Just for you Sweet Baby James

Wow! What a difference a year makes.  My last post on my blog was from May of 2012 and here we are in May of 2013.  For the longest time, Nolan "Booboo" Smith was my world.  This blog was dedicated to him.  A place for us to go to remember the funny and sweet moments of his precious life.  Turns out that he is going have to share more than just his toys and cuddles...he will have this here blog!  So, it begins here, Sweet Baby James.  The story of how you made it into this crazy family :)

 

It was time.  Time to start thinking about growing our family.  Your brother was about to turn 3 years old and it seemed like a good age difference for siblings.  I was ready both physically and mentally to try the old pregnancy thing again.  What I wasn't expecting was how fast you came to be :)  One time, Baby James, one time.  Great lesson for teenagers :)  Fun fact...you were conceived on your brother's birthday and your due date was your father's birthday.  My pregnancy with your brother was miserable and full of worry.  My pregnancy with you was a dream.  Still kinda miserable, but misery without the worry was dreamy.  Despite being uncomfortable, you didn't scare me like your brother did.  I am hoping that means you will be a little less high maintenance!

 

Enough pre-birth story.  Let's get down to business.  I had an ultrasound around 34 weeks that said you were going to be a biggin'.  I was DONE being pregnant with you, so my doctor and I decided to induce a week early.  I went into the hospital on April 29th at midnight (crappy by the way) to start the induction.  It was very strange to be so awake and ready so late at night.  Contractions started very quickly and I got NO sleep that night.  Your father managed a snore or two.  I got my epidural fairly early on the 30th and felt great.  My epidural with your brother never really took, so I was beyond happy that this seemed like it was going to be breezy!  Your Aunt Weesie came that morning to hang with me.  See, here she is........

Notice how I am laying on my side?  You may not have scared me much while you were cooking, but you made up for that while you were trying to enter the world.  Once I got to be around 4 centimeters dilated, your little heart rate started to drop.  At first, it only went down every 20 contractions or so.  Once I got to 5 centimeters (which took FOREVER to move past), your heart rate started dropping more frequently.  I tried lying on my right side and then my left side.  Nothing was working.  To make matters worse, you were not exactly positioned correctly.  Instead of being vertical, you were more slightly diagonal.  Every time the doctor came in, I could see that look of "c-section" on her face.  Thank God for your nurse, Carol.  Literally, thank God.  I really do feel that He placed her with us that day.  She was a bright, positive personality that made things seem less scary.  She would put a positive spin on the negative comments from my doctor and made me feel like everything was going to be okay. 

 

Somewhere around noon was when your Grandma arrived.  It was not a good time.  Your heart rate was all over the place.  I was glued to the contraction monitor and could not take my eyes off your heart rate.  It scared me to death every time it dropped, and baffled me that no one was reacting with serious concern.  Clearly, your Grandma had been briefed from the walk to the garage to the room because she walked in like a ray of sunshine.  She had her positive hat on and really tried to cut the tension in the room.  It worked.  Having her there made me feel so much better.  I hope that I am still able to calm your nerves when you are 30 :)

 

A few hours passed and things were getting no better.  In fact, they had me doing all kinds of crazy things to get you to drop down and make me dilate.  Some of those worked...REALLY well.  I was able to get you to be more vertical which made you drop into the birth canal which made me dilate...FAST.  Unfortunately, this all happened at the same time as my epidural juice ran out.  When I tell you that you made mommy hurt, I am holding back.  Hurt is not the word.  I had lots of words for it at the time.  Words that I can not publish on this here blog :)  Your Grandma and Aunt Weesie left the room.  I cussed your daddy for talking too much.  I got attitude with the intern that came in and apologized for letting the juice run out.  It hurt, kid!  It turns out that during that time of intense pain I was doing that transition labor.  I went from a 5 to 9 in 15 minutes.  That's fast, yo! 

 

That 15 minutes was the scariest of my life.  Your heart rate dropped with every contraction.  It dropped lower and lower every time.  I made your daddy run out of the room to get the nurse a few times.  Calm, cool Carol wasn't looking so calm or cool anymore.  I could tell that she was worried.  All of the sudden, I felt the needed to push.  It was almost a blessing that my epidural ran out because I could feel what was going on.  So, there I was with nurse Carol and your dad and the strongest urge to push you out.  I just knew you were going to be born with no doctor in the room.  Carol was getting things ready and your daddy was asking about the doctor.  Carol buzzed for help and asked for a NICU nurse.  Tears came immediately.  I am not a medically inclined personality,but I knew what the NICU was for...sick babies.  One minute later, your daddy and nurse Carol were joined by 5 different other people.  Just the amount of bodies in the room made me nervous and uncomfortable.  Did I mention that I was doing a lot of crying? 

 

The moment I realized that you were in legit danger is forever etched into my memory.  Calm and cool Carol looked at me with the most intense expression on her face and said something to the effect of "we need this baby to come out now...push with all you have...concentrate...no time...focus...you can do it...but hurry".  I cut the tears.  At this point, your little heart monitor did not have numbers on it anymore.  It had three little dashes.  I could feel the seriousness and I was going to get you OUT!  2 pushes...in RUNS my doctor...super surprised by how fast I progressed.  4 more pushes...you were here.............................

