the story goes a little something like this...

yes, we are back, although i start this knowing it may take me several days to get it finished and published. at any rate, we are back.

noah is now just over 3 weeks old, already practically an old geezer. but as many of you may know, he's only been home for two of those weeks, the first week having been spent on a not-so-fun stay in the nicu. but we'll get to that later.

by the way, i do intend, for my own sake if not for yours, to give a rather detailed blow-by-blow of the whole ordeal, so please forgive the length of this blog. but, i will put anything i deem to be possibly a little TMI in red so that the squeamish of stomach can skip the less savory details.

i went into annoying fake labor thursday the 24th, called my mom, and got her convinced that things were imminent enough that she left a full day early around 430 am. i went to bed that night with contractions 10-15 minutes apart (what i now call my sympathy labor with my friend who was in actual labor) and trying to lay as still as possible and praying that things would go slowly enough that my mom would arrive before we needed to head to the hospital. as it turned out, by the time my mom showed up friday morning, my contractions had stopped altogether, and i have my own personal theory that these contractions that had gone on for over 8 hours served as the 'stress' that left noah swimming in meconium.

i was glad my mom was in town but now annoyed that i had to sit and wait some more. but it was good to give caleb some time to hang out with yaya before mama dissapeared for what turned out to be a week rather than a couple of days. saturday morning i started having contractions again, some close together, some as far as an hour apart, and so we headed to the farmer's market around 10am. things were starting to pick up by the time we came home, but the contractions were still not super intense and still only 10 minutes apart or so. we were about out of everything, and not knowing how the rest of the week would go, i sent my mom and seb to the grocery store to make sure we were stocked before things got busy.

by the time they got back at 1230, i was ready for my epidural. caleb had been a good sport while mommy was phased out in pain for 30 seconds or so here and there, but if seb had gotten home much later i think caleb may have started to get worried. i was really taken aback that i had gotten to that point in only 2.5 hours, and based on the pain and my memory from last time, i thought i was definitely ready to get admitted to the hospital. i had seb check my cervix (one of the perks of having a doc husband is not going to the hospital till you know they'll admit you) and he said i was 3 cm, probably 4cm dilated, the point where my doc had said we should come in. with seb's opinion that it was time to go, we grabbed our bags, told caleb it was time to go get baby noah out, and headed off.

by the time we were there, around 140 pm, i was no longer walking or talking through a contraction, but still didn't feel like i was at that breaking down point. nonetheless i was SOOOOO ready to get that epidural going, esp. since i knew it took about 30 minutes to get it set up and 15 minutes for it to take effect. they sent us to an exam room and we waited what felt like way too long for the doc to show. i was disappointed because i'd seen midwives up till then and now i had the family practice doc who was on for the weekend. (which is part of why i think things went they way they did - this guy told me like 3 times AFTER the delivery that he doesn't really do deliveries that often - thanks, dude.) after the doc checked me he said i was only 2 cm dilated (!!!!!) and told me i could go home (not gonna happen) or walk around the hospital for an hour and then come back and get checked again. i was so incredibly disappointed, but there was very little i could do, so at around 2pm, i got dressed and started walking.

thankfully it was a weekend so there was not a large audience to witness what turned into me stopping every 10 feet or so to lean against a wall, sway, and try my absolute hardest to breathe instead of cry. i was scared because i had never felt that level of pain before, even with caleb, who i progressed with up to 5 cm with no medication. and this was only 2cm! i thought maybe i was just wussing out because i hadn't prepared as much this time around. but by the end of that hour (which thankfully passed more quickly than i'd thought it would) i was dry heaving at every contraction and trying very hard to stay on my feet. at 2:55 pm we headed back to the labor & delivery unit and waited for the doctor to show up.

at almost 3:3o the doctor came to check me again, and declared that i had gone from 2cm dilated to 7cm. i could hardly believe my ears (seb didn't believe his, he decided at this time that his measurement had been right and this guy had been way wrong.) i was relieved that the walking and the pain had at least gotten me somewhere and we were headed back, but very afraid that that epidural had slipped through my fingers. i hoped that laying down would give me the time to get it, but by the time i was transfered to a delivery bed, i felt myself starting to get a little unglued, and i just knew we were past that point.

and then something happened that i had absolutely no preparation for. i can only really describe it by saying that it felt like my uterus was vomiting. like someone hit the eject button, and instead of building, peaking contractions, i was hit with these lightningbolts that came and went in a flash and that i had no control over. i don't even know if it was normal, or that it was even my uterus, it may have been my stomach muscles, all i know is that i kept telling the doctor, 'i'm sorry, i'm not trying to, it's just happening...' they had me sit up to try to get the epidural in, but the lightningbolts kept coming, no matter how many times i tried to 'blow out the candle.' i kept being shocked that they were still trying to do the epidural, when i felt like i was going to push that baby right through the bed. finally i called it and said, 'he's coming, he's coming,' and they had me sit back to push. i also distinctly recall crying, 'i didn't want this pain!' well, too late missy.

