Complications

Almost immediately after James was born, they took him away and sent him to the "nursery." I'm not sure why they call it the "nursery" instead of the NICU. Nursery sounds better, but the name is misleading. James started out in the level 1 nursery which is less intense, but was moved to the level 2 nursery which is more serious. James was never able to be in our room with us or leave the nursery during our hospital stay. They eventually took the little crib out of our room because he would never be with us. This was good for sleeping at night, but bad for my emotions.

He faced some problems that are outlined below... 

Breathing
James was early and I think this helps explain why he struggled with breathing. I wasn't allowed to hold James while they figured out what was going on which was basically the entire first day. This was extremely hard and being hormonal, I shed lots of tears throughout our hospital stay. Our pediatrician called a specialist to get help with how to help treat James.

They decided to have James use a CPAP to help his breathing. It was heartbreaking to see James hooked up to this. 

Infection?
They decided to to start James on medicine for an infection because apparently his symptoms could have been a sign of that? The details are a bit foggy, so it's good I didn't wait even longer to write this.

There was a certain number of doses that James had to complete before going home. Once you start the antibiotics, you can't stop them. They figured out it wasn't an infection after some testing, but they had already started the antibiotics and had to continue them.

Glucose Levels
For a while, James' glucose levels were pretty low and the doctors were concerned about them. Every time I fed James, they had to prick his foot and test his blood to see where his levels were at. This was NOT fun for me to watch. To help boost his levels, we mixed some formula with some of my pumped collesterum. I did NOT want James to be bottle-fed because I heard that it's a nightmare to try to breastfeed after that. They suggested using a tube (under a nipple shield) on my breast, so he still kind of had to suck. Luckily we only had to do the tube for a couple of feedings and then his levels were fine. The pricking lasted through Saturday morning though and felt like forever.

On Saturday, I was discharged from the hospital. Saturday was probably the hardest day for me. I had a really hard time with the nurse working in the nursery with James that day. She kept lots of information from us and didn't explain what was going on well at all. We were supposed to know by 12:30 if James was going to be discharged with me as well, but we didn't find out until around 2:30 that he wasn't going to get to leave. Luckily the hospital let us "board" in our same hospital room Saturday evening for only $35, so we didn't have to drive back and forth to the hospital all night.

Jaundice
As if we needed another complication...! We found out that James had jaundice on Saturday and so they started him on treatment under the lights at the hospital. I believe this is the main reason he had to stay in the hospital longer, but I'm not sure? (It's all kind of a blur. Or maybe I intentionally blocked some of these bad memories out of my head.)

This picture doesn't show his arms in the sleeves and isn't velcroed shut. 

Can you see that he peed all over the bed? 

James was finally able to be released on Sunday and we were so excited. 

The outfit James wore home.

However, his jaundice was still bad enough that we had to be sent home with lights and a blanket. At first I didn't think this would be a big deal, but it was. They wanted him under the lights in our house ALL THE TIME except when he was eating. James hated having his eyes coved, his arms in sleeves sticking up, a blanket/tube between his legs, and being Velcroed shut. Can you blame him? Neither of us got much sleep that night because all of his gear kept falling off.

The next week we had to take James into the hospital 5x to have his bilirubin levels checked. It was NOT fun to say the least. It was especially hard when we were told he could be off the lights only to hear a few days later to put him back on. Poor little guy had cuts/sores on his feet from kicking through his uncomfortable outfit. (I also had to add a new complication to breastfeeding which was keeping the blanket and tube on him while he ate which was tricky. It did help improve his levels though to have him constantly under lights.)

Andrew was the best during all of this. When I was an emotional mess, he was there to help me through it all. He walked with me to the "nursery" all night for each feeding. He also gave James his first blessing with my dad which of course I cried through.

I am so glad all of this is over and that we can snuggle our little guy whenever we want. It sure was a rough first week and a half of life, but things have just gone uphill since then. (thank heavens!)

James Kenneth Ditto

Welcome to the world James Kenneth Ditto! 

