Dean's Birth Story Pt. 2

January 19th, 10:58 pm

4lbs 9oz

18 inches

My nurse was right, I only ended up pushing a couple of times and he was out. It was a moment or two before we heard him cry out but when we did, both Ryon and I gave each other the biggest smile from across the room. The room was full of nurses because he was early and they anticipated he would need help breathing. They put him in my arms and I remember feeling like, did that really just happen? I was so happy and so drugged up.

The nurses then took him down to the nursery to get his breathing stabilized. While I waited for my blood pressure to come down and to get all stitched up. Recovery took a while for me because of the many drugs in my system. it took several days for swelling to go down and several weeks for my blood pressure to go back to normal.

Baby D. stayed in the NICU for 10 days while he learned to eat and started to gain weight. We took an entire week to decide his name which drove the NICU nurses a little crazy. Every time we came to the hospital and he had one less tube or wire attached to him was such a good feeling. Having a fresh new baby is such a magical thing. I remember just sitting and staring at him for hours on end in disbelief that I had a perfect little baby in my arms. They originally told us he could be in the NICU for 6 weeks, but on about day 8 the nurses were hopeful he would be able to come home soon. We were shocked when we arrived at the hospital on Sunday (day 10 in the NICU) after church and the nurses said "are you ready to take him home?" in all seriousness I said, "No!". We hadn't set up the crib or purchased a bassinet or diapers! And while we had bought the car seat, I had not even opened the box. I hadn't had my baby shower yet so we were still missing a lot of essentials. We went home, set up the crib, bought some diapers, put the car seat in the car, and drove to the hospital to pick up our baby and bring him home.