Andy's story

Sorry I haven't updated the blog much since Andy was born. We've been pretty busy. After being home a little over a week, I feel like things are getting pretty under control. Lindsay's mom was here all last week, which was GREAT. Those first days at home would have been extra difficult without her. And Andy really liked getting to spend some time with his Mimi. Especially once he got done with all his apparatuses and could actually be held.

So here is Andy's story. As you know, his due date was March 15th. It's weird that the 15th is tomorrow. We had an ultrasound scheduled for the morning of March 1st, to see how big he was. He had been measuring a few weeks ahead most of the pregnancy. Prior to the 1st, Lindsay had been scheduled to be induced on Monday the 5th. So, we had our ultrasound at 9:00 on the 1st. They estimated he weighed about 8lbs 2oz. After the ultrasound, Lindsay's doctor saw her for just a minute. Lindsay was dilated 4 cm (she had been 2 cm for a few weeks already) She took Lindsay's blood pressure and it was pretty high. It had been that way for a couple of weeks. So her doctor sent us over to Labor and Delivery at the hospital for Lindsay's blood pressure to be monitored for a couple of hours to see if it went back down. This was routine for us, as I think this was our 4th time for Lindsay to be monitored. Well, this time her blood pressure didn't go down, so they decided to go ahead and induce Lindsay that day rather than wait until Monday.

At 1:00 they started the pitocin, which is the medicine they give to start labor. Within 20 minutes Lindsay was having regular contractions - about every 2-3 minutes.

At about 6:00, the on-call doctor came over and broke Lindsay's water. Following that her contractions got REALLY BAD!! She had these contractions for about an hour before they got the epidural in. It started working within about 10 minutes. I believe Lindsay's exact words were, "The epidural is a beautiful thing." Lindsay's labor continued to progress on its own, and they didn't use the pitocin anymore after they started the epidural.

Lindsay continued having contractions and at about 1:00am on Friday morning (3/2) she was 9 cm dilated. She started pushing at about 1:20 am. One of Lindsay's fears with the epidural was that she would feel her contractions to push on her own. Well, it worked great and she was still able to feel the pressure from the contractions, but not the pain. At 3:51 am, after 2.5 hours of pushing, little Anderson Brett was born.

Because he had kind of a rough delivery, he was sent to the neonatal intensive care nursery (NICU). He was there for about hours before we got to bring him to see Lindsay. Unfortunately, he swallowed quite a bit of blood during delivery also and choked a few times, so they had to take him back to the NICU. He really didn't get to spend much time with us other than for feedings until we took him home on Monday (3/5). Lindsay was discharged on Sunday, but they allowed us to stay that night at the hospital so we could be with him and continue to do all his feedings.

That's his birth in a nutshell. He had a rough start, but he's a strong boy.