 

 6 pushes....James, it took me an hour and a half to push your brother out.  I have no words for the feeling that came over me when I heard you cry.  The best word I can muster is THANKFUL.  Your daddy and I did a lot of praying when things started going down hill and I was just so thankful that you were here.  All that blood around your neck was from your silly umbilical cord.  That was the problem and the reason your heart rate started dropping.  It was wrapped rather tight, so it had to be cut rather than pulled off.  Your sweet daddy was so happy, too!  He just kept saying "he is here, Erin!  He's here!"  Just look at this picture....................

 

You can still see my tear stained face and the joy I felt when they let me hold you.  They just put you on me all bloody and slimy.  It was gross.  I'm not going to lie :) 

 

 You were born at 4:31 in the afternoon!  That's 1 am to 4:30 pm...that's 15 hours of labor.  Far better than your brother's 27 hours!!!!!!!!  When I held you for the first time, I thought you were so little.  I told your daddy I thought you were a 6 pounder.  I was a little off.  They were wrong about you being a biggin'.  You weighed a little less than your brother at 7 pounds and 10 ounces.  You were a little longer than him though.  A whopping 21 inches :)

 

 I have looked better in my days, but here is your first pic with your mom and dad. 

 

 Your daddy was soooooooooooo happy to hold you for the first time.  I hogged you at first, but I decided to share.  Once things calmed down, I had a minute to think.  While the induction was obviously not necessary, it was a blessing.  I had decided that if I went into labor naturally that I was going to labor at home as much as possible.  Had I done that we never would had known that you were in trouble.  Being at the hospital let us see that some measures were going to have to be taken to make sure you came out safely.  God orchestrates things in amazing ways.

 

Here are some highlights of what happened after you were born:

 

 Your big brother came to meet you!  Man was he happy.  His shirt says "Big Brother on Duty".  He takes his job very seriously!

 

 

 You were given your first bath...in the room!  When Nolan was born, they took him to the nursery to bathe him and I never got to see anything.  As you can see, you were not a fan.

 

As I am typing this post, you are two and a half weeks old.  This outfit doesn't fit :(  Stop growing so fast!!!

 

 Snug as a bug in a rug!!!!!!

 

 

 See those two old people, James Patrick???  That's your Grandma Patti and your PawPaw Jim.  You were named after these two people.  They love you more than any two old people could!

 

Being born on a Tuesday means that you should have been able to come home on Thursday.  Well, do you see how you're a little...well...orange/yellow???

 

 

Your jaundice levels went up due to our different blood types and the bruising on your face due to the umbilical cord.  The nurse let me know that you would have to stay to be put under the lights.  She also let us know that they were going to let us stay the night so that we wouldn't have to go home and leave you there.  What I didn't understand was that they were going to leave you in OUR room and not the nursery.  She wheeled this thing in.......................

 

 

 and showed us what it did and how to use it.  Overwhelmed does not described how I felt.  At about this time, your Grandma and brother came to give us some late dinner and say good night.  I was sad that I wouldn't be at home with you and your brother and scared by everything the nurse said about the machine.  As soon as everyone left and it was just me and your daddy, I broke down.  I cried and cried and sobbed and sobbed.  Seeing you like this broke my heart.............

 

 

Those little goggle things stressed me out!!!  Apparently, this machine is no big deal.  It can just cause BLINDNESS!!! What?!?!?!?  My job was to make sure that they stayed on your face.  Of course, every time you moved they shifted.  So, I stayed up....ALLLLLLL NIGHT to protect your little eyes.  Your welcome :)  The plan was for you to be under the lights all Thursday night and then they would re check you at 6 in the morning.  I was soooo ready to go home and they assured me that you would pass the test.  You can imagine my disappointment when they told me that your levels had not gone down enough to go home.  We had to stay until noon to test you again. Unfortunately, your Granddad had to have heart surgery that day and your daddy wanted to be there with him.  So, daddy left and Grandma came to stay with us.  I was so nervous and ancy waiting for your new test to be done.  They came back to check you at noon and when that nurse came to tell us that you passed I jumped for joy.  Happy, happy, happy!!!  Here I am telling you that we get to go HOME!!!!!!!!!!.....................

 

 Because your daddy was with his daddy, your Grandma drove us home from the hospital.  We loaded up and slapped some clothes on you so fast that I think you got whip lash :)  As we were headed out the door, guess who we ran into????  Daddy!  He didn't want to miss his little man leaving the hospital.  Here he is carrying you to Grandma's car........................

 

When we got home, he told me that he just couldn't imagine missing his son being released.  We worried about you so much while in the hospital and he was jumping for joy just like me! 

 

I hope you like your story, James Patrick.  Just know that I am picking this blog back up just for you.  Your brother has his entire first year of life documented and I want you to have the same.  You are the final piece to our family puzzle and we love you to the moon and back :)