Number 4

So instead of trying to catch up right now I will blog on our newest addition. Kaiden Owen Isom joined our family 3 weeks early. I started having contractions with him quite early in the pregnancy so I cut down my hours at work and tried to take it easy at home. At my 37 week appointment I had mentioned to my doctor that I was having a lot of contractions the day before and all night. (I was just praying I wouldn't go into labor because that was Luke's birthday). When he checked me I was a 5. He told me if I kept having contractions during the day to come to the hospital. So I came home and started getting things ready to have a baby. The only piece missing to this puzzle was my mom. She was in TX helping/visiting with Danette who had a baby earlier in the month. Since our due dates were 6 weeks apart mom figured she would have plenty of time to be with both of us.
 Let's go back for a minute to earlier in the pregnancy, I was super sick, actually lost weight before gaining. A few days before Christmas I was at work and my foot felt like it was numb, within 10 minutes it had traveled to my hand and arm. I wasn't feeling good so I went and sat down. That's when my face went numb and my speech was a little slurred. I guess I was lucky to be at work, Dr. Twiggs came and checked my hear rate, lungs, and blood pressure. They all checked out okay. I called my mom to come get me and take me home. Once we got home she took the kids and Josh and I went to the emergency room. After 6 hours there they came up with the diagnosis of a Migraine with stroke like symptoms. Never have had this before and haven't had one since. Something about this pregnancy felt different. I couldn't pinpoint what it was. On our second ultrasound, when we found out we were having another boy they also found that this little ones long bones were measuring short. We were told that this is a "soft" indication for Down's Syndrome. We followed up with a specialist at Maternal Fetal Medicine. They did a very thorough  ultrasound and said that he was measuring in the normal range just on the low side, so they chalked it up to my genetics and said he was probably just going to be a little guy. We had another follow-up ultra sound and they said that he was measuring in the 30% and the limbs were still a little short. So many things were going through my head at this point. Was he going to be Downs, did he have some sort of Dwarfism? Talk about stress. I tried not to think much about it but just prayed that he would be healthy and I would be able to handle whatever the Lord sent us. I always felt that I would never go to my due date.
Not only was mom in Texas but Dad, Daniel and Chantelle also were there. Luckily I had been thinking of what to do just in case he decided to come early. I figured if I had everything planned he wouldn't come early. Thankfully Grandma and Grandpa Fowlks (Great) was able to come down the day before. I called her to see if they could come watch the kids around 430, then I called Craig (family friend) to see if he could come around 8 to watch a movie with the kids until my mother-in-law Jeannie could make it from Las Vegas. I kissed my kiddos goodbye and we left. I didn't pack any toiletries because I wasn't going to be staying at the hospital for long, and Josh was just going to go home a few hours after the the baby was born.

We got to the hospital and they put me in the observation room. Luckily before they checked me my doctor was there doing rounds so he came in. I was at a 6 and he told them to admit me. I was just hoping at this time I would be in the room and able to get my epidural before it was to late. Before my blood work came back they gave me the epidural and things were going good for about a two hours, then I was starting to feel all the contractions. I was at an 8 and they were STRONG. I honestly don't know how women have babies with out meds. I was trying hard to focus on breathing and trying to distract myself and it wasn't working. I had already pushed the button the maximum amount so they had to call in the anesthesiologist in to re-do the dose. I had Josh give me a blessing.  It was only maybe an hour after  I got comfortable that I was at a 10 and ready to go. We were waiting for the doctor to show-up, no practice pushes because baby was right there. Three pushes and he was here! Then instead of a loud cry there was just grunting, groaning and gurgles. Dr. Rogers was working hard on getting him to take that deep breath.Then he put him on my lap and the nurse and I were working on that while he got the cord ready to cut. Once the cord was cut my little baby started to turn blue. The nurse calmly took him over to his little bed and I watched as they tried to get him to take that breath in. He got his Hep B shot and footprints and then they pushed the code button, he had stopped breathing and was completely blue.They bagged him and nurses came running in. My doctor was calmly explaining that people were going to start coming in to help him.  I know enough of in the medical field to know that no noise and blue was not good and I didn't care how many people came in to help as long as they got him breathing again. They scooped him up and told me to kiss him goodbye and whisked him to the NICU. Poor Josh was so torn! He didn't want to leave me by myself but knew he needed to go with the baby. I was still doing okay, I didn't freak out or cry, I was calm. My RN was fabulous! The NICU nurse practitioner came in to update me she told me that we have two options. Baby (yes we still hadn't decided on a name yet) was born with no surfactant (this is what is in the lungs that keeps them open after the first breath) so we could put the CPAP on him and let him struggle for a couple days til his body naturally produces it OR Intubate him and put in artificial surfactant and let his body not work so hard to breath. UMMM it was a no brainer choice for me! Give him the surfactant and lets get him breathing! Josh sent me this picture of our baby before they intubated him and the one after.

