Harper Elizabeth Blundell
We welcomed Harper Elizabeth Blundell into our family on July 24, 2013. She joined her big brothers, Hayden and Ian to make us the most blessed parents around! ;) She was a planned C-Section so that morning we got ready and headed to the hospital around lunch time. No labor drama or anything like that. The boys stayed at home that day because I didn’t think they needed to be at the hospital and especially since I will have just had major surgery, I didn’t want them to see me.
The surgery was right on time and at 1:55 PM Miss Harper arrived and greeted us with the sweetest little raspy cry, which was the most awesome thing to hear at that moment. She weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces and 19.5 inches long. I guessed she would be 6 pounds 14 ounces, so I was 1 ounce off! She has a lot of dark and long hair, just like her momma when she was born….except I had a little more than she did.
As they were finishing putting me back together (I’ll spare you the gory details) they were cleaning her up and doing everything with her. I could hear her breathe and knew she was having a little bit of trouble, but not a lot…she was grunting a little and you don’t want to hear that in a baby because it means they are having difficulty breathing. They did have some problems with keeping her oxygen saturation where it needed to without oxygen so they had to give her some. After what seemed like forever, they were able to keep her oxygen saturation where they wanted it without the oxygen…Jonathan says she got better because of her “mommy time” with me in the OR. When the surgery was all done, we were all (including Harper) able to go to the recovery room together. This was different than with the boys because both boys had to go straight to the nursery to be observed for breathing problems. When we got to up to the floor and the pediatrician examined Harper, she was still grunting some and having a little bit of trouble so we did some skin to skin therapy (both Jonathan and I got to do this) or as some call, it kangaroo care. Skin to skin therapy is basically just what it sounds like, you lay the baby stomach down on your bare chest and the contact just does wonders for babies. Studies have shown that it improves oxygen levels, helps regulate a newborns body temperature, promotes bonding with the parents/baby, stabilizes the heart rate and improves breathing patterns.
The pediatrician said that Harper had what is called Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn or TTN. It is basically where the lungs don’t get rid of the fluid that is in them during pregnancy. Some refer to it as “wet lungs”. It usually happens during the first few hours of birth and happens more frequently in c-section babies because they don’t get that initial “squeeze” before being born. This is very similar to what Ian had, if not the same thing, when he was born. After several hours of skin to skin therapy she started to improve and as of now it is resolved.
Harper also had a little bit of jaundice but it is starting to resolve on its own and they will check it again tonight to make sure it is still doing well. We kept the blinds open today and had her in the sun as much as possible as this helps improve jaundice in infants.
Harper is just the sweetest little baby (other than her 2 brothers of course) and from what we can tell in all of 3 days is that her temperment is very much like the boys were as babies. Very content, happy babies.
I’ll post some photos of her birthday soon.
