WOW! So I am totally amazed at how many people want to know what's going on with Mags. I've had a lot of friends and family wanting to know how labor and everything went and the full story, so I'm going to try to remember the best I can, it all feels like it happened so long ago! And I have to apologize ahead of time about my punctuation, I can type a lot faster if I don't capitalize everything or remember all of my apostrophes, etc! So be patient with me. :)

So my last dr.'s appointment was on January 13 and my midwife, Eve, and I decided to do an induction on Friday January 14th, the next day! Maggie was more than ready to make her appearance and Codie and I were ready for her to come too! The anticipation was killing us and we couldnt have been more excited. So at 3 the next day we went in and got settled in the room and at 4:30 the nurse came in and administered the pitocin to get the contractions going. I didn't feel any start up until about 6 or so, all the while watching TV with my mom, dad, and Codie. I was able to stand the contractions for about an hour and a half, and at 7:30 I got my epidural! Heaven! Major props to all the women out there who have their kids without any pain relief! To make this short and sweet, Maggie came into this world at 11:04 pm with the Simpsons on tv! I feel very lucky to have had a quick and easy labor. Eve and Codie made everything really easy and was just amazing. So, she was born and they put her on my chest for about a half a second and Codie cut the cord! She wasn't crying when she was born and when they laid her on me, it seemed like she was struggling to make a sound and within seconds they had her on the little baby bed and there were about 9 nurses and dr's and all kinds of people working on her. Codie and I didn't know what to make of all of this and were just totally silent watching all of these people work on her. A nurse came in and told me mom she had to leave and that's when I really started to get afraid. No one was really telling us what was going on and it was the worst 20 minutes of my life watching them over there with her. I would get small glimpses of her every now and then when one would move, and could see that they had intubated (sp?) her. They were trying to get her to start breathing on her own but weren't having any success. It felt like time was standing still and I knew something was seriously wrong but didn't know what to say or do. After almost a half hour of them working on her the took her away to the NICU at St. Marks. About 45 minutes later the head Dr. of the NICU, Lisa, came in and told Codie that he could come in and see her. He went and I was so mad that I didn't get to go too. He came back and was totally pale and had a horribly worried look on his face, and said that all they told him was that they didn't really know what was going on. After awhile longer I was able to go and see her and it was total shock, they still hadn't given her any kind of sedation medicine and she was being so feisty! She didn't want any of those people messing with her. Still not breathing on her own she was on a ventilator and it was killing me to see her that way. It was a short visit before we were pushed out of there and back to the room. I was moved up one floor to the recovery room and it was much smaller and didn't feel as comfy as the other one. My parents left and it was just me and Codie alone in there without our little girl. It was a horrible feeling and neither of us knew what to say to the other. At about 4 am Lisa came in and informed us that Life Flight was on their way to pick her up and take her up to Primary Children's Medical Center. We were totally shocked and could not believe this was happening. She said that once they were ready to leave they would bring her to my room so we could see her one more time before she left. She was already in the life flight equipment and it was so scary to see her in that little incubator with all the equipment. The life flight nurse was telling me that she may not make it through the flight and that's when I lost it. She gave me her name tag from the NICU and told us they would call when they got there so we knew she was ok. And then they left. Feeling even more empty than before and wishing I could comfort Codie, we tried to get some rest but both of us were totally traumatized. We waited and waited for the call from PCMC and never heard. I was so mad about this, I called up there and they told me she had arrived safely and was getting settled in at the NICU there. Totally livid that no one had called like they said they would, I called my mom and exploded and totally lost it. Everything was so unexpected, all throughout my pregnancy and all of my ultrasounds were totally perfect. No problems at all, everything was great. My mom and dad were able to go and see her at about 9 am and stayed with her about an hour and then came to see me. I was so confused about why this was happening and my parents said that the doctors at PCMC really didn't have any answers yet. I wanted to get out of there so bad and go up and be with her. I felt so stuck and trapped. My parents left and right after that my amazing midwife Eve came to check up on me. I was feeling good and she told me she wanted me to get out of there that day so I could go and be with my daughter. So she got all of my discharge papers ready and I was out of there by about 5. We went straight to PCMC and got there and they were doing some kind of xray or something on her so they said I couldn't see her yet. We waited and waited and I was getting so anxious. Then, of course, at 6:30 to 7:30 was shift change for the nurses so no one can be back there during that time either! I was going crazy knowing she was 10 yards away but I couldn't go back yet. Codie and I finally got to go back at 7:30 and it was so overwhelming going in there. She was hooked up to so many machines and they told me I could only hold her little hand, no stroking or anything like that because she was too sensitive to touch, it would make her blood pressure skyrocket. I didn't understand why she had so many tubes going in her mouth and in her bellybutton and IV's and even a PICC line. I wanted to rip all the cords and tubes off and just hold her. They still didn't have answers on anything and no one explained anything to me. It was almost 2 days before someone gave me a folder full of information about the NICU and made me feel comfortable there. Its taken almost a week, but now I know what each tube and each machine and each number on the screen is for. They were able to tell us on Wednesday that she has pneumonia and a staph infection. The combination of the two of those were causing her heart and lungs to work overtime and neither could handle the stress. Her lungs had mucous on them and parts of her lungs were inflated. Her heart was needing medication to help it pump. Things were getting worse so on Thursday morning they decided to put her on ECMO. More on that tomorrow though... I'm going back in to see her right now. Keep praying!!!