and push, and push, and i heard seb tell me that he was out, at 3:53 pm and my jaw dropped, and said 'really, that fast? well, i guess i didn't need that epidural then.' which i really meant. pretty much as soon as noah was out the pain just vanished. and honestly, i needed the epidural for the labor leading up to the delivery much more than for the delivery, which was the least painful part of the whole ordeal. i had expected the opposite: i had expected that the searing pain of my nether-regions being stretched/torn would be more than i could handle, and was actually afraid that i'd resist it, and they'd be rushing me to do an emergency c-section because i refused to push the baby out. and i did tear, though i swear i didn't feel it. honestly, i think if we were to have a third baby (which we do not plan to do - seb's already planning the old snip-snip) i think i really would plan NOT to get the epidural. the speed of the progress was worth the pain to me.

that being said, the strength of the contractions and speed of delivery may have been what gave noah the rough start that he had. essentially, being 5 lbs 9 oz, and having his father's genes, he had very little fat and energy stores, which got depleted quickly from the stress of the delivery, and needed help with some IV dextrose and some formula until his numbers stabilized. his 1 minute apgar score was 1 (out of 10), 5 minute apgar was only 3. it was up to 8 by 10 minutes, but seb i'm sure was very worried, though just like with caleb he did not let me know how scary things had been until well after the fact.

he was in the special care nursery at the hospital where i delivered until the tuesday following the delivery, when his sugars had stayed low enough and unstable enough that the level of care they could provide was deemed insufficient, and they transfered him to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in nashville.

at the hospital where i delivered, he was just down the hall from me, and they even let me stay on under boarding status after i was discharged, but the unit he was in was small, and for privacy they didn't want you coming unannounced or staying when they were working with other patients. they also didn't want me to handle him much, saying the 'stress' would wear him out. they didn't want me to nurse too long, for the same reason. it was heartbreaking, though i knew it could have been so much worse, to see him hours old and his tiny arm already red from the tape holding his IV in place, and to need permission to touch and see him. he did not like the bottles they tried, we resorted to dripping formula into his mouth and waiting for him to swallow, and if we were lucky after 20 minutes he'd taken an ounce. he latched on great but my milk was not in yet and not likely to help his blood sugar. so by tuesday, they had upped his sugars by IV as much as they could and his blood sugar was still falling. they were at the limit of what they could do, and though at this point my attitude was definitely more of when he would bounce back rather than if he would, the need to transfer him 45 minutes away from where we lived made it feel much more serious, and i broke down for the first time. and honestly, that had as much to do with knowing that i would not be home for caleb soon as it did with how noah was doing. once i calmed down, i came home, packed a few day's worth of clothes, played with caleb for an hour, and followed noah to nashville. i had had about 6 hours of sleep since the delivery and i am pretty sure it was God and adrenaline that got me there safely.

at vanderbilt things were totally different, i had a room at the hospital to stay in so i could be close, they didn't want me nursing just yet but i was allowed to visit, touch, and hold him as much as i wanted to. noah eventually started taking more and more from the bottle, and my milk was coming in so that we didn't need to use formula anymore. the attitude there was VERY pro-breastfeeding, and they soon had me nursing him regularly, though still bottle feeding breastmilk to make sure they knew he was getting a certain amount. by wednesday, they moved us to a step -down unit where i actually got to stay and sleep in the room with him, which was scary, even though he was still on monitors they could see at the nurse's station. it was the first time i had the chance to be really alone with him and not feel like we were being completely supervised. as he took more and more, they weaned him down on the IV, and though he was doing well, i reached a point where my pumping was not keeping up with his demand. i expected to get orders to start supplementing, when to my complete shock they said they wanted me to ONLY breastfeed and not pump to make sure i made what he needed.

this totally freaked me out. to have every move your baby makes be mulled over and decided on by a team of doctors and then be told, just breastfeed, like you would at home, whenever he seems hungry, i felt like they were handing the car keys over to a 6 year old. but i realized it was best to see how he does with what i would want to do at home ideally. it just made me feel for the first time totally responsible for his well-being, and all i could do about it was eat, drink, sleep when i could, and will my breasts to make enough milk. but it turned out they were right, and soon he was off IV fluids, and they were sending us home.

it was an ordeal, and definitely not what i had wanted or planned, but i do realize and am so thankful for the fact that his problems were relatively small, simple, and easy to resolve. it really could have been soooooo much worse. for him the hardest may have been getting his heels pricked for glucose checks every 3 hours (and sometimes more often) for the first week of his life. and i still feel, rather selfishly, that it would not have been as hard on me if it had not meant all the time away from caleb, especially since his birthday came and went while i was still in the hospital. thankfully he is only 2, and would not know the difference if we celebrated his birthday in december, and will not likely remember much about the whole situation.

and now, having suffered through the tome above, your reward: pictures!

they're actually doing chest compressions here

not what i wanted him to endure in his first minutes out in the world. he's in an oxygen hood here but was out of it within hours

seb switched places with my mom so she could come see us that first night

finally getting to hold him

he was so hungry he kept trying to eat that IV

a much calmer seb - though he told me later he was glad we are stopping at 2 because he didn't think he could handle the stress of something like this again

our room at Vandy

after 4 blown IV's in his arms they resorted to one in his scalp - and it was still not his last one

free of cords, IVs, dressed, and ready to go HOME

he's basically a dark-haired and (so far) blue eyed version of his brother

i'll try to get some more updates on how things are going now that we are home. that will be so much more fun to share, but the ocd in me needed to start from the beginning on this one. we are so thankful for all the thoughts and prayers for us and noah and so grateful that God brought him home safe and healthy. this little one is truly a miracle He has given us.