Easter Lily

It all started on Saturday the 11th, the day before Easter. We had traveled down on to Castle Dale UT on Thursday to spend the weekend there until Monday. It was the day of the Easter egg hunt and the Tea Party/Bridal Shower for Becky. So I got Leah all cutsied up for her egg hunt. She is one cute little chick!

So here we are out in the cold hunting for Easter eggs. Becky and Noah really helped Leah since she was frozen and didn't quite get the idea that she needed to put the items into the basket.

She found some eggs and she just wanted to hold onto them but soon she got the idea.

Lots of fun things out on the lawn, necklaces, kites, candy, bubbles, eggs and more. It was a very good Easter egg hunt.

So later we went back to Grandpa's house to warm up and to prepare for the tea party. So I went to work on these babies :)

Little did I know what babies I really was working on. Speaking of babies.....I looked down and saw my both of my sweet babies at the same time. One inside and one barely peeking out. Underneath my belly I find little Leah finding shade and shelter.

The tea party was lovely and delicious. I fell in love with Lizzy's fruit and cream tarts. They really hit the spot. It was the perfect tea party, minus the tea. Instead, sunshine punch.

So after the tea party and presents I started having some contractions. I didn't really tell anyone until they had been going on for about an hour. So of course I have plenty of aunts telling me what was going on and saying that they were probably just Braxton Hicks. I had never had one before but I had had contractions and I was pretty sure they were real contractions. They told me to just go rest and lay down for a while because I had been pretty busy all day. So I did and they didn't quite go away. So at around 9 that night we decided to pack up and head to Salt Lake City to the Alta View Hospital. If you have ever driven the drive from Castle Dale to Salt Lake City you will know that there is about an hour long canyon where there is nothing and no cell phone service. That worried me just a bit.

As we were heading past Price I see a sign that says Hospital Exit, and my gut said "Take the Exit" so we did and admitted ourselves to the CastleView Hospital, which happens to be where Andrew was born! Crazy! So at around 10:30 pm I was checked and was dialated to a 3 and I said let's just have this baby so I made it through some contractions until I got the IV stuff that knocked me out, and I mean KNOCKED ME OUT. It was great! I could still feel the contractions but not as bad. Then I got my epidural and was exhausted so we just waited until about 2 am and then started pushing. I pushed for an hour, it was the most exhausting hour of my entire life. Inbetween each push I literally fell asleep and was snoring.

At 2:56 AM Lily Elysse Schauerhamer was born.

She weighed 6 pounds 13 oz.

19 inches long

My parents were there and we got to hold her and love on her for about an hour and then they took her to clean her up and check all of her vitals. They found that she wasn't breathing very well on her own so they were giving her extra oxygen. They ended up taking a chest X-ray to see why that might be. Dr. Madsen, the pediatrician, looked at the X-ray and saw that she had an "impressively" large heart. Andrew and I had been sleeping and then they moved us into a clean room and I knew something was wrong because they hadn't brought her back into us. Dr. Madsen came in and told us and informed us that he had contacted Primary Children's Hospital in SLC and they were sending a LifeFlight helicopter to take Lily to the Primary Children's Hospital. That was where the cardio specialists were and they could determine why she has a large heart. So I called my parents to come back, they had gone back to CD to go to Church, it was Easter morning afterall. But they came back to Price along with my Uncle Jim. Andrew, Jim and my Dad gave Lily a blessing before they loaded her up into the helicopter. They gave me one and Andrew as well. I had to make the decision whether to stay in Price or to get discharged and head up to SLC. After the blessing I decided I had better go with my baby so I got discharged and Andrew and I headed up to SLC all alone. No Leah and no Lily. It was a bit of a hard trip but we made it.

When we got to Primary Children's Hospital they had her hooked up to all of the wires and tubes but they didn't seem to be in too much of a rush to do anything until the next day, Monday. Monday morning she recieved her cardio gram, or ECHO or Ultra Sound of the heart. They determined that there was actually nothing wrong with the size of her heart, instead her lungs are just not quite adjusted because she came early and she also came relatively fast which can cause her to have to adjust longer to breathing on her own.

Monday we visited and she has been taking a teaspoon at a time of formula through the nose. While we were at Primary Children's I could look around and see babies that weren't even moving and they looked like they were in a much more serious condition than Lily. I felt so bad for all of the other parents that were dealing with the stress of really sick babies. Lily seemed to be the best and healthiest one there, and later I found out that that's exactly how it was.

Last night at around 9 oclock a nurse came and asked us if we would be okay in having Lily transferred to the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray because they needed the bed space for other little babies that were coming in by LIfeFlight. They said she was the healthiest one in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and could be moved. We said of course and so Lily has now been to three different hospitals in her first 48 hours of life. Crazy to think and yet she is doing really well. My family has taken a bunch of pictures but I don't have access to them right now.

You may be asking how Andrew and I are doing. Wel..... after a good long nights rest on Sunday night, here at home in our own beds, without Leah, we have recovered well. I'm not going to say that I"m in tip top shape but I am definitely feeling pretty good for just having a baby on Sunday. After seeing Lily to the IMC last night at around 12 midnight we came home and I realized that my feet looked a little swollen, I don't know you tell me. :)

Oh well! We'll keep everyone updated on when our little Easter Lily gets to come home but for now just know that she is doing just fine, we just have to ween her off of the oxygen and get her eating by mouth. Thanks to the prayers, blessings and support from everyone everything will turn out just fine. We feel the love!