Meet our New Arrival!

Now that he is 3 days old :)

I'd love for you all to finally meet,

Braddock Dean Hanson

Born Saturday April 16th @ 8:11am.

Weighing in at 7lbs 11oz

Measuring 20.5 inches long

Here's the story: Prepare yourself, it's a long one!

Friday was a looooong day. I had been working on that long list of things I wanted to accomplish before our baby came. I was tired. Emotionally and physically. The last few weeks have been so miserable I can't even explain it. So much pain, so little sleep. I think I was finally convinced that I was going to remain in this pregnant state for forever. Seriously.  At some point in the afternoon though, I got this quiet calm feeling. (Which I found out later James had received that same afternoon) I told myself it was nothing because there was still another almost 3 full weeks to go before I was due. So I just needed to buck up and deal with it. So I continued with the spring cleaning on steroids :)

Friday night I was alone. I had finally gotten the 3 kids to bed, a lot later than usual. James was working.

I finished up a few things and made a new list of the things I wanted to do on Saturday.  10:30pm I was finally pooped out and went to lay in bed and watch tv. Just as the heating pad was starting to relieve some of the back pain I felt this "pop" inside and felt a gush of fluid. I immediately thought "holy crap my water broke!" 10:55pm to be exact :)

I immediately called my mom since she was coming from Highland to stay with the kids. Then I called James. I called my midwife and we decided since I wasn't contracting yet, I could get some things ready to go. I jumped in the shower and got cleaned up, dried my hair and finished packing the hospital bag.  James got home in literally half the time it takes to drive home. He admitted he was going 100mph. Literally. I asked him what he would have done if he gotten pulled over. He said he would not have stopped! ha ha. Boys. We made up our bed in fresh sheets. Picked up a few things around the house. I curled my hair super fast, we loaded the car and as soon as Grandma Finley arrived we left. 

When we got to the hospital the contractions were definitely making their presence but nothing that I couldn't work through. We got all signed in and Angela (my midwife) checked me. Water was for sure broke! (I had this secret fear they were going to tell me I just peed the bed ) LOL!  So we got everything set up for the labor and delivery. Then we waited. Things were SLOOOOOOW going. I always have this problem. For me to go from a 3 to a 6 is about impossible. (Trust me, I have spent hours and hours of long labor in previous births working through that.) But once I hit that six it's nothin before I am pushing. So here I was at a 4 still. So we decided to help it along and started the pitocin around 2am. Angela had decided to check the sac around the baby. I had the initial small gush of fluid and not much more since then. It was just a small leak at the top and now that he was working his way down it was plugged. Time to break the water! Again. But, there was an empty pocket of space next to Braddocks head, he was coming down slightly turned, which meant if we broke my water now, we ran the risk of the chord being washed out and having an emergency c-section. No way. So we waited. 6am-ish we checked again. I was fully effaced, dilated to a 6 and he had moved into the space just right. So we broke the water. Somewhere in the last little bit I received my epidural too. The contractions were so strong and it was getting to that point of it's now or never. And if you know me, I don't do au natural since Cherry :) So I was decently numbed, fully effaced, dilated to a 6, broken water, and BAM! The contractions went crazy. Even with the epidural I was having to completely focus my breathing and mind to get through them.

8am: That undeniable pressure was there. It was time. Everyone was ready to go and I began pushing. Not going to lie, my first push I don't count- it was pathetic. I wasn't in the right mind frame so it did nothing.  So between that and the next contraction I re-focused. I pushed through 2 contractions and had to back off so I wouldn't tear. As soon as I did Angela was able to ease his head out. Immediately she saw the chord wrapped around his neck, which he gave no signs of, she whipped it off and AGAIN! it was wrapped. Twice! Once he was cleared of the chord I gave one more push and he slid right out. This sounds like it took a while, but it was literally seconds. He came out too fast actually. We'll get to that :)

Born at 8:11AM

The poor boy was trying to cry but no sounds were coming out. It felt like a good 20 seconds before he made a peep. But he looked like he was screaming. They cleared his throat and nose and then we heard that precious cry. They lifted him immediately to my chest (skin to skin birth)- best moment of my life! I held him there for a good half hour. Letting him cry to clear his lungs and just taking in every little breath and sound and face he made.  Not taking my eyes off of him. But it was clear he was struggling to breathe. His littel nostrils were flaring with every breath and he was grunting and holding his breath.

