Happy Birthday, Liam!!

I can not believe it has been almost 3 weeks since Liam came into our lives. How did we ever live without him. He is such a joy to have in our family.

Noah is such a good big brother. I will admit that I was nervous at first, giving how Noah had been acting the last few months, but he is doing so much better than I ever thought. He loves Liam more than anything. He loves to kiss on him, hold him, help change him and just watch him. I do get nervous over how much he does "love" Liam. I am constantly watching out for Liam's little head to make sure "Brudder" doesn't love on him too strongly.

It's amazing how you can go from looking like this ......

 

 

to this ......

 

 

in just a matter of time. The preggo pic is me the Sunday before Liam came on Thursday. I was exactly 39 weeks pregnant in the picture.

 

 

Dr. Hoover agreed at my 38 week appointment to induce me on Thursday, March 7th. Having never been induced, I was unsure what to expect. She told me to report to the hospital on Wednesday evening at 5 pm. We convinced the family that there was no need in coming to the hospital that night. Keith and I looked forward to starting the process that night and then a good night of rest. Boy was I wrong! Gigi and Granddanny came and picked me, Noah and Maggie up and took us to UAB to meet Daddy. He got off at 4 so we had plenty of time to grab a sandwich at McAlisters before heading up to Labor and Delivery. Dr told me to eat a light dinner and that is just what I enjoyed (with a huge glass of sweet tea!!)

 

We got into our labor room (LDR 8) about 6p. The lovely hospital paper work, doctors talking to us and iv sticking began. The nurses changed to night shift at 8p so nothing else really started until after shift change. I had the sweetest night nurse that night to help take care of us. I wish I remembered her name but she was very young (apparently all of my nurses were super young ... they were all younger than me!!) She and the on call doctor came in about 8:30 to start the process. They put in some kind of catheter (not the real kind) to try to make you naturally dilate more without medication. At the time of arrival, I was 1 cm dilated. The procedure that they did was more painful than the actual delivery part. Mental note: if I ever do this again and they induce, ask for pain meds BEFORE the procedure!!! Oh my word. And it didn't help that she had to do it 2 or 3 times (I lost count) because the placenta was tilted. Who knew?

 

After the painful procedure, we were set the for night. I got to enjoy my tea until midnight then it was ice chips only. Keith went right on to sleep while I stayed up texting with my momma and the staff wives. Thank goodness for group text! Texting lasted until almost 11:30 when we all decided that we must get rest - after all, I had a BIG day ahead of me and needed rest. But I could not sleep. My mind would not shut down. I was excited, anxious and nervous all at the same time. I missed my little buddy more than anything. Keith's cell phone rang about 2 am with a phone call from Gigi. I instantly had a panic moment wondering what was wrong with Noah. Well, it wasn't Noah. It was Maggie. She was having a breathing attack and Gigi wasn't sure what to do. Once she settled down we headed back to sleep. Ha - yeah right!

 

 

The night slowly crept by. My nurse came in at 5 am and helped me take a shower and they started my iv of pitocin at 6a. Overnight I had dilated 2 more cm. Shift change happened a little earlier than 8a but I had a precious nurse again. How funny is it that my actually LDR nurser lives about 5 minutes from us - in Corner!! We know a lot of the same people and it made for a fun and easy day! Epidural came about 8 am when my contractions really began to pick up. The epidural had to be done twice because the first one when into the wrong place. Nothing like 2 big sticks in the back in between tough contractions. And of course they make the hubby leave during this part.

 

Family began to trickle in about 9:30. Pain eased up but I got to where I didn't feel too good. Liam's heart beat was a little higher than everyone wanted it to be. Once my water had been broken, Dr. Hoover realized that Liam had pooped. She was a little concerned and wanted to have Peds in the delivery room just to make sure things were good.

 

Waves of nausea passed by me, tried to sleep, couldn't sleep. It felt like we had been going at this for at least 24 hours and it really had only been about 3-4 hours. Dad had to work that morning but planned to leave work at noon. We realized things were progressing a little faster than expected and so Dad left Riverside at 11:30. He made it to UAB in record time - by 12:30. I was at 10 cm and ready to push about 12:15 but Dr. Hoover said we could wait a few minutes to give Dad time to get there to see us before. What a blessing she was. In the mean time, she went out to check on Noah and played with him and his monster trucks for a few minutes. Papaw made it just in time to kiss me before it was time to start pushing.

 

Pushing lasted through 9 contractions - 25 minutes - and Liam was here at 12:54 pm. When he came out the cord was wrapped around his neck 2 times. Talk about scaring his mommy and daddy (and doctor!) Fortunately everything was fine but that was the reason for the elevated heart rate during the contractions. Fortunately we had a huge team of pediatrician in the delivery room and they were right on making sure he was ok, which he was. He actually was better off than Noah was when he was born.

 

Littlest Man weighed in at 7 lbs 11 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. I call him my little "odd baby" because his birthday is 03-07-13 and he was 7 - 11. HAHA! He looked just like Noah only he has a head full of dark hair! So opposite from the rest of us!

 

Our new little family of 4

Mommy, Noah and Liam

 

 

Little BB - ready to go home on Saturday

 

Brothers - waiting on our discharge from the hospital

 

Noah and Liam on Friday, March 22nd at Gigi's house

Liam is 2 weeks and 1 day old

 

 

 

Everything was perfect. I could not ask for a better delivery story, team of nurses or a better doctor. I absolutely love my new OB and don't see me changing any time soon, unless she goes somewhere else. The care at UAB was wonderful, the security measures are impressive and they get high stars in my book.

 

 

God blessed us yet again with another precious baby boy. He is perfect in every way. He is eating good and sleeping good. He reacts well when he hears his brother. We could not be any more happier with our little blessing.