What a crazy almost 4 weeks it has been! (I started writing this post over 2 weeks ago!) Labor all started 2 and a half weeks earlier than planned at 2:15am on Thursday, March 16th. I woke up and thought I was peeing my pants. I was embarrassed and thought I had reached a new low. Yes, I on average was going to the bathroom numerous times a night, but I didn't think my pee was out of control. Then I realized that it wasn't pee... my water broke! When I woke Andrew up, he didn't believe me. After all, there wasn't any sign of water on our sheets. As soon as I stood up, it all came gushing out. It was not just a little bit of water either. Side note: my Mom's water never broke and so I thought mine wouldn't. Also, thank heavens it didn't break at school. That would have been my worst nightmare.

We were kind of frantic. Our hospital bags weren't quite ready. (Although, the night before I kept having this feeling to finish packing my hospital bag.) In fact, I even went to the store and got a few items that I needed for the hospital. I quickly changed my soaking pants only to soak another pair and we were off to the hospital. (I brought a towel in the car so I wouldn't ruin my seat.)

This next part surprised me... When we got to labor and delivery the two nurses didn't seem to believe me when I told them that my water broke. "You're only 36 weeks and 3 days, oh..." They didn't need much convincing after checking my cervix and lots more water came gushing out. They quickly admitted me and soon Andrew and I found ourselves in a large labor room.

The nurses kept telling me to sleep... as if that was going to happen... I ended up watching T.V. I wasn't having any contractions when we arrived at the hospital, so they immediately gave me petocin. (something I wasn't thrilled about.) Andrew was able to sleep of course. He can sleep through everything. I finally woke him up and told him I wasn't going through these contractions alone. The pain and frequency started to increase and I asked for an epidural.

The anesthesiologist had to go to a C section, so they told me I would have to wait an hour and a half for the epidural or have it soon. I decided to go with sooner rather than later and boy am I glad that I did. I was told that after I was given the epidural, I would feel pain relief within 5-10 minutes. This was not the case with me. In fact, my pain continued to increase and they had to call the anesthesiologist to come back in after about an hour. He gave me another zap of medication and wasn't thrilled he had to come back. He grumbled as soon as he walked in, "I'm certain that I placed that epidural correctly and did nothing wrong. It's just because you're so tall that you can't feel it yet." I was numb only up to about my knees for sometime. It finally did kick in after he came in which was a relief. (I think I originally got my epidural around 6:30am and he came back around 7:30am.)

I think my labor progressed fairly quickly. In fact, the nurse kept leaving and taking forever to come back. She told me she would be right back and 45 minutes later she returned. She was shocked when I told her it felt like I needed to push and when she checked me I was dilated to a 10. I think James would have been born sooner if she had been in the room. Pushing took about an hour. It was exhausting. The nurse kept asking me if I wanted a break and my response would be, "am I close to being done?" I didn't end up taking a break because I wanted him out as soon as possible so I could be done pushing. James arrived at 12:45pm. One comment that upset me during this time made by the nurse was, "If you could put as much effort into pushing as you are into your facial expression that would help." Andrew later told me it looked like a blood vessel on my face was going to break.

Delivering the placenta was a breeze after that. I did need stitches and that part took much longer than I thought. I think they called my tearing a stage 2 out of 3, so it could have been worse, but could have been better. (Thank goodness he didn't wait until his due date to arrive because he probably would have been like 11 pounds!)

Speaking of Andrew... I was much nicer to him than I thought I would be during all of this. I had heard so many horror stories. I'm not saying I was chipper, but later we talked about it and he agreed that I wasn't really mean. Overall, labor went better than I thought it would. I was expecting the worst based on the way everyone talks about it. (But, I am definitely not in ANY rush to go through that again.)

The saddest and probably hardest part for me was right after James was born, they took him down to the "nursery" aka NICU. He was having trouble breathing. He ended up staying in the "nursery" the entire time we were at the hospital. I couldn't hold him the first night which was heartbreaking. I will go into his complications in another post. 

I can't believe I'm a mom. It has been far more challenging than I ever could have imagined, but it is getting easier as time passes. I have a whole new respect for mothers now that I've been one for almost 4 weeks. We are so thrilled to have James with us. He is as cute as I hoped he would be and he has the BEST dad in the universe.

Stay tuned for more.

His sleeping poses are comical.

He loves to sleep with his hands up. We joke that he will be a choir director.

8 pounds 12 ounces

19 inches

I survived. 

Chunky