I am finally getting around to blogging and catching up on Will's birth! Let's not talk about how he is nearly 4 weeks old! Better late than never, right?
I have a mix of iPhone pictures, pictures from our point and shoot, and pictures I took with my big camera while in the hospital so be prepared for a nice mix of picture quality!
Here's his birth story!
I was scheduled for a 7:30am c-section on Thursday, April 12 which meant we needed to be at the hospital at 5:30am. I didn't get much sleep the night before delivery - I was anxious, nervous, excited, and worried I'd miss my alarm!
Thankfully, I woke up on time (at 3:30am) and we made it to the hospital! I took one last belly picture and snagged a picture of Alex before they took me back to the OR!
We had to wait a while in pre-op because my doctor was running late due to another delivery at a different hospital. Finally, around 8:15, I was taken back to the OR. It was very weird being awake this time since I was under general anesthesia for Kate's delivery.
We had no issues getting my spinal started but wow - having a spinal is the weirdest feeling ever! Within seconds it felt like warm water was filling my legs and within minutes I couldn't feel anything! Unfortunately, on top of numbing me, the spinal made me extremely sick to my stomach. By the time Alex walked into the OR I was so sick and shaking pretty bad. He was put on puke bucket duty but thankfully I never actually got sick.
Everyone told me to expect pressure and tugging when Will was being delivered but I honestly don't remember feeling that. It's probably because I was so distracted by the smell. Yeah, having a c-section does not smell good at all. No one warned me that the OR would smell like burning flesh. It's pretty disgusting.
After a few minutes of shaking, and feeling sick, Dr. Hare announced that we were almost done!
At 9:05am on April 12, 2012 William Emitt (yes - we changed the spelling of his middle name - I'll blog about it later) was born weighing in at 7 pounds 5 ounces and measuring 19 inches long! It was simply amazing to witness his first cry!
I delivered at the brand new Texas Children's Pavilion for Women so everything was state of the art! One really neat feature was the TV screen that they put in front of mom's face after delivery. You can't see the warmer/ baby in the OR from the operating table so they have a live feed camera at the warmer which allows mom to watch baby get weighed, measured, have foot prints taken, etc while surgery is wrapping up. It was so neat to watch all of those things!
Due to Will's diagnosis, there was a NICU team present at his delivery and they drew blood for a CBC within a few minutes of his arrival. While in the OR, the NICU staff noticed that Will was grunting a good bit and having some troubles breathing. Since his O2 stats were ok, we made the decision to give him an hour and see how he transitioned before taking any action.
After my surgery was finished, the three of us were taken to my recovery room. By the hour mark, Will was still struggling to breathe. We also got his CBC results back and learned that his platelets were extremely low. These two issues landed him in the NICU.
Alex went with Will while I wrapped up my time in recovery. The Pavilion has private NICU rooms so Alex stayed in Will's room and I was brought up to my room. Thank goodness for iPhones and picture texts - Alex kept me in the loop and sent sweet pictures to me all day! Through out the day Will had more lab work that showed his platelets were still very low but relatively stable.
Around 6pm my nurse helped me out of bed and into a wheelchair so I could make my way down to spend some time with Will! Please excuse how horrible I look - and remember that I had surgery a mere 9 hours before! I was only allowed a quick 45 minute visit but those 45 minutes were simply amazing!
I'm not sure why but my recovery this time was so incredibly easy! I was getting up on my own 12 hours post c-section and walking the halls relatively pain free within 24 hours of delivery.
Friday morning I was up early and ready to head down to the NICU. I spent the entire morning in the NICU and thankfully the hematologist agreed that Will could be released to my room around noon on Friday!
My in-laws brought Kate up to the hospital to meet her baby brother a few hours after he was released from the NICU. She was so precious when she met him!
When Kate met Will she kept saying "horsey". We were all perplexed as to why she was calling her brother a horse! Well, after a bit we finally realized that she would say "horsey" when she was touching his hair - which looked similar to a horse's hair in one of her touch and feel books! It's crazy how toddlers associate things!
Saturday we had a few visitors and Kate came up again to see her brother!
And Will was subjected to his first of many photo shoots with momma!
We were discharged Sunday - and I was so ready to get home! Sweet Will got all dressed up to come home! I just love his sweet outfit!
My boys!
Will and momma!
Heading home!
I can't believe we've been home for nearly 4 weeks! Things have been busy! We've had at least one doctor's appointment a week for Will as his platelet are still extremely low and his CAMT has taken over much sooner than Kate's did. Thankfully, we have been blessed with visitors to help as we transition to a family of four.
Will is the sweetest baby ever! He is a big eater (and growing so fast) and sleeps pretty good! We just love having him in our family and can't imagine life without him! We are so incredibly blessed!
I have so many pictures to share! Hopefully this is the start of me getting back into regular blogging!