 

~Randi

 

First Trip To Children's Hospital

I am WAY over due on typing this post (since it happened 2 months ago yesterday!) but I feel that it is a worthy blog post. We experienced not only our first Children's Hospital ER trip but our first middle of the night ER trip with Noah. I think making it almost 4 years is a pretty good record!

It was a Thursday night/Friday morning when Noah woke us up crying. It was not very late, maybe only 12:30 or 1 am. Keith actually woke first hearing Noah crying. I was obviously good and asleep that I didn't even hear him. Normally I am the one that hears him first. Keith walked in his room to Noah sitting on the floor crying. Noah mentioned that his head was "wet" so Keith felt the back of his head and knew instantly what he would find (it was obviously pitch black dark in there.) He picked him up and brought him to his room yelling that Noah was bleeding and to wake up. Talk about a bad way to wake up!!! We quickly realized the entire back of Noah's head was wet with blood. We couldn't quite see how bad the cut was but we knew we needed to head to the hospital either way. It's scary with head injuries because you never know how bad they could be. What could appear minor could be life changing and vise versa - what appears life changing may be nothing. We were not sure what to expect. The only thing we figure is he

We calmed Noah best we could as we both got ready to head out. We did not realize how cold it was outside (haha) and just about took Noah to the Jeep in his pjs and no socks. I don't even know if he had his jacket at the time. It also didn't help that I was applying pressure with a wet towel to the wound.

We quickly headed out best we could. Instantly called Papaw (my dad) to make sure we were doing what we needed to do. Papaw is the police officer/former medic in the family so he gets all of the medical calls. We said we were doing everything fine, slow down, take our time getting to the hospital. It was not worth a risk of having an accident to make things worse. He had just taken something to help him sleep and he had to be at work early the next day. He said what I figured he would say and that was Nina was on her way to meet us.

We called Gigi and Granddanny to let them know where we were headed. We laugh now but they originally thought we were headed to the hospital for me and Baby Liam. We didn't know that THAT phone call would come just a couple of weeks later - LOL! They told us to keep them posted on what was going on but they kept checking in with us because neither of them could obviously go back to sleep.

I was dreading a full waiting room and hours of just sitting with Noah and a bleeding head. Keith kept prompting me to talk about how bad his head injury was so that they would take us back immediately. I kept thinking they would notice it with all of the blood! Keith dropped Noah and I off at the front door of the ER and I was shocked to find not one person waiting in the ER waiting room. I have no clue how we got that fortunate!! When I questioned it the nurses even told me to "SHHHH" (laughing of course!) They never have nights like that. So, we were taken immediately back and examined.

The sweet triage nurse too his vitals, looked at the wound and assured us it was not as bad as we thought but would require a few stitches. She bandaged his little head and sent us back to an actual room. This is where the waiting came!! We didn't realize at the time that the waiting was to help a deadening medication sink into the wound so they could stitch him. It's the little things you obviously don't think about.

After waiting a long while, the doctor came in to see us. He assured us the same as the triage nurse but didn't think the medication had worked on his head. It had fortunately stopped bleeding so he could actually see the wound. He had the nurse apply another round of medication to the head and we waited some more. We knew we did not want them to have to inject a shot in his head to deaden it.

Let me just say that I was not prepared for the stitches part. Hearing Noah scream was the worst ever! It was worse then when he broke his arm!!! They had to put him in this blue papoose thing that pretty much restrained him. Houdini figured out how to wiggle his arms out go figure. A male nurse walking down the hall heard the screams and came to back up. He pretty much laid across Noah (without hurting him obviously) to help hold him down. This preggo mommy held it together but MAN!! I think it did freak the nurse a little when she figured out I was almost 31 weeks pregnant.

We received 3 stitches in our head with instruction to follow up in 5-7 days with our pediatrician to have them removed. It was a rough week of keeping his head clean and dry but we managed!

We got back home about 5:30 am and we were beyond exhausted. Keith and Noah both took naps but I was wired. I did not let Noah out of my sight at all that day!

We had tickets to Monster Jam that night and we were so excited to go but questioned if it was still a good idea. Poor baby was so excited about it also so we decided to give it a try but let him make the call when he was ready to go. We made it just passed intermission when he said "I'm ready to go home. I've seen enough." He was beyond being a trooper! I was bummed we missed the best part of the show but I did not and could not push him to stay! Our Monster Jam experience did bring out a new phase in Noah. Now we own almost 20 monster trucks and we have several recorded on the DVR and he acts out Monster Jam with his own trucks. He even swapped his birthday party to Monster Jam.

We obviously have a few iPhone pics from our hospital experience. We couldn't let his experience pass down.

In triage getting our vitals and a little hospital gown

We called this our 'Superman" headband - with medication

The horrible blue board! Noah will not forget this board!!

Post stitches. Saline was used to flush the wound which made his hair look worse!

Can I say how bad his head smelled for a couple of days. The smell of blood reeks!!

Noah and Jake at Monster Jam. He was such a trooper in his cute monster truck shirt Mrs. Kim made.

He was also proudly wearing Papaw's  headphones. (Looks like we will be asking Santa for a set this year!!)

 

 

You know, you always try to find a positive out of every situation - the ONLY positive we have found for our ER trip is the threat of the blue board. If Noah is doing something that might hurt him, we remind him of the blue board at the hospital and he stops what he is doing. Bless his heart, blood does freak him out now (guessing he won't be a doctor now!). Every time he hurts something, even as simple as stumping his toe or even cutting a hang nail from his finger, he freaks thinking he will have to go to the hospital if it bleeds. His exact words is "my bleeding stuff". Goodness! I wished I could take the pain for my baby but knew I couldn't.