Welcome Joshua!

Carl and I are both so excited to welcome Joshua into our family. He was born June 17, 2009 and weighed 9 pounds 2 ounces. I delivered him C-Section at 10:28 am. From the moment he was born all the nurses and staff were smitten with him, he is already quite the charmer. Everywhere we went we kept hearing, wow what a long baby. He is 22 inches long. Unfortunately, the excitement of coming into this world was too much for the little guy and he took a huge gulp of fluid on his way out. This sent him directly to the NICU. I barely got a glance of him (wish I had been wearing my glasses), before they rushed him away. Luckily, Carl was able to accompany the nurses and went with him to the NICU. I was left alone to recover. Other than Joshua having respiratory problems, both him and I came out of the surgery doing pretty ok.

I wasn't able to see Joshua for about six hours after he was born. He was really struggling and they had to keep him under careful watch in the NICU. I camped out in my room with Carl, my mother in-law and my mom. I should have slept, but couldn't help but stay awake in anticipation for finally getting to see my little boy.

Finally, at about 5 oclock I was able to go see Joshua and it was sooo sad. He had so many tubes and needles poking out of him. He was such a good boy, hardly complained at all. He would wimper a little, but for the most part he just layed still while they did all their tests.

One of the hardest things about having Joshua in the NICU was not being able to feed him. I tried pumping the first day, but it was very difficult with little result.

On day two I was able to visit Joshua more, and by about noon I tried feeding him. They were able to back off the oxygen he was recieving and remove a few of the tubes. He was still pretty sick though. He was able to eat a little, but the poor guy was so tired he would take a few sucks then tucker out and sleep. We tried twice that day, and on the third try I told them I just wanted to hold him and make him feel better. So I stayed for an hour and held Joshua while he slept.

That night I told the nurse, if at any time he acted fussy like he wanted to eat, they should call me down. At 1 oclock they did just that. I came down and was so happy to find a hungry little boy. He was able to nurse for a full half hour, and since then has done regular nursing.

After his one oclock nursing with me, Joshua started to get better. They slowly backed off more and more from the oxygen and by morning after two middle of the night feedings he was really starting to show improvement. I continued to nurse him and cuddle him every two hours up until 3 oclock when they declared him well and allowed us to bring him up to my hospital room.

Mom and son are doing so much better. We are so blessed to have daddy here to take care of us. Carl has been such a good nurse. We look foreward to the possiblility of going home tomorrow (Saturday). The bandages have been taken off and are looking good, and I am able to get up and walk around. Joshua is sleeping right now peacefully, and it looks like everything has turned out better than we could have hoped for.

The Baby is COMING...LATE!

So the baby isn't coming on Wednesday like planned. Evidently, he had another agenda. His lungs aren't developed and so the doctor has post-poned me one week. So now Joshua will be delivered on June 17th.