Squish's Birth Story

I've been working on this post for almost two weeks, y'all! Sheesh! I like to have my little ones' birth stories here on my blog with lots of details so I can relive the experience over and over when I read my blog, so please understand there will be a LOT of info here. :)

Monday, June 12th.

It was our last morning together as a family of five, so we did it up right by enjoying Krispy Kreme donuts in bed while watching cartoons!

Hubs' parents had planned to come over that evening to stay with our older 3 kiddos while hubs and I headed to the hospital to begin my scheduled induction at 6:00 PM. We had planned to eat a big dinner (my last meal!) before going to the hospital, but we ended up taking the kids to a late lunch at Culver's, so I wasn't super hungry. Instead, we popped into Jimmy John's for some sandwiches, chips, and a cookie (for me!), and took them with us to the hospital.

We went up to the registration desk, where Donna got everything situated for us and led us into our room. I, of course, had the joy of changing into the standard issue hospital gown (so chic!) and crawling into bed.

The nurse came in and started my IV and set up the fetal monitor. Just before 7 PM, I was able to enjoy my Jimmy John's -- with little to no concern about my blood sugar numbers! Yay!! My final meal! But even with that, I could only bring myself to eat half of the sandwich... so much yummy bread!

Around 8:15 PM, the nurse placed the Cervidil, a medication used to help dilate the cervix, which would remain in place for around 9 hours. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink or get out of bed for 2 hours after the Cervidil, so I settled in and hung out with hubs and my awesome mama. I had the diffuser going with some lovely lavender throughout our hospital stay, and the room was so quiet and relaxing! Perfect for preparing for a baby's delivery.

My awesome mama! She's been by my side for all FOUR of my deliveries! And was my baby nurse for all but Chase's delivery! LOVE HER.

In addition, I had an adorable pic of my three kiddos to focus on throughout the delivery.

By 10:30 PM, I was able to eat and drink again, so at the nurse's recommendation, I went ahead and ate the rest of my sandwich, most of my oatmeal raisin cookie, and a Sierra Mist! Not even a diet one, either! Whaaaat!?? LOL! I did end up checking my blood sugar an hour later, and it was 145. That actually wasn't the worst ever! Haha!

Tuesday, June 13th.

The nurse removed the Cervidil at 5:20 AM and checked me only to find... NO CHANGE. I was so disappointed! I told hubs I just wanted to go home. It was so frustrating for me to spend that night in the hospital, away from the kids, for the purpose of getting labor started, only to have NO CHANGE. Honestly, I had really wanted to let my labor start naturally this time around, but it was clear that we needed to do the induction at 39 weeks for the safety of the baby. But to have zero change? Ugh.

Around 5:45 AM, I went off the monitors to take a shower, and tried desperately to convince myself everything was going to be okay. Honestly, I knew I would do whatever was required of me to ensure Squish's safe arrival. Even if it couldn't be "my" way.

Just before 7 AM, the nurse started the Pitocin to help get the contractions going. It was such a slow process. My inductions with LO, Chase, and E all started pretty much the same: 39 week inductions requiring Cervidil overnight with no big change, then hours and hours of Pitocin to slooooowwwwwlllyyyy kick labor into gear. So I shouldn't have been surprised at how things were progressing. LO was SO stubborn and didn't make her debut until 11:48 PM. Chase was a sweetheart with his arrival at 3:37 PM. I was hopeful E would outdo his siblings and arrive even earlier than Chase, but he held out until 6:30 PM. So I was figuring that we'd be in for a L-O-N-G day with our little Squish.

Around 11:20 AM, the doctor came in to break my water. I was about 2 cm dilated. The hope was that this would help labor to really pick up.

By 3:30 PM, I was ready for an epidural. Honestly it seemed like FOREVER before the anesthesiologist finally came in to get things going. I was in so.much.pain! While they were prepping the epidural, there was a huge thunderstorm that moved through the area, causing a quick power outage! Not exactly what you want to have happen during this procedure! Additionally, they had me sit with my legs over the side of the bed, which was the worst.position.ever. to combat the painful contractions I was experiencing. Add the obnoxious blood pressure cuff that kept slipping down my arm to my elbow (SO PAINFUL when it constantly kept turning on to check my BP and pinching my skin!) and all of this added up to the Perfect Storm of PAIN!!!

