And Baby Makes Three

It has been an intense couple of months!  I fully intend on updating the blog and will do it in three parts.  This blog entry will cover delivery, the next will cover the hospital, and the third will cover coming home and going back to the hospital!

After that, I hope I'll have more regular updates and pictures! 

So our original date for Kemper's delivery was November 18th.  We packed, we prepared, we got excited, and we took our dogs to the bather so they wouldn't be stinky when we got home. One of them was injured to the point of needing surgery.  I cried, worried, made arrangements for boarding and surgery and we left.  We got to our motel room and tried to settle in.  The excitement and uncertainty kept us from sleeping.  At least I want to say that's what it was, not the totally ghetto motel we picked sight unseen due to super cheap rates.  We actually didn't want to pull the covers down to sleep in the horribly uncomfortable bed.

We got to the hospital and after hours of waiting around the amniocentesis results came back 3 points shy of what they needed to be.  Bummer.  We packed up and came home.  Our families packed up and went home.  Brett's brother had to fly back to Oklahoma.  I waited to hear from the coordinator about what our next step would be.  She called the next morning and told us to be back at the hospital Monday morning, no amniocentesis, no waiting.  He would be delivered that day.

So, we went back up Sunday night and got a room at a different motel, twice the price, twice the comfort, and no fear of being mugged.  We did the same sleepless anticipation in a super comfy bed.  The next morning we had grins so big our cheeks hurt in between periods of anxiety and when we left the motel, Brett promptly backed the car right into a delivery truck.  To his credit, it's usually me that wrecks cars.  After we picked up the pieces of my tail light, it was hospital and baby bound!

The hospital was a beehive of activity.  There were a million people in and out introducing themselves, forms to be signed, needles stuck, blood work done, the first of many horrible hospital gowns worn, and finally at 2:17pm, we heard our baby cry.  Talk about a defining moment!  Brett and I both cried from joy and the power of hearing your child for the first time.  It was what I would describe as the moment everything else in my life has been leading up to.

Because of the lesion, the nurses took him into the next room while the doctor started putting me back together.  They did let Brett go in and see him, and he took a picture and brought it back for me to see.  He already had sterile dressings put over his back and I never saw the actual opening.  The picture was of a squishy, sqwooshy baby boy with tons of dark hair and little hands reaching up, face frozen in a cry.  Brett told me he was kicking, moving his feet and toes and that he was perfect. 

Just a few minutes old!

I didn't get to see him until about 9 that night, I was beyond anxious.  I pestered everyone about going to see him and was bargaining about what they wanted me to do first.  When they said I could go, the wheelchair couldn't get there fast enough.  Then Brett couldn't push it fast enough.  My feet tapped on the foot rests with anticipation.  The minute I had to scrub my hands and arms to enter the Intensive Care Nursery was torture.  Never mind I was in a hospital gown and fuzzy pink bunny slippers, swollen and loopy, I would have gotten up and used my IV pole to vault myself to Kemper's bedside at that point!!  Seeing Kemper was my singular thought.  The memory of it is hazy because of the medication, but I did deem Kemper "My Squishy" that very night.  He held fingers and made little noises and captured our hearts.  He was lying on his side at that point, seemed content and was just super cute from the word go.  I kept thinking, he doesn't look anything like that 4D ultrasound!  We only stayed an hour since my eyes wouldn't stay open despite strenuous effort on my part. I didn't see him again until after the closure surgery, and that will be in Part 2.