The Day Our Little Guy Was Born: Part II

We left off before and our little guy had just entered the world.  The nurses set him on my chest and I got to hold him for the first time.

He was perfect. 

Ten fingers, ten toes--they were all accounted for.  His arms and legs were a little blue, which of course I was concerned about, but the nurse assured me he was just fine.  He was crying really well and the rest of him was as chubby and as pink as could be.

And he had a head full of hair.

Blond hair!!!

That probably was the most shocking part--at least for me.  He had blond hair.  In all my imaginings of what he would look like, never did he have blond hair.  When Peanut was born, she too, had a head full of hair.  Dark hair, just like her daddy's.  Then as she got older her hair lightened up. 

Hubs and I both had very similar dishwater blond hair as young children and our hair has darkened as we have gotten older.  Hubs is nearly black and mine is probably a medium brown (with a sprinkling of gray.....why no, this blond hair is not natural--it's completely out of a bottle).  All that to say, I just assumed that our little guy's hair would be dark too, just like ours and his big sister's. 

And speaking of hair--our little man is hairy little guy!  He has a thick little layer of peach fuzz all over his body and his sweet little ears?   They are little elf ears.  He has little tufts of hair on each of his ears.  I've never seen that before on a newborn--but this mama thinks it is pretty darn cute!

The nurses weighed him and measured him and we were all a bit shocked at how sturdy our little guy was.  He measured in at 9 pounds, 9 ounces and 21 inches tall.  Wow!   They gave him his bath and once again he got to snuggle with his mama.  He nursed like a champ the very first time (and he still continues to!), so that has been a huge blessing! 

Everything seemed to be fine for that first day.  He was born late Saturday afternoon and despite us not getting much sleep that night, things seemed to be going fine overall.  The pediatrician stopped by and he passed his first little check up--the midwife stopped by and things were going well for me too.

Then late Sunday afternoon are when things started to get hard. 

But lets back up for a moment.  Several weeks before I delivered, I was given the GBS Strep test and found out that I was positive this time around.  It's strange (although completely normal!), because I was negative with the Peanut.  Anyhow, this means that they had to treat me with intravenous antibiotics during my labor and delivery of our little guy.  My labor went really fast this time, so I was only on the antibiotics for about two hours.  Ideally, they want you to be on the antibiotics for at least four hours in order to insure that this GBS Strep is not passed onto baby.

They ran a test/culture on our little guy several hours after he was born and they continue to watch the culture for 48 hours after birth to insure he didn't have the GBS Strep.  The culture seemed to be doing fine, however he had/has an elevated respiratory rate and they were concerned, as this is often a symptom of the GBS Strep being passed on to the baby. 

So they put him on his own round of antibiotics.

Which meant that he had to have an IV.  They took him out of the room to have his IV inserted--Daddy went with him.  Mommy stayed in the room and cried--postpartum anyone?  While they were gone, another nurse came in and told me about the two different rounds of antibiotics they were going to put him on.  One was to be administered every 8 hours, the other every 12 hours.  She then told me that I needed to be my son's advocate and be aware that the 12 hour antibiotic is known to cause deafness in babies if not administered correctly.  This meant that I needed to make sure when the nurses came in to administer the medication, that a pump was used to administer this certain antibiotic, as it shouldn't be administered by hand.

Um, okay.  This is not what a stressed out Mama wanted to hear.

In addition, while Hubs and our little guy were gone getting the IV inserted, another nurse came in and told me that his bilirubin levels were a lot higher than they would like to have seen, so he needed to spend all night under the blue lights.

Talk about break your heart because all you want to do is hold your newborn and all your newborn wants is to be held.  Not really possible under the blue lights. 

He doesn't understand why he can't be held, why this eye shield keeps getting put on him, and why he can't be close to mommy or daddy.  Not to mention the fact that he has an IV in his tiny little arm that is taped on so tight and so firmly (with a cardboard piece beneath it, so he can't bend his arm) that his little arm is bright pink and irritated from all the tape.

That and then the nurses keep coming back every eight hours to administer more antibiotics in his arm.  And that seems to be painful in and of itself for our little guy.

It was a rough twelve hours to say the least.

As they say though, it is always darkest before the dawn.  Which was both figurative and literal in our case, as he was under the lights from about five in the afternoon until about seven the following morning.  The nurse came in that morning and tested his bilirubin levels and they had dropped dramatically--Praise the Lord!  No more blue lights--meaning, we got to hold our little guy to our hearts content! 

I was discharged that Monday morning, however our little guy wasn't.  Of course we weren't going anywhere without our son, so we got to stay in the room just like we had been.  It basically meant the nurses were no longer monitoring me--they were just monitoring our baby boy.

The initial culture for the GBS Strep in our little guy had been monitored for more than 48 hours as of Tuesday morning.  And it was still negative--Praise the Lord once again!  Meaning no more rounds of antibiotics and the IV got to come out!!!!!  So, so grateful for that!

However, even with his treatment of antibiotics, they were still concerned with his elevated respiratory rate.  Most newborns take anywhere from 20-60 breaths per minute and our little guy was consistently at around 70-80 breaths per minute.  So they decided to run an echocardiogram on him before we went home.   Although a little stressful, it went just fine and the results were good as well.  (This is despite the fact that they told us we would have the results later that day and we didn't end up getting them until late Friday morning.)  In the end though, his heart was just as it should have been, so no reason to be worried. 

It was a lot rougher start than either Hubs or I expected, but we are so grateful that we are all home now settling into our family of four.  It was an incredibly stressful 72 hours at the hospital--but that is probably more on me than anyone. 

I am a control freak.  And all of these circumstances were way beyond my control--and if I can't control things? 

I worry. 

BIG time. 

And we certainly prayed for our little guy......but I still worry.  I know I not supposed to.  I am supposed to give it all to God and let Him carry our burdens.  And I try.  I really do.  But then I worry some more.  And then I give it back to Him and start the process all over again. 

Thank goodness He isn't done with me yet.  But enough about me. 

And our little guy?  Hubs and Peanut just love him to pieces. 

And me?

He has completely stolen my heart.