Now, if you've been reading my blog for awhile, you would know that I keep it private in that I don't post our actual names (other than Chase's), and I NEVER post pictures of myself. However, I'm making the decision to share one here. Hubs was a GEM with my camera during Squish's delivery. In fact, took the below picture of me while I was prepped for the epidural. The anesthesiologist's assistant (I'm sure she has a cooler job title than that) was shocked to see hubs taking pictures of me at this moment! He assured her he had my permission to do so - LOL! I wanted to share this picture here because I had documented week after week after week of my belly growth during the pregnancy, and you know there are always ZILLIONS of pictures of new babies once they are born, but there is rarely the photos that depict the process of getting the baby here. I'm so grateful to have this photo!

With the epidural finally on board, I was able to relax and rest a bit in preparation for Squish's arrival. This was awesome, because I had no idea how quickly he'd be making his debut! When the nurse checked me around 3:55 PM, I was at 5 cm. This was waaaaay better than 2 cm! YAY! I was happy to hear that labor hadn't stalled due to the epidural.

Imagine my surprise when my nurse checked me at 5:05 PM and I was COMPLETE. As in, totally ready to get my sweet baby out!!! The nurse called my doctor to let her know it was time, and then she had me get ready to start pushing. Usually there's a doctor present when it's time to push, but I guess the nurse was just trying to see where we were at and how much pushing would be involved to get Squish here. She had me push, and they had literally counted to "4" when she told me to STOP! Squish was crowning and ready to come out. It was a pretty chaotic moment as my doctor and the rest of the delivery team came in and set up the room for delivery.

Once the doctor was in place, I had the green light to start pushing! One and a half EASY pushes later, and HE WAS HERE!!! Talk about love at first sight!

My wonderful mama cut Squish's cord! Hubs has never been interested in doing this (I don't blame him), but when the doctor offered the job to my mom, she was happy to do it!

After Squish arrived, they placed him on my belly for some skin time. Within 20 minutes, he was nursing! And he continued nursing for an hour and a half! I was so surprised and so pleased! My little overachiever! Haha!

His first blood sugar was 51, which was absolutely perfect!

*** Baby Squish ***

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

5:25 PM

8 lbs. 1 oz.

21 3/4 inches

LO, Chase, and E came up to visit us once we were moved into our Postpartum room. They were so thrilled to meet their new baby brother!!!

Chase held Squish twice! He was so very sweet with his baby brother. #love

Proud big sis of THREE little brothers!

I can't remember if LO or Chase had the camera for this next pic, but they got a great shot of E in his Captain America shirt. LOL!

My mom gave Squish his very first bath, just as she did for LO and E. Such a precious and wonderful memory! You can see my little fella was a big fan of the fun! Haha!

We had a surprisingly restful night! Squish had to have a heel stick to check his blood sugar before each feeding for his first 12 hours, and all of them came back great, so we were done with that by 5:30 AM. He ate well, and slept well, too! It was a MUCH better night than it had been with E's one and only night in the hospital.

Wednesday, June 14th. 

After a restful night, we had plans to have the kids come back up around lunchtime for more family time together. After lunch, hubs and I started discussing the idea of getting discharged rather than staying a second night. Squish was just so laid-back and easy-peasy that we figured why not head home? We had to be there for at least 24 hours after Squish's delivery because there were some tests he needed to have done after the 24 hour mark, so we knew it'd probably be close to 7:00 PM before we would be able to leave.

Fast-forward a few hours, and Squish successfully passed his newborn hearing screening, his CHD O2 screening (Praise the Lord!), had the blood drawn for his newborn screening and his bilirubin test. The only thing we had to wait on was the results of the bilirubin test, which could take about an hour.

The nurse let us know his bilirubin was 7.7, which, apparently, was a bit high. We had to schedule a follow-up appointment with Squish's pediatrician for Thursday to repeat the test (you can read all about our first week home with Squish here), but then we were free to go!

My sweet, sweet Squish!

I just love these tiny toes! Poor baby had several heel sticks to check his blood sugar during our hospital stay. He still has little scars on his heels two weeks later. :(

I am so smitten with this little guy! He is the perfect addition to our little family and we couldn't be more blessed!

Thank you for following along with our family and for joining me to hear Squish's birth story! Hugs!

