Here’s Andrew!

Here are some of a few of our favorite pictures of our new addition.

I went into the hospital Wednesday night to be induced. I was given cirvidel for 24 hours and then started pitocin in the morning.  I went into the hospital at a 2 and after 9 hours of pitcoin, I was still at a 2 and he had not dropped yet. I then started running a fever and having stabbing upper abdominal pain and Andrew was not handling things well according to the monitor, so my doctor came into discuss our options.  She did not like how things were going and said we can either do a c-section and get him out or we can try to move things along faster, but if he is not doing well we will have to do an emergency c-section.   We decided to do a c-section now.  It was a hard decision for me since it felt like I was wimping out, but it sounded like either way we would end up with a c-section.  It turns out when they pulled him out, the cord was up by the top of his head and if they would have broken my water, the cord would have been compressed between his head and the birth canal and he would have been in so much distress they would have to do an emergency c-section.  The doctor was glad we did a regular c-section instead of an emergency c-section. 

They took Andrew downstairs to the Birth Center and while I was in recovery, Aaron went down there with him.  He is such a proud daddy.  Andrew’s glucose was a little low so Aaron got to feed him a bottle of sugar water and spend some time with him. 

Andrew did not do well during the night and was so lethargic.  He would not eat from a bottle or nurse from me, so the pediatrician told them to put in a NG tube and feed him, but they decided to do an IV instead.  It wasn't til morning when the pediatrician came in and she was able to start an IV, he probably had close to 10 pokes all over trying to start one and he didn't cry for any of them and that concerned them.  They also put in a NG tube, did blood work and started IV antibiotics.  Really the first time I was able to spend anytime with him is when I saw him in the nursery.  He was in an incubator to keep him warm and hooked up to monitors and had an IV and NG tube and lots of pokes.  That was one of the hardest things for me, even being a nurse and caring for sick babies, but it is different when it is your own.  I was able to spend some time in the nursery holding him.  They still don't know why he was so lethargic, if it was from the fever I had or since I was group B Strep positive or such high amniotic fluid and he took a big gulp before being born.  But throughout the day he started doing better and on Saturday they were able to start disconnecting monitors and the IV and said.  His preliminary blood cultures came back negative so far, so we were able to come home today.  It feels so good to be home.

We even had some visitors.

Our friend Tjay                               The Mclains

   Grandma Mertes                            Grandpa Mertes

        Aunt Emily

Here are some of the photos from Andrew’s “photo shoot” for the hospital website:

He was pretty serious for most of the pictures, but some of the faces were pretty cute.  He is good at the one eyed look.  He will do that when he wakes up to see if it worth waking up for.  I like the last one, it is like he is done and is outta here.