Baby Hayes has arrived!!!!!

Sorry to all of you who have been checking back for an update on our day. Things have gone a little differently than planned. We started out the morning at 4 am in order to shower and get ready to go to the hospital. We headed up and arrived at 5:30. The first thing I did was change into my hospital gown and a nurse came in to get an IV going. She stuck my left arm (the side of my wrist) with lidocaine and then tried and failed to stick the needle in my arm. Now, I'm not sure about anyone else but I'm pretty sure that when they are sticking your arm or hand it is absolutely pointless to use lidocaine to numb the area first. The lidocaine hurts! You're either going to feel pain from the lidocaine or pain from the IV so....what's the point?! Anyway, like I said, she tried and failed to stick me. She moved down to my left hand, again starting with the lidocaine. Unfortunately, the lidocaine not only hurt but didn't numb my skin so I felt the IV stick as well. Again, she stuck the needle through the vein and had to pull it out. At this point she called in a different nurse to try on my other arm. This nurse didn't use lidocaine (probably because it's pointless!) but as she attempted to stick my arm with the IV needle it wouldn't go in. She exclaimed, "Wow! Either this is a really dull needle or you have really tough skin!" Meanwhile she pushed harder and the needle finally went in at a snail's pace. That one hurt! So 3 sticks later my IV was up and running. After filling out a ton of paperwork the anesthesiologist came in. I told him about my previous experience with Maddie's c-section. For her I had an epidural and for Hayes I had a spinal so I wondered if my reaction would be the same. I told him about the throwing up, the horrible shakes, and the general out-of-it ness (sorry for the lack of eloquence. It's been a long day!)that I experienced with Maddie's c-section and he said that those are all common side effects and that they might happen again. Great. So, all to quickly the two hours of prep time flew by and it was time for my surgery. I was extremely nervous!!!!! They walked Ben and I back to the operating room and while he waited outside I sat myself on the table. As I hunched over the anesthesiologist gave me a shot of lidocaine. He then inserted the spinal needle and the only thing I could feel was a bit of pressure and some bubblyness (it's hard to explain) as he inserted the medication. He then gave me another shot of lidocaine and inserted another spinal needle. This time I felt a lot of pressure and a lot of pinching in my back. I indicated to him that that hurt and he promptly stopped, gave me some more lidocaine (which I barely felt) and inserted another spinal needle. This time I felt just a tiny bit of pressure. At that point he indicated that he was done and that it was a little bit more difficult because my back has a little bit of a curve to it. My anesthesiologist with Maddie said the same thing. By then my feet were starting to tingle and go numb so they laid me down on the table and got me hooked up to whatever monitors I was hooked up to. A few minutes later the lower 3/4 of my body were numb (horrible feeling!) and they began the surgery. By this time Ben had come in and was sitting at my head. I'm not sure what time they started but Ben said that it took about 6 minutes from the time they cut me to the time little Hayes was out. He was born at 7:58 this morning. They briefly showed him to me. Just enough for me to tell that he looked like a plump, healthy baby. Then they took him over to a little table and started doing whatever it is they do over there. They ended up having to give him oxygen because he wasn't breathing very well on his own. They gave him his shots and weighed and measured him. My doctor has talked about a study that was done that showed that between an ultrasound's measurements, the doctor's predictions, and the mother's predictions, the mother's predictions about the baby's size were most often right. I guessed he would weight 7lbs 2oz and he came out to 7lbs 3oz. Pretty cool. He is 19 inches long so he is 1/2 inch shorter and 5oz lighter than Maddie was. As I said in my last post I was expecting to get to hold baby Hayes in the operating room but after being in there for an hour I was all stitched up and they were still administering oxygen to him. They wheeled me to the recovery area which was just a little space right off of the operating room. There they checked my vitals and bleeding. After a few minutes there Ben came out of the operating room holding Hayes and brought him over to me with instructions that I was only to hold him for a minute because he was not breathing well and they needed to check him out some more. I literally held him for about 40 seconds. Just long enough to give him a couple kisses. Ben took him back to the pediatrician and together they took Hayes to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). My mom came into recovery with me after a few minutes and thank heavens she did! I was getting so lonely without my husband or baby! After being there for an hour Ben came back (without Hayes) and we all went up to my postpartum room. Hayes wasn't breathing well enough on his own because he had a lot of fluid in his lungs so they put him on a C-PAP which is a device that goes in his nose and forces oxygen into his lungs. They wanted to keep that on him for 4 hours and then see how he was doing. Ben went home and picked up Maddie (my little brother Tom had stayed there with her) and brought her up to the hospital. Because Hayes was in the NICU Maddie wasn't able to hold or see him which she was a bit bummed about. Once Maddie was in the room with me and settled down watching tv Ben went back down to the NICU to check on Hayes. Because he had the tubes in his nose, a tube in his throat (to suck out any air that went into his tummy), and an IV in he wasn't able to hold him but reported that they still didn't know much. The pediatrician (bless his heart! He came in on his day off to care for little Hayes all day) was a bit perplexed as to why this was happening since Hayes is a full term baby. He indicated that they were going to keep him on the monitor and watch him and that we would know more by about 4:00 when they were planning on doing a 2nd set of x-rays to see if the C-PAP had cleared any of the excessive amounts of fluid out of his lungs. Around 2:00 my spinal finally wore off and I was able to get up and go see him. He had so much stuff hooked up to him that I couldn't even see his little face. The C-PAP was stuck up his nose and strapped to his face, he had a hat on, and he was sucking on a huge pacifier. All I could do was hold my little baby's hand as he slept. I haven't cried so much in a long time! After visiting with him for about 30 minutes I headed back up to my room to wait for more news. At 4:30 the pediatrician came in and said that after taking another x-ray it was apparent that Hayes wasn't doing any better. He (his name is Dr. Schneider, by the way) wanted to intubate him and put some surfactnat in his lungs - something the baby should have been producing on his own for the past couple weeks. He also wanted to put a little catheder in an artery in his umbilical cord so that they wouldn't have to keep sticking his little heel everytime they wanted to check him. He felt that from start to finish this would all take a couple hours. So, we waited. Around 7:45 Dr. Schneider finally came in and let us know that everything had gone well. They had just put the surfactant in his lungs and would know within 12 hours if he needed another dose. He said that his blood vessels are very, very small and that this probably prevented him from getting much oxygen the past little while (that would probably explain the inactivity the past few weeks!)I asked if the lack of oxygen could cause problems later, as far as any learning disabilities or anything and he Dr. Schneider said no, that mentally he should be just fine. My mom came up to the hospital to sit with Maddie so that Ben and I could go down to the NICU together. We spent about an hour down there touching and stroking our little baby. He has two tubes down his throat. He is on a ventilator so one of the tubes goes into his lungs. The other tube goes into his stomach and suctions out air that gets pushed down there. It looks as though they cut his umbilical cord as short as it would go then cauterized it. There are stitches in it and I'm thinking that they are just holding the catheder in place. He still has an IV in his hand for antibiotics and other fluids and he has a little sensor wrapped around his foot to meaure his oxygen levels. The nurse stated that he is doing really well. He is very feisty, which she said is bad for her but good for him. The ventilator is only on 25% and room air is considered 21% however, it's not as simple as taking him off the ventilator when he reaches 21%. Dr. Schneider said that they will definitely not go from ventilator to room air. They will put him back on the C-PAP for a little bit before taking him off everything completely. He doesn't want to keep him on the ventilator any longer than absolutely necessary because it can damage the lungs and cause problems, such as asthma, later on. He was planning on doing more blood tests at 10:30 tonight and if the results of that looked good he would go ahead and extubate him. He felt that Hayes would not need another round of surfactnat but that if he did we would know by about 8:00 tomorrow morning. If he extubates him tonight and he ends up needing more surfactant in the morning they would have to intubate him again which he doesn't want to do so that is the only reason that he is a little apprehensive to go ahead and get him off the ventilator. He said he will be back around 9:30 tomorrow morning to let us know what is going on. I'm sure I'll be down in the NICU visiting Hayes before then so I should know a little better how he is doing first thing in the morning. As soon as he is breathing room air they will be able to take the tube out of his stomach and the catheder out of his umbilical cord and we will finally be able to hold our baby. He is on antibiotics right now, just for precaution, so even if his breathing stabelizes he will have to stay in the NICU until he has finished his antibiotics on Sunday afternoon. (Giving birth and then not having a baby to hold just feels wrong!) Ben and Maddie will be back up here as soon as they get up tomorrow. Maddie has been so good! She was here with us in my postpartum room for about 12 hours today and with the exception of a little excitement when my mom came to visit she has been so quiet and kept herself very busy. The poor thing still hasn't even seen her baby brother. She is very anxious to meet him!

