After the birth

After everyone left, Richie & I unwrapped our precious new son and checked out his soft, warm body. We counted his fingers and toes.

Then I tried to nurse him. He latched on great and was eating away!

I looked down to admire him when I noticed his eyes rolling back in his head. He turned blue, white, purple and fell limp into my arms.

I looked up wide-eyed at Richie and asked what we do.

Thankfully, at that moment, our hero Pam walked in. We quickly showed Ike to her and she brushed it off and started tapping his foot. When Isaac didn't respond in a few seconds, Pam grabbed him up and ran off to the nursery with him.

We waited. And waited. And waited to hear about our sweet boy.

About 30 minutes later, Pam came in to say they had to resuscitate Isaac and suction out his lungs. It was probably from swallowing fluid when he was born. They said he'd be ok and we could see him again when we got settled in our room.

A nurse came to help me wash up and change. They put me in a wheelchair and off we went to our recovery room.

We got settled in about 1:00am. Richie fell asleep and I tossed and turned. About 3:30am, Dr. Harris, a pediatrician, came in. His hair was a mess, he was wearing flip flops and a Tommy Bahama shirt. He sat down on the bed and held my hand.

My heart raced as he told me that Isaac had stopped breathing twice more in the past three hours. They had to put in an IV, put him in an oxygen tent and were doing xrays and bloodwork to figure out the problem. He told me that he believed it was just that Ike was learning to suck-swallow-breathe and he thought he would be just fine. In the meantime, they had to rule out more serious issues.

Dr. Harris left and I started to cry. I called my mom to tell her what was going on and she said everything would be ok. Richie woke up and I relayed the update.

I tried to get a bit of sleep. Around 7:00, a nurse came in to give me my medicine and I asked about Isaac. She said we wouldn't be able to see him until at least noon.

Richie and I decided not to tell anyone what was going on, since we didn't know much.

My parents arrived and we confided in them, walking by the nursery to see if we could catch a glimpse of our new baby.

Visitors stopped in and it was heartbreaking to not have our baby in our arms. We stayed as upbeat as we could.

Right before lunch, Richie got a phone call that made this day even worse. He had lost his job. Coach Bianco used Richie as the fall guy for the season.

At this point life became a blur. My new baby was in the nursery and I couldn't hold him. My husband had lost his job, our livelihood. Not to mention I could barely waddle because I was sticked up times a million.

I sat in bed waiting to meet my Isaac and hold him close.

We were allowed in the nursery to see him around 2:00pm. They asked me to try nursing him again so they could monitor his vital signs while he ate. We sat and cuddled our little boy as long as we could.

Thankfully, everything turned out ok. We were released at 10:00pm on Wednesday night. Ike received a clean bill of health and we were asked to come back each day for the next few days to just check him over.

We got home and snuggled in bed with our new family. How the baby woke us up crying in the middle of the night and we kinda, sorta forgot we had a baby is another story.