Noah has Arrived!

A week ago Monday, Jill went home early from work with really intense back pains. She had similar pains last month and the heating pad and massage pad did the trick. But this time the pain just kept getting stronger with no breaks. This led to vomiting, which led to her calling me to come home early, and progressed to us heading to the hospital to figure out what was going on. Jill was really not enjoying the drive at all. So fast forward a few hours - We were in the women's center triage room, nurses and doctors coming in and out, and Jill was writhing in pain. They put her on the monitors, poked and proded and asked lots of questions. After a full 1000ML of IV fluid the pain was finally subsiding a bit. Around this time she was also having occasional contractions. They diagnosed her as having a kidney infection which was causing all the back pain. They gave her a strong antibiotic in her IV and also gave her some pain meds. Everything was settling down and they told us that she would need to stay overnight for observation. The pains had now changed from back pains to contractions. The resident doctor was a bit concerned that the contractions were now a bit more regular and decided to check her out again. When we arrived they first evaluated her as being dilated to about a 1 and now she was about a 3.5-4 and about 70% effaced. And they noticed that it appeared that her water had broken. A quick test determined that we were indeed going to be moving over to the labor and delivery room instead of just staying overnight for observation! At this point things started to accelerate pretty quickly. The contractions were becoming much more regular and much stronger. Jill was now getting concerned that she would not be able to get the epidural she really wanted and sent me on a mission to find out what was going on. Soon, we changed rooms and nurses and the epidural was in place. Jill was now much calmer and not even noticing the contractions anymore. This girl loves her pain meds! The nurse was prepping the room for the delivery, made a quick assessment of Jill, and said, "I better go get the doctor right away!" It was about 11:30 PM and she was actually suggesting that he may be born before midnight since everything seemed to be progressing so quickly! The doctor on call (not Jill's OB/GYN but his colleague) was already at the hospital. He also made a quick assessment and said, "One or two good pushes is all you will need to do!" He was pretty much correct, I think Jill actually pushed 3 times. Little Noah was in a big hurry to be born. It was interesting to me that the doctor's and nurses were so calm and casual as the doctor unwrapped the cord from around his neck, suctioned out his airways, then nonchalantly unwrapped the cord a second time! I cut the cord then Noah was cleaned and evaluated for several minutes. They suctioned out 13CCs of fluid from his lungs. The NICU nurse also checked him out to make sure he was not struggling too much to breathe. They also checked his blood oxygen levels and his glucose levels to make sure that they were in the right range. He continued to be closely checked throughout the hospital stay and only needed one supplement of formula in order to boost his glucose. Noah also had to perform a car seat test to make sure that his blood oxygen levels would stay up while he is buckled-up. Apparently, early babies sometimes constrict their airways or blood flow since their neck muscles are underdeveloped. The next three days was spent trying to get the hang of breast feeding, checking mom and baby's vitals, trying to get lots of rest, and visiting with family and friends. We came home on Thursday then went back in for another bilirubin test on Friday and Saturday. They delivered a light bed on Saturday that Noah had to stay in all the time. Sunday his blood test showed that his levels were coming down and Monday's test showed that he had improved a lot and now could stay out of the bed for a day. Tuesday's test looked really good and he no longer needs the bed. That is everything so far, and probably way more detail than you wanted. Stay tuned for more excitement... Here are some more pictures.