Our Precious Jonnie Belle

She is finally here!! She made her big debut on Saturday morning, March 21, at 1:03 am. I should have known she would be ready to come out then... she was always such a night owl in my tummy! It has been quite the adventure to say the least, but it has been an amazing experience! I have probably felt just about every emotion possible in the past 4 days but it has all been so worth it! I'll do a long, specific post about my labor another time... right now I just want to focus on our little super star:]

Her Name:
We decided to name her Jonnie after J.D. (John David) and both of our cute Dads, (Jon & John). Her middle name is Belle and that's not after anyone, we just really loved it and thought it went well with Jonnie. I can't picture her being called any other name.. it just fits her to a T.


Stats:
Jonnie weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs. 9 oz.!! ouch! Her head made it out great cause it was so cone shaped from being down so low... but she must have her Daddy's broad shoulders cause they definitely weren't making it through without a nice little tear for Mommy. She was 21 1/2 inches long... this girl is all legs! From inside my tummy, our doctor always said she was gonna have some pretty long legs and she surely does.


Update on what's going on:
She was born healthy and happy and everything was great! She latched on right away and hasn't quit eating since! She's such a good little breastfeeder... or breast eater, whichever is the right term. Everything was going well.. we finally get to my room and tried to sleep around 4:30 am, and then around 6:00 she started to be a little fussy and seemed like she was having to work a little too hard to breathe. My nurse cleaned out her mouth cause she was still kinda liquidy, and took her to the nursery to run some tests and figure out what was going on. Turns out, she had some fluid in her lungs, and they wanted to make sure to get everything cleared up so they ran a blood culture and put her on antibiotics. Turns out she had a high CRP count, which means that her little body was trying to fight off the start of some sort of infection. Her glucose levels were also a little low and since she was having a hard time breathing, they put her on some oxygen too. This was when things got hard... and I couldn't stop crying! My sweet little angel was taken to the NICU so they could monitor her more closely and make sure everything got cleared up. When she first went in there, she was hooked up to the oxygen thing, had an IV full of some sort of glucose fluid, had an IV in her head and her hand for the antibiotics, and had to be in the little incubator. It was the hardest thing to see and it makes me cry just thinking back to it. Most of those didn't last long though because she started making progress so fast! She is such a little trooper. They took her off the oxygen after the first day and the glucose IV on the 2nd day when her tests were coming back better and better each time. In order to get them up without the IV, we had to have her breastfeed and then also have her take some formula as well until my milk came in. It helps that she is such a good eater! The real stuff came in in no time:) Thank heavens for that. She still has an IV in her head, actually this is her second now because the antibiotics are really tough on her little veins and they only last so long. She's also now in an open crib so it's way nicer. This all sounds really serious and scary... that's what I thought when they initially told me about it, but she really is doing SO well! She is still in the NICU and I feed her every couple hours and we're with her as much as we possibly can! Since I am a breastfeeding mom, they have me just boarding in my same postpartum room til she gets released to go home. I probably am with her about 14 hours out of the day so it hasn't been too bad. I just can't wait to be able to take her home with us. It has been the hardest thing seeing them poke her with needles and having to leave her each time.


I don't know what I would do without my sweet husband and wonderful Mom. JD has been amazing throughout this whole thing and is the cutest Daddy in the world. Jonnie already has him wrapped around her little finger. JD gets up in the middle of the night with me at 3:30 am to go feed her even though he has school and so much going on outside of our little family. He just can't get enough of her. I thought I was gonna die when Monday came and JD had to go back to school and everything, but my Mom has been coming up from about 9 to 2 so I'm only alone for a couple hours. I don't think I could walk away from Jonnie's side if I didn't have someone with me. They would have to just let me camp out there! I am so grateful for our wonderful families and all the love they have for us and our sweet Jonnie already. I don't know what we'd do without them.

Jonnie's now on her 4th day of antibiotics and they like them to be on them from 7-10 days so hopefully we can be outta here by this weekend! Keep her in your prayers, maybe we can get out of here a little sooner! I love love LOVE being a Mom and am amazed at the love I have for this little girl! My mom always said I would never understand it until I had my own... and this is DEFINITELY true!



Four Days old and cute as can be!