told me to go nap for a bit while he took care of the girls. I had just laid down when Riley began yelling for me. He had a panicked tone to his voice so I ran into our kitchen to see Riley holding our purple baby. 

Luckily Riley is calm in situations like that because I'm not. He was trying to get her to breath while I stood there blubbering. I tried to call our dr. but Riley told me to call 911 (duh). I got on the phone with them and they had someone on their way immediately. Austyn still wasn't breathing, but Riley had me grab the bugger sucker and started sucking the curdled milk out of her throat. After what seemed like forever, she started breathing.

Even though she was breathing, she was still struggling and we knew that something clearly wasn't right. Luckily, the ambulance, firetruck, and about 8 guys showed up. They examined her quickly and decided to take her to the ER because she wasn't recovering like they wanted her to. I rode in the ambulance with Austyn and Riley and Hazyn followed right behind in our car. I could barely keep myself together while riding in the ambulance, but the paramedics were awesome and kept asking me questions about my girls to keep me calm. 

Once we got to the ER, they decided to X-ray her to see what is going on. Long story short, she had apparently aspirated and had to have some gunk sucked out of her nose. We were in the Er all morning making sure she was okay. After that fiasco, we had a previously scheduled appointment with our dr. so we headed over to have him check her out. He was more concerned about her Jaundice than what he thought was a one-time incident. (Which luckily so far has been). Our dr. did suggest that I start pumping to make sure that Austyn got enough to eat so that we could get the bilirubin flushed out and get off the dang lights. 

We finally got home and I began pumping. When I pumped, I couldn't believe how much blood that poor girl was getting in her stomach. It was no wonder it made her tummy upset and she spit it back up. 

I continued to pump for the next week and we continued to struggle with her levels going up. We had to test our blood types because she wasn't breaking down the bili like she should have been. We have different blood types so that is why she couldn't get the jaundice out of her system. We got within .6 of having to put her in the hospital, but luckily on Thursday, a week after she was born, her levels started going down. We unfortunately had to keep her on the lights for a total of 8 days before her levels were low enough for our dr. to take her off. 

All is well now and we can just look back and be thankful that everything turned out alright. 

Photo Shoot

About a week after Austyn was born, we went to Ogden to do a little photo shoot with the girls. Dede Williams took these pictures and she did amazing. You can see her work by going to her blog: http://dedesphotography.blogspot.com/. 

Austyn was slightly difficult to photograph because she wouldn't sleep. And Hazyn was REALLY difficult to photograph because she has a mind of her own. You can tell that she wasn't too happy in our family pictures. I wanted to get pictures of both girls together, but it wasn't in the cards. Oh well, I think the photos still turned out amazing despite my feisty girls!

I also included Austyn's birth announcement for the people that I don't have their addresses for. Dede did an amazing job on her announcement. 

Big Sister Hazyn

Hazyn is seriously the best big sister! I wasn't sure how she was going to react to a new baby around, but she has reacted much better than I ever could have hoped. She knows when to leave the baby alone, but she loves when she wakes up. When Austyn wakes up, Hazyn will say, "her wake" and then come over and give her a kiss. It melts my heart every time. 

Hazyn is also a pretty good helper. She will bring me diapers and other things. We took her binky away about a week after Austyn was born and she has handled it perfectly. She doesn't try to steal Austyn's binky like I thought she would. In fact, she will try to put it in Austyn's hand when she cries. 

I just love my two princesses and can't wait to watch them grow up and be the best of friends. (Actually I can wait - don't grow up too fast babies). 

I also can't believe how beautiful both of my girls are. They definitely look like sisters, but both of them have a unique look. And they both already have unique personalities. 

Below are some pictures of Hazyn and some pictures of Hazyn being an AWESOME big sis! 

 I attempted a photo shoot - I have a feeling that it is going to be difficult to get a decent picture of the two together for the next couple years. 

Welcome Austyn Marie!

We are so happy to have our 2nd Princess Austyn Marie Wanlass here with us. She was born on June 12th at 1:27pm. 