Anyway, I think I remembered everything. It has been a very long day. I have been up for about 18 1/2 hours now so I'm going to try to get some rest. Thank you to everyone who has expressed their concern and offered their prayers. I will probably write again tomorrow night to let everyone know how he doing.

P.S. We thought Maddie looked just like Ben when she was born but she had nothing on little Hayes! I think we figured out that Maddie looks a lot like Ben does now but Hayes looks identical to Ben when Ben was a baby. It's a little strange carrying your husband's twin inside you for 9 months. Maybe Hayes will have my toes like Maddie does. We know he definately didn't inherit Ben's flat feet!

Oh, by the way, incase anyone was wondering how I am doing, I am recovering very well so far. I'm in a little pain but that's to be expected after surgery. I have been out of bed now for about 4 1/2 hours. It feels really good to be up and walking around. The nurses are impressed with my mobility but I have to say that my discomfort is the last thing on my mind right now. I was planning on trying to go home Sunday night but Ben and I have decided that it would probably be best for me to stay until Monday afternoon. Hopefully Hayes will be released from the NICU by then. Even if they release him Sunday afternoon we would like to be here as long as we can so that if anything goes wrong we are right here where he will get the best care he can as quickly as he can.

Here are a few pictures from the day. Neither one of us have held him for more than a minute so there are just a few.

Here's Ben all dressed up in his scrubs before we went back for surgery. I think it's funny that he's holding my IV bag.


Here's baby Hayes right after he came out of my belly. His skin was nice and pink but he wasn't breathing very well on his own.


Here's our little man with the least of what he has been hooked up to today.


Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers! I'll do my best to keep everyone posted.