Ho Ho Ho!

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Well not so much for us. Christmas wasn't really Christmas this year, since we spent it in the hospital with baby Maxwell. In the morning, the doctor came and saw Max to see if he was going to be able to go home that day. The nurse the previous night had told us that she better not see us the next day. Unfortunately, the doctor said that he was staying another day. His number had come down, but now they just wanted to make sure that it was going to stay down. I understand the precaution that they were taking, but this time I wanted to just go home. Lots of babies get jaundice, so I thought we could have just taken him home and put him on lights there. The doctors thought otherwise!!!



One bonus of being in NICU over Christmas...you get lots of cute gifts. This cute little hat came in his hospital christmas stocking

Ben waited a few days to hold the little guy. Whenever we got to take him out of the incubatory the nurses would just give him to me and then they would just take him after he was done eating. A nice nurse finally realized he hadn't held him and let us have some extra time. Ben really enjoyed it! He's a great dad.

NICU

Right after Maxwell was born, I held him for about 10 seconds and then the nurse took him away to NICU. They said that his breathing wasn't quite normal and needed to make sure his lungs were working properly.

Well, they weren't. His air sacs hadn't opened up properly. They ended up putting a mask on him that forced air into his lungs, when that didn't work they put a tube down into his lungs. A fluid then lubricated his air sacs, forcing them to open. Eventually, his breathing became normal, but, he then had jaundice. The doctors put three huge, bright lights on him to help his number go down. It worked eventually!!

Welcome to the World

So giving birth wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The hospital called around 4:30 a.m. and told me to be there by 6:45. We had been expecting the call, so I hopped in the shower, did my hair, put on some make-up (I remembered that you take pictures in the hospital!!), grabbed our bags and headed out the door. The first six hours were pretty boring. The put me on Pitocin (I don't know if that's how you spell it). I dilated to a 6 with that. I had been expecting pain, but I had none. At about 1pm the doctor came in and broke my water. That's when the pain started. Seriously, I felt like my uterus was going to rip in two. I immediately called for the anesthesiologist. I, unlike my sisters, decided to use modern medicine and avoid the unpleasant contractions!! Slowly everything went numb. It was a great feeling. At about 4:30pm I started pushing and at 6:30 Maxwell came flying out. What a strange, but good feeling that was. The doctor said the unbilical cord was really thick...whatever that means.

Oh, one funny thing. While I was pushing, the nurses left to go help some other patient, but forgot to close the door. Our new bishop walks in thinking that nothing it happening, but got a surprise.

Any Day Now

So the doc said that I can go at any time now. I was pretty excited when I heard that, everything is getting kind of tight in the stomach area. The baby is running out of space to grow so my ribs are being kicked constantly by his moving!! It's not the most comfortable feeling in the world. Other than that though I'm feeling great. There hasn't been any real pains to back pains or contractions yet.

Since I still feel just fine, Ben and I went to Temple Square to look at all the lights. It was beautiful like always, but was a little more enjoyable since there were less people there. I also took another picture of the pregnancy, hopefully the very last one. The next time I write on my blog there will be a new little Stearns baby boy.