What a sweet little guy to make his birthday easy to remember for all of us! I had posted the first four days of our novena to Fulton J. Sheen no problem and on the night of novena day 4, I went in and got my steroid shot at 9:30pm. But on the morning of day 5, I woke up around 6am with some incision pain on my left side that came with a pretty strong contraction. As soon as the contraction went away, the pain went away. Then I texted my wonderful sister (who is an OB nurse) right away and asked what to be watching for and she told me to pay attention to baby movement and more contractions/pain. So I moved to the reclining chair and had two more smaller contractions with the same incision pain - one more towards the middle and one on the right side, and again it went away when the contraction went away. Sweet baby boy was moving like a champ, so that was very reassuring. My sister suggested that I call the doctor still and let her know and to NOT drink or eat anything, just in case (thank you, Laura, for following your gut feeling and telling me this!!!!!!). Thankfully, my doctor was the one on call and knows my body and I very well and she asked me to head into Labor and Delivery for an NST. Neil was so wonderful and was going to take the morning off and I'd run in to be monitored and more than likely, be home in a couple of hours.
When I arrived to L&D and was hooked up, I was contracting every 6 minutes - doh! Since I was still only 35 weeks 3 days and had only had one steroid shot (the evening before) and more than likely, still hasn't done it's "magic" yet, they gave me a shot of brethine to calm down the contractions. Things looked good for about a half an hour and were calm, but contractions came back just as long and just as strong as the medicine started wearing off. I let Neil know a little before 11am what was going on and that the contractions were coming back, so he decided to head in and sit with me, but still had to get kiddos ready and drop them off at my mom's first. Then at 11:30am, three nurses knock on my door with their scrubs on and ask, "Do you know why we are wearing these?" Uh, I guess I do!!! And, then I grabbed my camera and took a picture to send to Neil as they started wheeling me away to prepare for surgery....
Oh boy!!! Guess this was going to be the birthday for our little guy!! I asked them how long we had and they said 12:15pm, so pretty much immediately and my husband wasn't even there yet! Thankfully, Neil showed up with plenty of time to spare, but what a surprise of a day for us all. My poor mom and my mother-in-law didn't even have enough food to feed our crews plus we had NOTHING packed for the hospital (including a real camera!!) since the section was scheduled for October 14th. We soon realized that none of this truly mattered - baby was coming early and we just had to say "yes" and trust God with his lungs and development and my uterus.
With all the prep and the anesthesiologist arriving a little late, our sweet little guy was born at 12:55pm and my c-section lasted about 40 minutes - pretty good for an 8th c-section. The NICU doctor looked at him real quick and after his raving apgars (8 and 9!!!) handed him off to the nurses and then to us. He roomed with us the entire time at the hospital and was breathing like a champ and had no preemie issues at all! And, very similar to Rose's section, I was very thin but doctor still had to cut into the uterine muscle, unlike with Pookey how there were windows and openings. How blessed I am to have a wonderful doctor and her partners for knowing how to handle my high risk pregnancies and deliveries!! And, how blessed I am to have such wonderful prayer warriors in my family and friends and our heavenly friends (Ven. Fulton J. Sheen for this pregnancy) and a wonderful God who has watched my baby and I this whole time and protected us from anything devastating that could have happened. I am one blessed and very grateful momma to be a given such a beautiful gift from God...
birthday: October 8, 2014
weight: 6 pounds 5.2 ounces
length: 18-1/2 inches
birth time: 12:55pm
Things went very well in the hospital and when our sweet baby was 52 hours old (just 2 days old!), we headed home where I knew I could be more comfortable and recover better, even with the noise and busyness of large family living. For me, that's all normal and I absolutely LOVE it!
And, now we need some help from our blog reading friends - we don't have a blog name for our little guy. Please share your ideas in comments. Right now, we are bouncing around "Mickey", "Yoda", "Bruiser" (did you notice the bruise on his little head??), but we cannot settle and agree on which name. Please help us out, will you???
++Thank you, God, for a smooth pregnancy and delivery and our beautiful new baby boy!!!++