Happily Home

Who is enjoying the playmat more?

FHE this Monday was boring in comparison to the last couple. We were happy to come home from the hospital Thursday. Thank you so so very much for your prayers and thoughts; they made such a difference.

Notice his feet are halfway out of his shoes? We call him baby Houdini because he is always working on escaping his clothes or blanket.

What can be said of the hospitalization experience in hindsight? Glad its over. Swaddling Isaac in a blanket or clothing him was difficult due to IV tubes and monitor wires. Holding him was difficult for the same reason. At first I thought it was super cool we had our own room, then I realized we had been put in an "isolation" room. It was a bit like ET; all the nurses and Dr's who came in wore breathing masks and eye shields. The IV drip and antibiotics filled him with liquids; however, he was constantly hungry but wouldn't breastfeed. His crying wore me down to finally decide to pump and bottle feed him (on the nurses' advice). Also frustrating was that doctors would never give me a straight answer as to what they suspected was wrong. Finally a resident said they suspected meningitis. In the end, they couldn't diagnose what caused the fever. And then there were those post partum hormones...

Isaac really liked Grandma Larson because she never got tired of holding him!

On the very bright side, the doctors and staff were so, so nice. It seemed all the hospital staff found a pretext for visiting 8 day old Isaac multiple times a day. Also, the biggest blessing was that my mom was in town during exactly the time Isaac and I were in the hospital. What would I have done without her? I know Heavenly Father was watching out for us.

Tags!! Once removed, non-returnable. Close call decision...

I have meant to write a little about the delivery experience: it went really well, honestly. My water broke at 5am Monday morning. We called the doctor, and she said to try and get some sleep--so Cliff and I fell asleep until around 10 or 11am! We decided around 2pm to walk the 2 miles to the hospital. We were put in a triage room where they determined I had a "grossly ruptured" membrane was dilated to a 4. I labored until around a 7 dilation, at which point I got an epidural. I asked the nurse a couple times to have a doctor come check me because I thought he was coming fast. The nurse sort of put me off, until around 8:15 when the doctor came and said--wow, your at a 10 and ready to push! The doctor said it was 15 minutes of pushing and 4 pushes before he was out. I remember more like 5 or 6 pushes and 20 minutes of pushing. At any rate, the moment they put Isaac on my chest was a life changing moment I will never forget.

Isaac and daddy napping Saturday morning.