Going back to about a week before, on June 3, I had my normal weekly dr. appointment. She checked me and informed me that I was dilated to a 3. That was a shocker to us because I didn't dilate at all with Hazyn until my water broke. At the end of the appointment my dr. asked me how I was feeling and I said, "I'm good except for all this itching." She got a semi-concerned look on her face and asked me where I was itching. I told her all over, but mostly on the palms of my hands and the bottom of my feet. She then looked more concerned and said that sometimes itching can mean something and sometimes it can mean nothing but she wanted to have my blood drawn to see if it meant something. So I got my blood drawn and waited to hear the results. 

I had a work meeting in Salt Lake on that Thursday and Friday. I was 36 weeks at this point and definitely wasn't looking forward to sitting in a hard chair for two days. On the Friday morning of my meeting, my dr. finally called with the results. She told me that my "levels were elevated" and so they were going to induce me that next Thursday. She told me she wasn't going to tell me what I had and didn't want me to google it. I surprisingly obeyed her and didn't google it. We had to do a non-stress test on Tuesday just to make sure everything was okay. On Tuesday they did the test and everything looked good so they confirmed the Thursday induction at 37 weeks. My dr. did end up telling me that I had Cholestasis but she still didn't want me to google it. I still haven't read up on it because I don't want to worry, but my dr. says as long as it is monitored then there won't be any problems. I had it with Hazyn but they didn't catch it and I will most likely have it with future pregnancies. That means that I get to be induced at 37 weeks with every pregnancy - I'm not complaining about that.

Thursday came and we woke up at 5am to see what time they wanted us to come in. (Neither one of us barely slept because we were excited and nervous). When I called, they told us to be there at 6:15. Both my mom and Riley's mom came up to watch Hazyn while we were in the hospital luckily. 

We arrived at 6:15 and by 6:45, they had me hooked up to an IV. I had group B strep so they had to give me antibiotics in addition to the Pitocin. They also checked me when I arrived and was dilated to a 4 and was having contractions every 8 minutes prior to the Pitocin. They had to wait to break my water because they needed to get 2 IV's of antibiotics in me. 

Once everything was hooked up, we just waited. I fortunately couldn't feel my contractions so it was pretty relaxing. Riley and I both took little cat naps in between the nurse coming in and out. Finally at 10am, the nurse mentioned having the dr. come break my water. I insisted that they get me an epidural before they broke my water because I remembered what contractions felt like when my water was broke with Hazyn. At 10:10, I received my epidural. I was more nervous for it this time because I wasn't in pain like I was with Hazyn. With Hazyn, I just wanted relief. Luckily everything went great with the epidural and at 11:35 the dr. came in to break my water. I was dilated to a 5 at this point.  In between the epidural and the water breaking, a nurse found out that I was a math teacher so she brought in her math homework to get some help from me. I felt great and actually didn't mind helping (it helped the time pass faster). At 12:30 they checked me and I was dilated to a 6. At 1:00 I was an 8 and so they started prepping the bed for delivery. At 1:05, I called the nurse in because I could feel Austyn coming. Riley told me she was there and he could see lots of dark hair. The nurse came in and had me do a test push - Austyn was coming and luckily Dr. Blackett showed up and we were ready to go. 

I started pushing and at 1:27pm, our little Angel came into the world. Dr. Blackett pulled her out and immediately put her on my stomach. Riley got to cut the cord and we both were instantly in love with our little girl Austyn Marie. 

The nurses then took her to clean her up and get her measurements. She was 19inches long and weighed 7lbs 9oz. All I can say is that I sure am glad I didn't go the full 40 weeks - I would have had a BIG baby. 

At 3:30, the Grandmas brought Hazyn to meet her sister. Hazyn instantly adored her, but was quickly distracted by all the cool things in the hospital room. It is crazy how having a new baby can increase the love you feel for your husband and little girl even more than you thought was possible. Seeing Hazyn as a big sister made me love her even more (if that was possible in the first place) and seeing Riley with another daughter made me love him more than before. I love my little family and feel so blessed to be a mommy. 

Below are SEVERAL pictures from Austyn's first day. (I even threw in a couple pictures of my last day pregnant for memories' sake).