When Sookie met Sawyer..

I promise not to turn my blog into a "mommy" blog where I only write about my big guy, but since I have pretty much nothing going on in my life right now besides taking care of baby (and trying to lose baby weight), it is more or less all I have to talk about until I can re-join the real world when I go back to work April 4th.

So on that note, here is how our fur-baby Sookie is handling the new addition.

When we brought Sawyer home, Sookie was still at the kennel and didn't return until the Wednesday we came home from the hospital (the second time). We had prepared her for meeting her "brother" by letting her sniff the carrier, inspect the nursery (sans baby) and smell a blanket that Sawyer had been wrapped in - but she still went crazy smelling baby (held at a safe distance) when we brought her in the house.

At first, she was TERRIFIED. Our giant chocolate lab ran any time our little 7 lb. 13 oz. baby moved and would completely lose her mind, hiding under the table when he cried too loudly.

Then, she got annoyed. If he cried during the night Sookie rolled her eyes and jumped off our bed to move to her own bed. If Sawyer was crying before we made it to the bedroom, Sookie had to be coerced off the couch to even go to bed in the first place.

She also got a little jealous. She never bit at Sawyer or growled, just made sure that if one of us was holding him, she was present too. If I was in the rocking chair with baby, Sookie was at my feet. If Josh was holding him on the couch, Sookie's head was resting Josh's lap.

Sookie also regressed to her puppy days, grabbing things off the kitchen counter and running with them, chewing shoes and swallowing anything she could get her mouth on - such as baby socks, underwear, Croakies from my sunglasses and an entire camisole.

Finally, she decided the noisy little monster wasn't so bad and started treating Sawyer like her own baby. If Sawyer cries, she runs to wherever he is to make sure he is okay and if we don't get there fast enough, she will stick her head of the nursery and give us an accusatory look that says "hey, ya'll going to come do something about this situation?!"

Now, they're besties. I think that Sawyer will be bothering her and Sookie will be tolerating him for years to come.

dangerously yellow baby

Well, we came home from the hospital Saturday, Feb. 12 only to return on Valentine's Day.

Sawyer turned more and more yellow during our time at home, so at his doctor's appointment Monday, Feb. 14 I wasn't surprised when the pediatrician ordered labs to check his bilirubin levels.

Once we left the lab, Josh and I went home and as soon as we'd got Sawyer out of his car seat and into his pack-n-play, my phone rang and the doctor informed us that we HAD to come back to the office and get some papers then head straight to the hospital because our baby's levels were at 25 and he needed to get under some UV lights ASAP or he'd need a blood transfusion.

Before babies are born, their mom’s placenta removes the bilirubin from baby so that it can be processed by the mother's liver. Immediately after birth, the baby's own liver begins to take over the job, but this can take time. Therefore, bilirubin levels in an infant are normally a little higher after birth. But when the levels get too high it can cause deafness, cerebral palsy or even brain damage.

So obviously, we were concerned.

We re-packed our bags and the baby and headed back to the doctor's office then to PCMH.

As soon as we arrived, the nurses took Sawyer to get an IV in his little tiny arm so they could push fluids. Neither Josh nor I could go to the treatment room to watch the nurses stick him for the IV, it just tore us all to pieces. Then they gave our little guy er a pair of UV goggles to protect his little eyes and then he was put into an incubator surrounded by 4 UV lights and a light for him to lay on called a "biliblanket". While I knew our baby wasn't in pain, it was horrible not being able to hold and cuddle him since he was required to stay in the box unless he needed changing or feeding. 

 

Speaking of feeding, have you ever tried to breastfeed a fussy child who has an IV in one arm, 3 leads attached to his chest/tummy, a puls-ox on his foot and a biliblanket strapped to his back? Yeah, it's great fun. 

We spent Monday night in the hospital and his BR levels dropped to 21 then 19 so they took down some of the UV lights and left him with just the biliblanket and 1 light.... But when they rechecked his levels they were back up to 21, so we had to stay another night.

Finally Sawyer turned a much paler shade of yellow and his BR dropped low enough for us to be discharged, but we had to take the biliblanket with us.