The One All About Squish's First Week

Okay. Here I am (FINALLY!) on my blog to document all of the details of this past week that my sleep-deprived self is terribly unlikely to remember in a few weeks... or a few days... or really, even a few minutes from now. It's been a crazy first week with Squish, and I need to throw all of this out here while it's still rather fresh in my head, because, let's face it: it'll be a few months (or more) before I find the time to document all of this in Squish's baby book, and everyone knows these details will be long gone by that time. My blog to the rescue!

Tuesday, June 13th

Squish is born! So.Much.Love. for this tiny little person!

Wednesday, June 14th

After one night in the hospital, we're ready to be discharged and head home! Squish had been spitting up a good bit of mucus, so our pediatrician decided to wait and do his circ in his office the following Wednesday. And we had to wait until Squish is at least 24 hours old to do a few of the newborn screening/tests that needed to be done. He passed his hearing test, his O2 test, completed his newborn screening, and had bilirubin labs drawn. We had to wait about an hour on the bilirubin results before we could officially head home.

The nurse came in to tell us Squish's bilirubin test came back at 7.7. Apparently if it were 8 or higher, I believe she said they wouldn't have discharged us! Thankfully we had the all-clear to be discharged, with the caveat that we needed to bring Squish in to the pediatrician's office the following day to do a repeat bilirubin test (this test = a heel stick. It's not fun for baby or mommy.). We made our appointment, and were finally ready to leave the hospital.

Thursday, June 15th

We had a ROUGH night at home Wednesday night into Thursday morning. They always say a newborn's second night is always way worse than their first night. YAY. But we survived, and I was able to take Squish to the pediatrician for his bili check.

Unfortunately, his bilirubin went up from 7.7 to to 14.2, obviously not trending in the right direction. It wasn't high enough to warrant phototherapy, and the pediatrician said to keep feeding him as frequently as possible, and to let him sit near a window in the sunlight for about 20 minutes a few times a day. Easy peasy!

In the meantime, I was struggling a bit with the breastfeeding. I won't go into a ton of detail, but let's just say Squish was having issues with his latch, which was causing a good amount of pain for mommy. To help address this, I scheduled an appointment with the Lactation Consultant at the pediatrician's office for Friday afternoon.

Friday, June 16th

Friday afternoon, I arrived at the pediatrician's office for my lactation consultation. It went really well, but I didn't feel like we had necessarily done anything that would immediately resolve the issue. I am hardcore in favor of exclusively breastfeeding (and/or pumping) without using formula (personal preference - no shame to those who choose that route!), so it's really important to me that we are successful with nursing, milk supply, weight gain, etc.

While we were there, the pediatrician peeked at Squish and decided he'd like to see another bilirubin test, and asked us to bring him in on Saturday for another check. Well, okay then! Because three days of doctor visits in a row sounded like a great idea! LOL.

Saturday, June 17th

It's Saturday. We were discharged on Wednesday, and so far, we have spent every.single.day. visiting our beloved pediatrician's office. LOL! We checked Squish's bilirubin and it had only increased from 14.2 to 15.1. This indicated it was starting to slow down and eventually would start falling back into the normal range. What a blessing! I was so glad to hear this because it was really upsetting to continually do heel sticks on my sweet boy!

Sunday, June 18th

We had our first day at home as a family of SIX without any doctor appointments or hospital visits! Hurray! It was a wonderfully relaxing Father's Day!

Monday, June 19th

We had our second day at home without any medical visits or issues! Hurray for this new trend!

Tuesday, June 20th

We went back to the pediatrician's office for what would (hopefully) be our final heel stick and bilirubin check. I was so happy to see that it finally went DOWN to 13 from 15.1! Yippee!! This meant Squish was finally in the clear with his jaundice issues.

While we were there, the pediatrician was taking a closer look at my sweet boy's "boy parts" in preparation for his circumcision we had scheduled the following day. Unfortunately, he discovered an issue with his little parts, and determined he would not be able to perform the circ. In fact, he wanted to refer us to a Pediatric Urologist for further testing, treatment, and possible surgery.

WHAT?!!

That was NOT what I expected to hear!!! I was so surprised and scared and frustrated... my poor boy! He doesn't deserve to go through all of this! I've been researching his diagnosis and it seems that it won't be able to be addressed until he's at least 6 months old. And it will most likely require surgery under general anesthesia. Again, NOT what a mommy wants to hear concerning her week-old newborn baby! At least my little guy didn't have any idea what his doctor and I were discussing... such a peaceful little squishy-squish!

