I feel like the NICU should come with a warning--"DO NOT ENTER UNLESS PROPERLY PREPARED (and sanitized)". First of all, Charlotte was doing spectacular in the NICU. No issues--heart rate, oxygen and respiratory were all within range. I was so happy that she was doing so well. However, she still hadn't mastered bottle feeding and my hopes of having a bottle feeding savant were quickly diminishing. I really thought she would pick it up in a week and they'd let us go home. I was so wrong! I struggled with two main things during Charlotte's NICU stay; her feeding and my own health.

Twinsies--matching IV pumps! 

My Story - Delivery!

Delivery! After a week of being on bed rest since my water broke, I finally went into labor. I began laboring at 11:00am on February 5th. It started pretty calm, and I convinced my nurse to let me shower before sending me down to L&D. [I never realized how good I was at negotiating until I was in the hospital, haha]. Once I was down there, I was pretty comfortable for a few hours. I could certainly feel the contractions, but I wasn't in a ton of pain--yet. 

Ok, so this is kind of embarrassing. I didn't know ANYTHING about epidurals. I thought you got one shot, and if it wore off--too bad, so sad. Therefore, I didn't ask for my epidural until I absolutely could not stand the contractions anymore. No one ever told me that an epidural is a continuous drip! Once I figured this out, I requested one ASAP. I had back contractions--which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. They were so painful. I finally got my epidural around 6:30pm on February 5th, and it was heaven. 

Post-epidural relaxation