Sunday, January 13, 2013

24th of July Celebration

We went to Trenton for their annual 24th of July celebration. I am so grateful that it was overcast and much cooler then it could have been. Here are some of the fun things that we did:
There are not many parades that hand out Gossner milk in place of candy

Zipline




All the girls got feathers put in our hair



Firetruck foam


Welcome Home

Madison loves her baby brother!


Holding baby for the first time
Madison borrowed an outfit from Corbin for her monkey
Strapped up for the ride home

We were so excited when we got to bring Corbin home. The girls had a really tough time knowing they had a baby but they were not able to see him for the first week of his life. After that they only seen him through a window a couple of times for a few seconds when we found a nurse nice enough to unplug all the cords. Madison even tried sneaking into the NICU a few times and rationalizing why she really could be in there.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Hospital Pictures

 The binki took up half of his head
 I love this. He looks so sweet and innocent.
 The nurse was afraid to let us see him with an IV in his head.


Nazi Nurse

     I decided that Nazi Nurse deserved a whole post to herself. I loved almost all of our nurses! Spending that much time with them while hoovering over my child was very educational and interesting experience. But why oh why did I have to get HER on one of the most important days of  my life. It is a small world and I ended up knowing a lot of people who worked in the NICU or I knew people who knew one of the nurses and whenever I mentioned about Nazi nurse (keeping her name completely confidential) everyone still knew who I was talking about.
    Finally the day dawned when I might be able to hold Corbin for the first time. I had to go up to my room for a little while and I ended up getting trapped by the pump man. As he spent his time explaining how the electronic contraption worked the time ticked away and my favorite nurse went home and a new nurse took charge. The doctors had finally taken the line out of Corbin's belly button so I could now hold him. I told the nurse that I was ready to hold him. She wouldn't let me. It was not on one of his scheduled feeding times so I had to wait a couple of hours. Not something you tell a hormonal woman about her baby she had been dying to hold. I told her that I was told I could as soon as the line came out. And then her question that will be forever ingrained in my mind "You don't want to hold him now do you?" I can't believe that seriously came out of her mouth. Well I had to twist her arm (and was thinking of some not so kind ways of persuasion) but she finally relinquished and allowed me to hold my own child for 10 minutes. She didn't offer me a blanket to wrap him up, she didn't help move any of his cords around so I juggled it all myself and held this scrawny little baby and let him freeze to death for 10 minutes so I could cherish our first moments together.

Corbin's Debut

I have always joked that I was having my kids earlier and earlier, but really with only two kids how can you see a trend. Well Corbin confirmed my suspicions by arriving well before his due date.  Eight weeks before his due date I started having contractions. I had them for about a day and then they went away so I kind of blew it off. Well one week later I started having contractions again. I kept waiting for them to go away. My husband calls me stubborn but I did not want to rack up a hospital bill and spend the night in the hospital for false labor. I finally called the hospital after I started having them a few minutes apart and they gave me a list of things to do and if I had more that six in an hour then I needed to go in. Well after I jumped through all the hoops I was only having one every 15 minutes so I justified that they didn't want me to go in (for some reason I was still in denial that I was in labor). Well that made for a very long night! Contractions every 15 minutes doesn't allow much room for sleeping. That morning bright and early I called the hospital again and was told the exact same thing. Well I was only having 4 every hour but they were incredibly painful so I called the doctor on call to see if there was anything they could give me. They were obviously on the same page because I got the same message word for word from the doctor. After I tearfully and loudly vented to my husband I went off to start my incredibly jam packed day.
    My doctor was able to squeeze me in that afternoon just to check on me. They were going to do a test that helps predict if the baby would be coming in the next week and hook me up to monitors to see how the baby was tolerating it. They were out of tests so she decided to check me before they hooked me up to the monitor. That is as far as we got. I was told to be safe but drive as fast as I could to the hospital without stopping anywhere because I was already dilated to a six. So now I become a mad women as I jumped on the freeway desperately trying to call people to take my kids, find the number to cancel my dentist appointment (hoping I wouldn't get charged a fee for canceling a half hour before my appointment), trying to drive a stick shift and manage not to curl up in a ball on the floor during every contraction. The distance to the hospital was no longer in miles but how many contractions I would have to endure without running anyone over, all with the fear in the back of my mind that I would be stranded by the side of the rode delivering my own child. I called my husband after the doctors appointment and asked him if he could leave work. Apparently I wasn't direct enough because he was saying he was in the middle of something. I told him we may be having a baby so I needed him to leave work so now I finally became the priority.
     After I got to the hospital they wanted me to fill out paper work. The nurse who was called to get my room ready came out and said that I could fill out the papers after they had me hooked up to the medications to stop labor. I was in the middle of changing into the gown when the NICU doctor came in to tell me the procedures if the baby was born. That made for an awkward conversation: meeting someone for the first time while dressing during our conversation. They got me hooked up after poking me a few times to try and stop my labor. The needle was the least of my discomfort. They warned me that what they were pumping into me would make me hot and I wouldn't feel very good. That was an understatement. It hit me while I was trying to finish up all the papers, the ones that you sign your life a way because there is always a chance you may die. I couldn't even sign my name anymore I felt so awful. Now I was having a long lasting, extreme hot flash, feeling like I wanted to die and of course contractions were still coming more painful with no drugs to take the edge off. (Wait I thought that one of the perks after having 2 c-sections was that I could bypass the whole labor thing).
      Needless to say they couldn't stop anything. I was dilated to 9 and off we went to the OR. After more needles, more discomfort and embarrassment later, I was on an itty bitty table, without feeling my legs and hoping I wouldn't by some chance fall off. At least this story has a happy ending. A beautiful baby boy was brought into this world with a healthy set of lungs. I got to see my little angel for a few minutes from a distance before they were off and running to the NICU. Many hours later, after I was kind of able to stand and move to a wheel chair, I was finally permitted to see my little boy. This is how I found him:
      I learned a new torture while I was there. Going through labor, seeing my baby and not being able to hold him. Three LOOOOONG days I had to wait to hold him for the first time but only after I took out the Nazi nurse.
     Well he progressed quite quickly and only had to have the breathing tube shoved down his throat for a day. But it was explained to me that white boys are a lot slower at learning all the things they need to in order to get out of the NICU.

 He was scrawny but long

 Corbin had to go under the lights a couple of times for jaundice. I love the LED lights and the little hat that makes him like a chicken!