We're Home (Finally)!

Kimmie did such a good job of updating the blog while we were in the hospital. Thank goodness for that, because I definitely didn't plan to be there for 6 days!! When I went in Sunday night to start the induction process I figured Shim would be born the next afternoon and home by Tuesday or Wednesday. Things didn't exactly work out that way.

I checked into the hospital last Sunday afternoon. Earlier than I expected -- they totally ruined my pool time and called me in to start the induction! They did a bunch of medical things, which I won't talk about and Ben hung out and watched TV with me until about 9:15. I was tired and knew I would be getting an ambien to help me sleep and figured he needed to come home to get a good night's rest since he probably wouldn't sleep too well the next few nights.

Early Monday morning, they came in and woke me up and did a few more medical procedures which are gross and disgusting and I don't like to talk about. They started me on a pitocin drip about 7:00 a.m. and Ben, Mom , and Kimmie came in to join me shortly afterwards. My contractions started pretty quickly and by about 10:00 I was begging for my epidural. Things progressed fairly quickly and I was in active labor by about 4:30 that afternoon. I was scared to death and it wasn't easy, but I ended up pushing for about 2 hours before the doctors finally decided that my little Shim was stuck and I wasn't likely to push him out the old fashioned way. When they told me this, of course I was upset but I knew that this was what was best for me and for Shim. I cried and cried and was sacred out of my mind. Ben quickly got his scrubs on and by some miracle, something was said about having someone else in the delivery room with me and our nice anaesthesiologist allowed Mom to put on a set of scrubs and come in the room too!

Jackson Wyatt Longmire was born at 7:46 PM! He came out looking healthy and crying (and that was the most reassuring sound in the world) but unfortunately his right leg was completely white. He was kicking and moving it but it looked like there could be a circulation problem so the NICU team decided to take him to the transition nursery for observation. Of course I was worried sick and cried more, but was glad that he was being well taken care of. Mom and I went to recovery while Ben followed Wyatt (the fetus formerly known as Shim) to the NICU.

I'm not sure what time they got me to my room, but I was a mess. I was worried about Wyatt and upset that I had only met him for a second before they transferred him away. They did eventually admit him to the NICU and Ben got to go in and hold him for a while at about 12:00 that night. That made me feel much better and Ben kept bringing in positive reports each time he saw Wyatt. I finally got to go down and meet him at about 10am on Tuesday.

Honestly, everything else for the next couple of days is all a big blur. I just know that I was sore and tired and didn't even shower until Wednesday morning (gross). Even then I had a pretty hard time getting out of bed and walking around, I spent most of the days traveling back and forth from my room to the NICU to feed Wyatt. As it turns out, the color in his leg was fully restored a few hours after birth but once he was admitted to the NICU they had to keep him and run several tests to rule out the possibility of any heart or circulatory problems or infection. I hated seeing my baby boy with IV's in his arms (and even in his head at one point) and hooked up to all those monitors but at least spent the week confident that he was healthy and it was just a matter of time before he was released. Sure enough, they released him to my room late Thursday afternoon and we were finally able to check out and come home late Friday afternoon.

Now that we are home, we are just trying to get settled. And I've only had 2 or 3 little breakdowns. I'm sure there are more to come though. Wyatt is doing great so far -- he is a good little eater and sleeper (I hope that continues) and just as sweet as he can be. Ben and I took him to see his Pediatrician this morning and he got a clean bill of health so I guess so far we're doing things right. I do have to admit that we're having a little problem with the whole "little boy" thing. Wyatt has been through 3 outfits today, and peed all over himself, my sister, and my mom! If anyone has any tricks to prevent the rouge urine, please sent them my way! (I've heard the peepee teepe doesn't work all that well?)

I will eventually get all my pictures uploaded to flickr but for now I'll leave you with this one taken this morning! We're totally biased but Ben and I both think he's pretty darn cute!