I went to my last night of work at the dance studio last Tuesday. I was having some contractions, but that was nothing new. I had been having consistent contractions for 9 weeks. I didn't think too much of it, but some of my dance girls were getting a little nervous. I left the studio about 9:30. Grant was also a little concerned about the contractions when I got home, since they seemed to take my breath away. I wasn't in the mood to deal with it, so I told Grant to write down whenever I had a contraction and not to tell me. Well, after 20 minutes he informed me that they were consistently 3 minutes apart. I said, "Well, maybe I'm just hungry." And ate a snack. Still 3 minutes apart. I said, "Well, maybe I'm just stressed from work. I'm going to go take a hot bath." Can you say denial???? Well, you guessed it, still 3 minutes apart throughout my bath. Grant finally convinced me to call the doctor after I had had 17 contractions in an hour. Thankfully the doctor that delivered Alex and was scheduled to deliver Noah the next week was on call. He told me to come on down to the hospital. Big surprise, eh?
Grant called Danny Smoker to come over and stay with Alex. Not quite sure how he got here as quickly as he did :) We packed up our hospital bag and jumped in the car. I honestly was having a hard time with what was happening. I had everything planned for the scheduled c-section. Grant, Alex and I were going to go to the zoo on Sunday for one last family-of-3-fun-day, and Alex and I were going to have a great last day with just the two of us on Monday. Those plans weren't going to happen. On top of all of that, I didn't even get to hug or kiss Alex goodnight or goodbye since I was at work that evening. They say God laughs at our plans, and I definitely felt that way!
Well, we got to the hospital around 11:30pm and it took about an hour to check in and find out that baby boy would definitely be arriving via c-section that night for sure. We called our parents to let them know, and my parents jumped in the car. We decided to hold off doing the surgery until 6am so that my cardiologist and medtronic rep would be closer to being in the hospital in case we needed them. I got some good drugs and dozed for a couple hours. Before we knew it, it was time.
The surgery went really smoothly. It's kindof a blur to me, but I do remember some things very specifically. Dr. Stamler exclaiming "This baby's in here crooked! What's with all of your babies being crooked?!?!" (Alex was crooked and upside down, hence the c-section for him...) I also remember Dr. Stamler saying, as he pulled the baby out, "We have another redhead!" I remember asking several times "Is he okay?" And all the nurses reassuring me that he was just fine. I could look in a mirror and see him getting cleaned up behind my head. He had some fluid in his lungs that had to be suctioned out, but he really was just tiny and perfect.
He weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. He was born at 6:37am on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010. It took us until around 8 o'clock that evening to decide on a name for sure. (Well, okay, to be fair...it took ME that long. Grant had committed to the name several weeks beforehand.) We decided to go with Noah Stephens. Boy names are just hard for us. During the process of deciding, Grant had asked me what story I liked from the Bible. When I was little, I read the story of Noah's ark in my children's Bible over and over because I loved the picture of the rainbow on the page. Grant liked Noah because he followed God's instructions even though everyone else thought he was crazy. He listened to God and was loyal. Stephens is Grant's Mom's maiden name. She is the last of her family, so it's a nice way for her family name to continue and be remembered. The name Noah has grown on me each day that he's been here. It fits him. I finally decided to let that be his name when Danny Smoker looked up the meaning. It means "peaceful." And our Noah truly is a peaceful, content little boy. So it fits.
While in the hospital, Noah had an echocardiogram and EKG done on his heart. The VSD (hole) is still there. It's just where they thought it was, and tiny just like they thought. In addition, they also found two other holes in his heart. One is between the 2 atria and the other is by the pulmonary artery and aorta. Both of those holes are supposed to be there when the baby is in utero. They are supposed to close upon birth. All 3 of the holes are apparently pretty common. Noah just happens to have all 3 of them. I had emailed Dr. Knilans that the echo and EKG had been completed and for him to keep an eye open for them. He called me that evening. He told me that all three holes were pretty tiny and that he wasn't overly concerned about them, at least at Noah's age (which was 2 days at that point). He didn't think that any of them would cause Noah long term problems. He did want us to bring Noah to Children's for another EKG, just because the one he received wasn't very clear. We've done the extra EKG, and now we're just waiting for the results.
I am obviously concerned about Noah. I hate it that there's ANYTHING wrong with him. I hate that there are 3 things structurally wrong with his tiny little heart and that he has the potential to inherit my electrical problem. It feels like there's a lot stacked up against him. At the same time, I'm not worried. I know that he is in God's hands and that God will take care of him, just like God's taken care of my heart issues. On top of that, the doctors said that if Noah did have any side effects from the hole in his heart it would be that he would have problems feeding. Well, my boy has been nursing like a champ since day 1. He is a MUCH better nurser than Alex was. So that tells me he'll be just fine.
Alex has been a fabulous big brother so far. He loves to kiss baby, bring him binkies, blankies, etc. He gets very nervous when baby is "sad" and always has to know where baby is. He also is very overprotective. Doctors and nurses get a dirty look and are very closely observed as they check out baby Noah.
All in all, I am very relieved to have baby Noah here. I am so thankful he's here, safe, content, and cute :)
Tiny feet!
Big brother trying out the pumpkin seat :)
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