The worst part of our trip to the hospital (besides not being able to hold and cuddle with our brand new baby) was that we only had 2 nights at home and had sort of established a little routine only to have it interrupted. But thankfully our baby wasn’t in pain and was completely fine and after a week on the biliblanket at home his levels returned to normal.

thundercats are gooooo

So, like most things in my crazy life, Sawyer's delivery was quite the eventful adventure. You may want to get comfortable - this post could get lengthy.

Wednesday, February 9th started like any other day. I went to work for half a day then came home and proceeded to take a much-needed nap.

Just as me and Sookie were settled for our sleep and snuggle time, my doctor's office called to inform me that the 24 hour urinalysis I did Sunday did NOT look good and I was leaking a ridiculous amount of protein in my urine. Therefore, I needed to come in and be hooked to a fetal monitor and I should prbly bring my hospital bag with me.

And so the adventure began...
3:30pm - Call Josh and tell him to hurry home from work, sending him into a complete panic.
4:00pm - Open door to carport to start moving bags to car
4:02pm - Scream as Sookie comes catapulting out the door
4:04pm - Waddle swiftly after the 100 lb chocolate beast as she runs amuck
4:06pm - Watch helplessly as beast continues to taunt me from neighbor's yard across the street
4:10pm - Neighbor sees me (and my tear streaked face) and helps lure the Sookie monster into her car so we could drive her to the fence.
4:15pm - Josh gets home (in record time), we pile our bags and ourselves into my car and head to Greenville
4:45-5:45pm - Get hooked up to fetal monitor, pee in a cup and get examined by Dr. Haskins (my 3rd favorite dr at the office) and learn that I am only 1 cm dilated and my contractions are around 10 minutes apart but that I need to go to the hospital because my BP is 158/98 and I'm still spilling protein - therefore I am preeclamtic and baby needs to come on out
6pm - Call and alert parents of situation
6:05pm - Go enjoy dinner at Hibachi Express before going to hospital since I'll be put on a Magnesium drip to prevent seizures and won't be able to eat for 36 hours
6:45pm - Report to Pitt County Memorial Hospital, put on hideous robe, get hooked up to several monitors, an IV and a cervical catheter to help me dilate further.
From 7pm that night until 2am Thursday morning I just lay in a hospital bed, have my BP taken every 2 hours watch the Carolina/Duke basketball game (hard to do in a hospital where you can't yell/throw things at the television) and feel contractions

Thursday morning
2:15am - Cervical catheter comes out because I'm dilated to 3 cm so they give me Pitocin to get the process going even quicker
4am - Dr comes in and breaks my water
6am - Beg for nurses to bring me some Mucinex and a humidifier so I can breathe (dry hospital air + allergies = nose bleeds and stuffiness), I am then informed that a side effect of the Magnesium is feeling like you have the flu. Lovely.
8am - Get epidural
9am - 11am - Finally get some sleep
12pm - 1:30pm - Realize I can really feel the contractions, but it's mainly just pressure so I tell the nurse I'm not really in PAIN just feeling painful pressure so they don't do anything about it
1:45pm - Contractions get ridiculously horrible and closer together, and I realize that while the epidural has made my legs dead and lifeless, I can pretty much plan on feeling every bit of labor pain
1:55pm - Sawyer's head hits home and I try with all my might to hold him in until Dr. Haskins can get to my room, which takes what feels like 8 years
1:58pm - Dr arrives and tells a very surprised Joshua to grab one of my legs for the whole delivery process (he had planned on playing a much less active role)
2pm - Start pushing and definitely feel baby making his way into the world
2:14pm - Meet my precious son, Sawyer Lang Edmondson

The rest of the day Thursday is a complete blur of baby getting bathed and meeting some very excited grandparents/great-grandparents, sending a million picture messages to friends and family, getting unhooked from everything except the Magnesium drip and eating jello (since I still couldn't eat real food).
Friday 3:30am - Finally finish bag of Magnesium, am allowed to get out of bed and take best shower I've ever taken in my entire life
4:00am - Moved to new room and eat a Snicker's bar, the first real food I've had since 6pm on Wednesday!

The rest of our hospital stay was uneventful, we were discharged early Saturday afternoon since I was such a risk with my stupid BP and protein leak-age.

Stay tuned for the story of our trip BACK to the hospital for four days with a very yellow baby.