I wouldn’t be a true blogger, I don’t think, if I didn’t blog at least once from my hospital bed. Most of the details of the last few days will be found on Camper’s Website (for those with access, sorry public, we are protecting our little boy from big bad internet wolves) I wanted to let everyone know what’s going on!
On Thursday afternoon I started contractions, Thursday evening they got bad. Somewhere are 2am I finally decided that a trip to labor and delivery was in order. I really, really didn’t want to present with false labor again, so I actually made John sit in the parking lot with me through two contractions (3 minutes apart at that point) to make sure it was really happening. We got signed in and it all began. I seriously have never een so overwhelmed in my life. I couldn’t explain what the pain felt like, but I know it was big, and felt bigger than me. On top of it all I had been a genious and eaten a load of junk food during the day which made matters worse. To add insult to injury, my contractions were real but it didn’t look like I was dilating much at all and the nurse was talking about giving me a shot of morphine and sending me home to see if I was still in pain when it wore off (what kind of plan is that??) Well, she called our doctor who said, “check her one more time.” I was later told that if I hadn’t of changed at all our doctor would have come in and broke my water herself, but when the nurse got about wrist deep in my cervix my water broke and the nurse said, “Well, you’re not going anywhere now.” There was a sudden fury of activity- lots of things came out and moods changed and I was soaked (as was the nurse who said that had never happened to her before, it was an amnoitic tidal wave that ran up her arm) and suddenly in a whole new world of pain. And vomiting. Fuuunnnn…but, with that, came permission for drugs. Real drugs, and before I knew it the harriest man I have ever seen was telling me to lean over the bed and administering the epidural which brought my body back to a peaceful state.
I think that was around 4:15….maybe? All I know is that I dozzed on and off, telling my Mom that I felt like a mermaid on land (no use of legs…) until about 8:30 when the nurse checked me and I was at a 9.5. By 9 am I was fully dialted and by 9:46? maybe? Camper was here. My Mom held one leg, John held the other, and I praised Emily in my head for being the best coxswain ever and making me push through those powers of ten back in my Scranton crew days- because I pushed with all my might and it seemed like he popped free in no time at all. Granter, we had a few issues. He was born with the cord around his neck, which was not cool, but he was broken free of that and I could hear him crying. We were quickly told that he was having a problem with his breathing, and he was handed to me for about 15 seconds and then wisked away to the NICU. And that’s when my heart broke for real for perhaps the first time in my entire life.
For the record, all signs indicate that he simply has an infection, probably something that I had the last week of my pregnancy or just something he just go, and he will be just fine. In the meantime though we are left with a lot of waiting. Waiting to hold him for the first time (which we did today) waiting for them to decide when they can decide when he might be able to go home. Waiting for three hours to pass so that I can pump again and try to provide even just a few drops of colostrum for him. Waiting for my milk to come in so I don’t feel so fruitless and helpless. Just a lot of waiting.
I will go home tomorrow, most likely, which is some ways is a relief and in some ways makes me want to cry. I will leave this hospital without my baby, and he will be here with the nurses in the NICU. Funny enough we chose this hospital for the NICU, even telling ourselves “not that we’ll need it, but it’s nice that it’s right there.” Well, we did need it, and I have to say I have loved every nurse we’ve had since we’ve been here (with the exception of the one who wanted to send me home back pre-epidural) and the care has been excellent. I trust these people with my Camper, but it doesn’t make it any easier to not have that perfect time in the middle of the night when I hold him and feed him and where John and I can cuddle all together in our little hospital bed and the time where I dress him in his little clothes and we walk out the door all together. We will have a different experience, and I’m trying, so hard, to be ok with that. But I’m not, and I’m not even going to lie. I cry. In between up and peaceful times, I have really, really sad times. It helps that my Mom is here and has gone through this exact experience with Jonathan, but what’s hard is that no amount of empathy or sympathy can make me less desperate to hold my baby and feed him and bring him home.
But let’s look at it this way, he is doing better. He is responding to treatment, and he should be able to go home within a week. The tubes and things that look so horrible and make him so mad are not life-sustaining, they just help him out a little, and really, he’s quite healthy. And big (8 lbs. 11 oz.) and strong. Very, amazingly, scarily strong. He’s beautiful and ours, and will be just fine. He’s in a good place, and I’m so grateful to have my Mom here to help John and me. In a situation like this a girl really needs her Mom, and I’m overwhelmed that mine is able to be here with me.
John is an amazing Dad. He just loves Camper so naturally and completely that I actually felt a little jealous that he could love someone else besides me so much. And my baby is amazing. He is going to be quite the riot to have around, as soon as we get him off the machines and he’s not so cranky. He lets us know exactly how he feels about what and I just think about his face and his smell and his noises all the time.
I think my only fear now is that whatever I’ve been going through for the last few months is somehow in him, that my mystery sickness is affecting him and we don’t know how, and that it’ll be a long road to recovery. But I just need to be strong for my son, and have faith that he’ll be completely well and in our arms and home someday soon. Keep him in your prayers and I’ll try to let that fear of mine go.
I’m a little overhwhelmed with my blessings and burdens right now, but we’ll be fine. Thanks everyone who loves us so much and has already called or written or came and visited or just texted to say hello. We’ll be back in better touch with everyone soon, but right now we’re just concentrating on our little boy and his needs. Might be a rocky couple of days, but there is sweet in there with the sour, and I’m just grateful for my beautiful boy. (Did I tell you how amazing he is?)