At this point I didn't even know how much he weighed or how tall he was...nothing. I called my mom to let her know he was here and what was going on. Once we we hung up she immediately called Grandma and Grandpa to come to the hospital to be with me. They walked in around 1130 pm. Grandma stayed with me and Grandpa went to be with Josh. We had Josh and Grandpa give the baby a blessing, Dr. Twiggs also happened to be there so he stood in with them. They transferred me to my room. Grandma and Grandpa left around 1 am. I had fallen asleep and about 4 am I heard the baby in the next room start to cry. That's when I lost it. I hadn't seen, held or nursed my baby. He should be there with me. I couldn't go to the NICU until the epidural wore off. I finally got to go see him around 9 am.

I finally got to hold my baby the next day. We tried some skin to skin but it was a little difficult with all the tubes.



Josh and I decided to name him Kaiden Owen Isom. The name Kaiden actually means "fighter." When we were discussing names earlier in the day we had said no to this one because we don't need another fighter in our house. But after the events of his birth and one of the nurses calling him a fighter, we (mainly I) felt like it was fitting to name him Kaiden. Owen was a name that Josh really liked, it was actually his Grandpa's middle name. So that's the meaning behind his name. He weighed 6 pounds 15 oz and was 19 inches.

Kaiden was in the NICU for a total of 11 days. He was released on Josh's birthday. I am soooo grateful that Jeannie was able to stay for 10 of those days! Her supervisor at work deserves some chocolate for letting her stay here for that long. It gave Josh and I the opportunity to go back and forth when we needed to. The last 3 days were especially hard for me. He was nursing (yay) but that meant I had to be at the hospital every 3 hours to feed him and spend the night there. It was so hard to not feel guilty to be leaving the other 3 at home or leaving my sweet newborn at the hospital.
Josh and Jeannie brought the kids over on Wednesday night (he was born Tuesday night) to meet there baby brother.

We didn't have Luke come in because I had taken him in Tuesday after my doctor apt and he was given Amoxil for a sinus infection.

On Thursday he was able to be extubated and put on the CPAP. The tape made his poor face so red. He was also quite swollen. This is also the day we learned he had a murmur. They did an ECHO and found he had a ASD and VSD. Holes in both walls. Also he has PPS which is narrowing in the pulmonary veins. All of these are common newborn things, he was just lucky enough to get them all. This was also the day his daddy got to hold him.

On Friday he was visited by Grandpa, Daniel, Chantelle and Des.

After they left I got to do more skin to skin. He looked so comfy.

 He was such a easy going guy in the NICU he only cried when they checked vitals.

On Sunday we came in to find him under the bili lights. So he got to lay in those for two days. He got to wear a super cool Super Hero mask.

Just some random pictures of the next couple days.

  

On Monday night we brought the kids over again for FHE and let Luke go in this time. He sang to baby Kaiden. It was so cute! I can't get the video to upload for whatever reason.That night they decided to try him on the HiFlow air.

I came over Tuesday morning and snapped this picture! The lighting was perfect and he looked so cute!

That afternoon they decided he was doing good enough to try and take off the air and also to try nursing full-time. It was so fun to see his cute face without any tubes and holding him without worrying about the tubes great!!

Then they decided to get rid of the Giraffe bed and put him in a normal newborn bed. This was a happy day. Just meant we were getting closer to bringing him home!! This was the start of me boarding at the hospital. It wasn't to bad really, other than the fact I wasn't at home with the rest of my family. But I was able to have time be with this sweet newborn....alone...I had a room all to myself...quiet. The bad thing was in the night having to get up and go to the elevator and go down a floor, feed, then go back up.

That night because he didn't eat for a full 10 min the nurse decided to put the feeding tube back in his nose. Grrr. So now we had to be there for sure another 12 hrs with out the tube being used.

That night Daddy came and spent a couple hours with us and Grandpa got to hold him for the first time!

On Friday at rounds they told me if he kept peeing and eating they would let us go home around 1ish (YAY, it was Josh's birthday! What a great present)! But he was looking a little yellow so they decided they better check his bili. I ran home because I didn't have an outfit for him with me. While I was out I got a call saying his bili was 17.6! Way to high! Another grrrrr. So they told me they would put him under their high intensity blue lights and check it in 6 hrs. If it was down we could go home around 8 and he would need photo therapy at home for the night. It was at 12! We could go home!!

So that's his birth and the first almost two weeks of his life story.Whew!