Week One

Liam managed to make our time in the hospital interesting, and a bit worrisome, when he made his entry into the world.  He didn't tolerate labor well, particularly that whole pushing him into the world part, and his heart rate would drop to about half every time I pushed.  This made the doctor and nurses (who were all wonderful and fabulous) worry a bit about the umbilical cord and whether it was potentially wrapped around his neck.  The doctor recommended attempting to use the vacuum over a C-section, which was fine by us, and once that decision was made, it was chaos in the room (organized chaos, but chaos nonetheless to us who had no idea what was going on!).  People started appearing out of nowhere and we went from 3 people in the room to like 11 in no time flat.  The vacuum did its job and we got him out, but that then led to a host of other concerns (although not the umbilical cord, turns out maybe he was just sitting on it and causing the problems!).

The vacuum did a number on the back of the little guy's head.  Once he was out they whisked him over to be examined, and then started calling in specialists to look at his head.  He had a huge hematoma on the back where the vacuum had attached, and about a half circle where the skin had just been rubbed away.  After two NICU PAs and then a doctor looked at him, it was determined that he could just be observed in the maternity ward by the pediatrician and didn't have to go visit the NICU at all.  That was a relief.  The concern was that there was potentially bleeding underneath there that could cause problems, but as we found out, there wasn't a need for worry there.

All of this was going on though over on the other side of the room, so Jay went over there to see what was going on and took a photo of him so I could see our little man.  It was about 30-40 minutes before I finally got to hold him, and it was pretty perfect when they placed him in my arms!  It made all the craziness and worry that started the minute they started talking about his heartbeat dropping disappear and all the aches and pains totally worth it.

The good news on the head was that while the first day looked pretty darn bad, within 24 hours he was shocking everyone with how much better it looked and how quickly it was healing.  All that worry and all it took was a couple of days of Bacitracin :)  We found out at his first doctor's appointment with our pediatrician that the doctor from the hospital had called her the day he was born to give her a heads up, saying it was one of the worst hematoma/injuries she had seen back there.  By the time we saw our pediatrician 4 days later for a jaundice check (all that extra blood on the back of the head led to a minor case of jaundice), you would never have guessed it had been that bad.  We were so lucky and so fortunate that it turned out as well as it did. 

(A little sunlight therapy for the jaundice with Grandma)

It made for an interesting week though, that's for sure, between the head, the jaundice, major weight loss (was 7 lbs 12 oz at birth, 4 days later was 6 lbs 11 oz) and then some issues regulating his temperature (I think he's going to run cold like his mom!).  All of them worked themselves out though with a little time and attention, and by our two week appointment we had a growing, happy, healthy baby boy.