Our Second Beautiful Daughter

Natalie's little sister, Claire Marie, was born on Thursday, December 3, 2009 (39 weeks 2 days) at 1:09 p.m. at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, N.C. She weighed 7 lbs. 7 oz. and was 21" long. Her Apgar score was 7/8. She has brown hair and dark eyes right now but like Natalie (and Emile) we expect this will change in the next few months and she'll become blond haired and blue eyed. She is absolutely beautiful and we're beyond thrilled to have her in our lives.

On Wednesday, December 2 (my nephew's 5th birthday), we went into Rex for my pre-admission testing. They pretty much just asked some medical history questions and then took some blood. The nurse then gave me a hospital bracelet that I had to keep on until after I was discharged from the hospital. I was told that I shouldn't eat anything after midnight nor drink anything after 4:30 a.m. I made sure to get up at 4:30 to have a glass of apple juice so I wouldn't have to low of blood sugar before taking a shower in the morning.

We left for the hospital at 10:00 a.m. on December 3rd. Kinsey came over to take care of Natalie while I was at the hospital. Natalie wore her "I'm going to be a big sister" t-shirt. We got her to take a photo of the three us before Claire arrived:

Once we got to Rex Hospital, we had to wait about 30 minutes for them to admit us to triage. Apparently they had a pretty busy morning with women going into labor. In triage, they hooked me up to an IV, checked all my vitals, and had me drink something to help with nausea when I got the spinal. Dr. Gaines came by to see how I was doing before we met up again in the OR.

Around 12:30 p.m., they wheeled me to the OR. Emile went to another room to get his scrubs on. Once they wheeled me into the OR, things moved really fast. They had me sit on the side of the table so they could put in my spinal. This is about when I started to get very nervous and panicky. I think the nurse could tell I was about to lose it so she had me hold on to her while she held my shoulders for the anaesthetist to put in my spinal. I started crying pretty hard - I think because I was so nervous to go through a c-section again. After the spinal was in, I started to calm down. They quickly had me lay on my back before the drug kicked in. Then they started getting me prepped for surgery -- putting up the curtain, putting on my oxygen tubes, cleaning off my belly. The spinal made me very nauseous and I ended up throwing up. I had a really hard time with how the spinal made me feel -- wanting to move my legs but not being able to made me very anxious. I think this and the nausea were the worst part of having another c-section.

I think they actually started surgery before Emile got in the room. When I realized this, I started feeling a little panicky again until he got in the room and he held my hand. It wasn't too long after that Dr. Gaines removed Claire. Hearing her cry was wonderful! They showed her to me for a few seconds and then her and Emile left the room for them to clean her up and get her weight, etc. While they were off doing that, Dr. Gaines injected my incision area with a steroid in order to hopefully minimize the development of another keloid scar. It took a little longer for them to sew me up because my uterus was actually bleeding a lot more than they wanted. But they were able to get it under control. I'm glad my c-section went a little better than it did with Natalie (at least I didn't freak out on the OR table and have to be knocked out) but I can definitely say that major abdominal surgery is not a walk in the park. But it was all worth it to have our two girls here! I feel ok about not having tried for a VBAC even though it was still a little weird to go into deliver Claire without actually having experienced any labor signs. I unfortunately went into surgery with an upper respiratory infection which made the c-section recovery in the beginning difficult - it was hard to clear my lungs and throat with the pain around the incision.

I didn't get to see Claire for about an hour after at which time they brought her down to the recovery room they moved me to. I actually first saw her up close in photos that Emile had taken -- he brought the camera down to the recovery room to show me. It was great to finally be able to hold her, even for the short amount of time I was able to in the beginning (I was still having nausea issues). After about an hour in the recovery room, they moved Claire and I to our hospital stay room where we got to do a lot of bonding. Emile went home at night to be there for Natalie but came back the next day. Claire spent most of the day/night in my arms. I only had her go to the nursery once a night for about 2 hours so I could get some sound sleep without having to worry about moving around with her in my arms.

Claire is so adorable and beautiful! She is so calm and the sweetest little girl! It's amazing how when you have a second child your heart doubles instead of splitting. She's a wonderful addition to our family! I could not imagine not having her in our lives now! It's wonderful watching her personality already forming and seeing the differences and similarities to Natalie. Right now, she is such an easy baby (I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she stays this way). She only cries when she's cold and seems to sleep for a long time (I actually have to wake her to feed every 2-3 hr -- she rarely wakes up before I wake her).

I'm solely breastfeeding again. Claire took to it right away. She's a much more passive nurser though. She likes to only nurse for a few minutes, then pull off and rest for a little while before starting again. Right now, she's only averaging about 7-10 min of nursing every 2-3 hrs. Sometimes she'll go for 15-20 min total but it's been rare. When she left the hospital, she was down to 6 lb. 15 oz. We had her first weight check appointment at Jeffers and Mann on Monday, December 7. She had dropped more weight (down to 6 lb. 12 oz.). Dr. Jeffers said she looked good otherwise although slightly yellow (possibly small amount of Jaundice) although her Billy numbers in the hospital were good when we left. He told us to just sit her by the window for some time each day to help with any linger possibility of Jaundice. He had us bring Claire back in for a follow-up weight check appointment on Wednesday, December 9. We met with Dr. Overcash who confirmed that she wasn't Jaundice and that her weight was back up to 7 lb. 2.5 oz. I'm still waking her at least every 2-3 hrs to make sure she's getting enough milk to drink but I'm still concerned as to how little she nurses at one sitting. She definitely has enough wet and poopy diapers so that's a good sign. She has her 2 week follow-up appointment this Thursday; hopefully, she's back up to her birth weight.

We were surprised to learn that they were letting me leave on Saturday, instead of Sunday or Monday as I expected. It was great getting to go home early after only two days, to see Natalie and have her meet Claire. Natalie is having some separation issues with me not giving her 100% of my time but she's been great with Claire, giving her lots of hugs and kisses.


My parents arrived the night we got home from the hospital. Oma arrived two days later. They got to spend a lot of time bonding with Claire and Natalie.

Claire does not like to take a bath like Natalie did! She definitely does not like to be cold -- pretty much the only time we hear from her is when she's cold. She's just like her mama temperature-wise! Here's the aftermath of her first bath:

Luckily I was discharged from the hospital on the Eve of Sint Nicolaas Day so I could be there to watch Natalie (and Claire) put out their shoes for Sint Nicolaas. Natalie helped to put Claire's shoe out too.