 On Tuesday, we also celebrated little Squish's ONE-WEEK BIRTHDAY!!!

Wednesday, June 21st

Oh, Wednesday. How I loathe thee! Wednesday morning was our first day in SEVERAL days that we did NOT have a doctor's appointment. SCORE! However, Squish woke up to eat around 7:30 AM, and I put him back in his pack n' play when he was finished. I got up almost 3 hours later to check on him, and noticed a dark colored stain on his sheet. I turned on the light and looked closer to see that there was bright red blood mixed with spit up on the sheet right next to his mouth. My baby spit up bright red blood!!! I'm no medical expert, but I know that can NEVER be a good thing. I immediately texted my mom and sister (both nurses) to confirm that I needed to take him in to see the pediatrician. They agreed.

At the pediatrician's office, we discussed ALL of the possible causes for the bloody spit up. One of the most common was that the blood actually came from me while he was nursing (I told you it's been a painful process and that his latch was NOT that great). However, it wasn't a guarantee because the blood was bright red, there was a good amount of it, it appeared a few hours after he finished eating, and there had been ZERO indication of ANY blood in his milk during my many many pumping sessions. So the doctor continued to think through all of the possible scenarios that could have resulted in his spitting up blood.

One of the areas of concern he wanted to rule out was possible gastrointestinal issues, such as Intestinal Malrotation (this would result in surgery to repair). He made a call to his buddy at the main downtown hospital, who happened to be THE MAN over all of Pediatric Radiology, and confirmed that he would be able to get us in as soon as we were able to get there. You can imagine how scary this whole process was! Everything happened so fast, and before I knew it, I was calling hubs, making arrangements for my sister to keep the kids so hubs could meet me downtown, and loading up Squish in the car to head to the hospital.

Within 20 minutes, I found myself at the main downtown Children's Hospital for an Upper GI study for Squish to exclude possible issues such as hematemesis and intestinal malrotation. My sweet, sweet boy! After the experiences we've had with Chase, it was all too surreal to find myself at the hospital for an unexpected test to rule out a major complication. I couldn't stop the tears from flowing as I waited in the patient registration area before going back to Radiology.

Thankfully, sweet Squish cooperated for the test (this was a blessing considering it had been over FOUR HOURS since he'd eaten... he needed to be hungry enough to swallow the barium mixture for the test), and the Radiologist determined there were NO GI ISSUES with our baby! Praise the Lord! This was SUCH a HUGE relief to my mama heart!!!!! 

We left the hospital and I sat in my car, finally able to feed my sweet baby, thanking God over and over for the positive news. Of course, we still didn't have a reason for the bloody spit up, but we are at the point of assuming it came from me when he had nursed the night before. I spoke with my Lactation Consultant, and she suggested I take a break from nursing and just exclusively pump for a day or so to give myself a chance to heal. We scheduled an appointment for me to come in to see her on Friday for another look at Squish's latch and to see what we need to do to make breastfeeding work better for both of us.

Thursday, June 22nd

Today! We have ZERO plans to see doctors, Lactation Consultants, Radiologists, or any other medical professional! In fact, we're planning a little family outing together... our first time leaving the house together as a family of SIX! We couldn't BE more happy to finally get a chance to settle into our new normal... 9 days after our little Squish's arrival!

Thank you to all of our family, friends, and followers for checking in on us, praying for us, bringing meals to us, and just loving on us as we expand our sweet family! And my apologies to any of you who know us personally who may have discovered that I deactivated my Facebook account and am no longer using Snapchat or Instagram. I decided that my focus should be on my family at this time, and not on the world outside of our four walls. That may sound selfish, but for me, it's just what I need to do. I don't want to waste time that I could be spending with my family on my phone checking in to see what everyone else is doing. I love y'all -- really, I do! But this time with my family is just too precious to me right now. And it's important to me to document all of our happenings on the blog here as I have done for my previous three littles, so giving up Facebook is providing me with the time I need to do just that. This blog post right here that you're reading is proof! :) I am still posting random musings and photos on Twitter, so be sure to follow me there for updates, pics, and links to new blog posts!

Hugs!!!

Welcome, Baby O!

Please welcome the newest member of the mom2lo family!

Baby O

Nickname: "Squish"

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

5:25 PM

8 pounds, 1 ounce

21 3/4 in.