Well considering that I had never gotten around to mentioning that I was pregnant in this blog it may come as a bit of a surprise to announce the birth of our second son Sam. It wasn't a great pregnancy - morning sickness, aches and pains, exhaustion, lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions, and a rambunctious two year-old to chase after. So when March 13th rolled around and I wasn't feeling great and had cramping all day I didn't think anything of it. We were having people over for dinner so I tried my best to ignore the discomfort and get some housework and cooking done, but when by 3pm the cramping hadn't stopped I decided to call the doc fully expecting her to tell me that there was nothing to worry about and to keep my appointment for the next week - I wasn't due until April 17th after all so why worry. The doc told me that I needed to go to the hospital, just to get checked out. I called our dinner guests from the car and told them that I was sure I was just in false labor and we would reschedule for the next weekend.
At the hospital they checked me and found I was 2 centimeters dilated, not a good sign. They hooked me up to a fetal heart monitor - Jack liked listening to the baby's "heartbeep" - and contraction monitor. When, after an hour the contractions hadn't stopped and were in fact getting worse it looked like we were in for a long night and should most likely figure out something to do with Jack. Dan called our friends that were supposed to be making dinner for and instead arranged for them to keep Jack for the night. The boys left to take care of Otis and get Jack settled and left me pacing in the waiting room trying to stop the contractions by walking. Dan got back to the hospital about an hour later. By this time the contractions were getting worse. The doc gave me something for the pain and to help me sleep - hoping that the rest would stop the contractions. Guess what. . . no luck. When they checked on me a few hours later I hadn't slept and was in some serious pain. It seemed that despite my best efforts we were going to have a baby 5 weeks early.
I was given an epidural which was fantastic. In no time my lower half was completely numb and I was able to get a bit of rest. Soon enough though it was time to start pushing. It only took a few pushes - after almost 24 hours of contractions - for Sam to enter the world. He weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces and was 19 inches long. I was able to hold him for a few minutes before they whisked him away. He was having some trouble breathing so he was taken to the nursery to be monitored. Unfortunately his breathing problems got worse and after several hours the doctors decided that they needed to transfer Sam to St. Mary's hospital in Richmond where there was a NICU. I hadn't seen Sam since he was born and I was finally taken to the nursery to see him before he was transferred. It was at this exact moment that I was hit with one of the possible side effects of an epidural, a spinal headache. This is basically a more intense version of a migrane that goes away if you are laying down but instantly comes back if you lift your head. So there I was, feeling like my brain was being stabbed with an ice pick and seeing my son for the first time who was attached to tubes and machines and in an oxygen tent so I couldn't even see his face. Needless to say this was the low point of the whole experience. Almost as soon as I got over the shock of seeing Sam like that, the transfer team arrived to take him away.
The transfer team consisted of about 5 paramedics in a huge, fancy ambulance with a special incubator for Sam to ride in. Seeing all these people and equipment there for my small little baby was both terrifying and reassuring at the same time. Sam was brought to my room so I could give his foot a squeeze good-bye and then was whisked away to Richmond. At this point Dan needed to rescue Jack and Otis and meet his parents who were, by a miraculous twist of fate, vacationing only a few hours away from us and able to rush to Williamsburg to take care of Jack. I did my best to rest which mostly meant watching a HGTV marathon and trying not to sit up. I was able to call the hospital in Richmond and check in on Sam from time-to-time, which was small comfort. After a rough night and much deliberation, in the morning I decided to have a procedure called a blood patch to try to fix my now worse headache before leaving the hospital. This meant I was given another epidural but instead of drugs, my own blood was put into the catheter - the relief was almost instantaneous. That done, I headed home to change clothes, pack a bag, and give Jack a squeeze before following Sam up to St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond.
The next 4 days are a blur of hospital corridors, hotel rooms, and cafeteria food. The spinal headache came roaring back one day two. I tried to live with it for a day to no avail and underwent another blood patch in the emergency room at St. Mary's the night before Sam was released. My Mom, aka Mimi, rushed out to Williamsburg to relieve Dan's parents of Jack duty. Amazingly, Sam started to improve from the moment he set foot inside of the transfer vehicle and made steady progress. He was by far one of the healthier babies in the NICI, although it was still traumatic for us to see him hooked up to tubes and machines. We were able to visit him any time of the day and were actually able to hold him, although this inevitably led to a chorus of alarms going off as one of the wires monitoring him would slip off so the machines would think he had died! When he was finally released on March 18th, he was much smaller and incredibly yellow from jaundice, but he was ours at last.
As I write this 2 months later Sam is dozing on the floor next to me. He is no longer yellow, has finally outgrown the newborn clothes we had to rush out and buy, and is starting to get on a regular feeding schedule - in short he is a normal baby, something that seemed totally impossible that first week.
