Don’t know where to begin….
I don’t really know where to begin. Most of my weekend (and what has been happening) exist over at codename: CAMPER-dot-com (registration required). On Friday morning our little boy (e.g. codename: CAMPER, name only available through his website or email) was born at 9:46. I’d taken Erin to Labor and Delivery somewhere around 2 a.m. having realized, earlier in the evening, that labor had started and that she was in some serious pain. When I could look at a piece of paper and a clock and say, “You’re about to start a contraction,” and then have her actually start a contraction was a bit of a tell.
While in the hospital, one of the nurses indicated that since she was not dilating and that they were going to call her doctor to see about giving her a cocktail of morphine and something else to stop the pain, relax the contractions, and send us home. What we didn’t know was that Erin’s doctor was going to have them give Erin something else, but only after checking the cervix one more time… this time she’d dilated and her water broke and the nurse (second one of the night) said, “You’re staying now.”
They brought in the anesthesiologist who put in the epidural and when it finally kicked in Erin was able to rest a bit (she never really knew when the contractions were happening) and by 9 a.m. she was ready to start pushing to deliver the baby. And, as you know, by 9:46 a.m. baby was born.
Pretty quickly, though, the nurses cleaning and doing the regular checks on baby found that he wasn’t doing as well and they called in a consult from the NICU. I went with baby, leaving Erin with her mom, and walked down the hall and through the doors into the NICU, which, incidentally, is one of the reasons we decided that this was the hospital to deliver baby in. Utah Valley Regional Medical Center has a helipad and an accessible NICU and was also the hospital Erin’s doctor is most closely associated with, is the place where the CAP Study was being handled, and was the place we felt the best about the possibilities that might exist and all of this before baby was really twelve weeks old and then six months, and etc.
What we never really considered (outside of the inane stupidity of having the defend our reasons to have baby at a particular hospital) that we would need any of the reasons we made the choice.
And when one of those reasons presents itself, the outcome was rather emotional and for a moment I wondered if I really had the emotional capacity to sit and watch our little son have a lot of things done that you (in this case me) as an individual have no power to assist in, no power to help, and no power to comfort. Couple with a very long and very stressful day (it started for me the day before at 7:30-8:00 a.m.) and all I could do was stand (and in some cases sit) back and watch as they took care of baby. It was not easy to watch what was happening and to know that Erin was a floor down and was trying to accomplish her own series of tasks just so she could be well enough to be wheeled upstairs.
I was sent home that afternoon to sleep for a few hours and then to come back to the hospital and sit with baby some more and then with Erin. I ended up sleeping (both nights) in the hospital. And catching some zzzz’s at home during the middle of the day.
Saturday evening, our bishop and home teacher showed up and because baby is in the NICU we asked if they would give him a blessing. Honestly, I would’ve participated more than just holding baby, but felt that I was too emotionally attached to what was going on to be able to get through the blessing without breaking down.
The past three days have been one of those times where you realize that what you are doing is really important and the outcomes of producing a child are more important than everything else. This little guys health is tantamount to everything else… or so it seems.
Granted, today life got to start again. I went to work (mostly to tell my boss that I wasn’t going to be back this week) and to go to class. Tomorrow is a full day and I will speak to my professores to let them know I won’t be there on Thursday because that’s the day baby comes home. But, with all that, we are excited to have him actually come home with us and we will be happy to not have to go to the NICU to see him, to hold him, and to feed him.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
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