I had to give him up to be taken care of. I watched as they took him over to the incubator and started working on him.

Once they had him decently breathing they gave him back to me. I layed there completely mesmerized by him.

We had a few more moments with him while they cleaned him and I up. (Didn't tear if you were wondering) :) And prepared us for moving to our stay room.

We had been in our stay room for all of 20 minutes before they came to take him to do stats. I had James take the camera since I was too numb to go anywhere.

He came back without Braddock and I knew something was wrong. I don't leave our babies in the nursery ever. He handed me the camera and said they were working on him still and that he's still having a little bit of a hard time breathing. Ok. Don't panic Hollie,I was telling myself. He will be fine, just needs to get the gunk out. James left to go back and I started looking through pictures he took.

I saw this:

And then I saw this:

And my heart sank.

A long time passed. A few hours actually, before James came back. They were still working on him. Giving him Oxygen, cleaning out his mouth and nose and waiting for the pediatrician to get there. The rest of the day was a blur. I didn't have my baby, I felt sick not having him. Like it was almost unreal. Like I never gave birth to him.

James came back and told me they were taking him to the NICU. That there was something wrong and he wasn't catching on to the breathing like he should. His little chest was heaving up and down with every breath and he was grunting and flaring his nostrils. Way more work for a tiny baby than it should be.

This was all happening at a little after 10am. He wasn't even 2 hours old yet.

For the entire day I sat alone in my room, worried sick, not able to eat. Texting James for updates that told me nothing. They were doing xrays and running blood work, they had him on full oxygen, and had to put him on an IV to keep him nourished. This went on for hours. His lung tissue wasn't fully developed and there was fluid in his lungs. They had to pump his stomach and they couldn't believe how much amniotic fluid and merconium he had swallowed. Around 9pm that night, they told us he would definitely be staying the night in the NICU and we MIGHT get him by morning. I was told I wasn't in any state to go see him and he was too out of it to try to nurse. So I pumped during the night, said constant prayers and didn't sleep a wink.

It felt so wrong not having my baby in my arms and feeling his little warm body and listening to his breath.

5am came the best call of my life! He was awake and fussing and they wanted me to try and nurse him. I seriously couldn't walk but I felt like running! James took me in a wheelchair down to him.

I cried when I saw him

I picked him up and just held him so close to me, and smelled him, and kissed him. I couldn't get him close enough to me.

Then a miracle happened, and despite being almost a day old, he latched right on and nursed like a champ! It was 13 minutes of heaven. And because he nursed, it meant they could start weaning him off the IV.

I started getting really dizzy so I had to give him back to the nurse. And I went upstairs and actually slept a little.

I got another call a few hours later to come nurse again. I was amazed when I saw him. Tubeless!

And his breathing was so quiet. Hardly any nostril flaring too. He was not as willing to nurse this time and took me almost an hour to get 10 minutes of nursing in, but we got it and it counted! The nurse told me that in that few hours he had ripped out his own tubes, and since his levels maintained she left him off the oxygen. She also made him a contraption of a tube and a filter to ease out the gas from his tummy when she noticed he was getting bloated. She said that was when he really started improving. I was so excited!

Now all we had to do was make sure he would nurse, recheck his blood sugar levels every 3 hours and if they stayed high enough they would lower the IV.

By noon we knew we would have him back by 4pm. I was so relieved and SO happy.

I called my mom to have her get the kids here to meet their new brother. They were so excited! The poor kids had come up twice since he was born in hopes of seeing him. Each time having to go home without even a peek. Cherry even cried because she was so sad she hadn't seen him yet. :( At one visit their boredom resulted in theatrics put on for me with the hospital curtain and my robe. hee hee

It was amazing seeing my four kids together. Damon Ooed over every peep Braddock made. Cherry can't get over how cute he is. And Lillie has decided that Braddock is hers. And she doesn't want to share him. Not even with mommy :)

So after 30 hours in the NICU, he was finally ours to keep. I finally have my little Braddock Dean. Weighing now, 7lbs. But as perfect as can be. I could not ask for more.

I am so blessed and so grateful. And so completely in love with him. He has wound his way into all of our hearts.

Welcome Home Braddock.