the very best day....and the hardest week ever

hi everyone! man, has it been a while since i've even tried to sit down and write anything. there are so many new and exciting things happening in the alexander household, so needless to say, this may be a doozy of a post.

i guess lets go back to the beginning....last wednesday, July 30th. i had a routine doctor's appointment scheduled and went in . i've been having trouble with my blood pressure the last few months i've been pregnant, and once again it had spiked. they sent me into triage to be monitored, and instead of going back down like it has in the past, it spiked really high....like crazy high, like 177/82 high. woah!

one of the last photos i took while still preggo (around 35 weeks)

my doctor told me that i wouldn't be going home that night, but instead was going to be induced. they also said it would be a process, most likely 2-3 days before little man would make his arrival. i got admitted and put into a room and my mom came down to be with me. kevin is working in new york right now, so i called him and he got on the very next plane he could, a 6 am flight that would land in spokane at 10:45 am. plenty of time to make delivery, or so we thought.

lincoln james alexander, born 7/31/14 at 7:14 am, 6 lbs, 1 oz and 18.5 inches 

my mom and i settled in for the night and the next morning around 5 (we didn't sleep very well) my mom got up to get us coffees (until i went into active labor, they were still letting me eat and drink regularly). while she was out, at 5:20 am, my water broke. i don't think the nurse believed me at first, but when she finally came in and saw me, her only comment was "woah, well that changes things."

almost instantly i started having contractions. they were mostly in my back and while they were uncomfortable, i wasn't in a huge amount of pain. i did however, keep wanting to get up and move around, and unplug myself from the monitors (because i was induced and because of the high blood pressure, i had to be constantly monitored).

at about 6:15 am, i started to get really shaky, and was in a lot of pain and went ghost white. they wanted to hook me up to the monitors right away to make sure baby was ok. he wasn't, and the next 10 minutes were probably the scariest of my life.

little man flat lined. his heart rate was nonexistent, and a team of nurses and doctors came rushing into the room. they started working immediately and told me i had to have a c-section right that minute, that lincoln was in distress and that they needed to move quickly. i threw my phone at my mom and told her to call kevin.

the doctors and nurses didn't miss a beat. i had to lie on my back and then move onto my hands and knees while they worked around me. they rushed me out of the delivery room, and ran with me down the hall to the OR, all the while working to get me ready for surgery.  i wasn't breathing well, because i was stressed out so they had oxygen on me and we're trying to calm me down. they told me that they were going to have to put me out completely, because there wasn't anytime for an epidural.

we got into the operating room, the big lights came down over me, they moved me to the operating table and were cleaning the incision point. at that point, the doctors told me they were going to put me out, and i woke up a few hours later, around 9:30 am.

on thursday, july 31, 2014 at 7:14 am our son, lincoln james alexander was born. i wasn't awake for it, but it was the best moment in the whole wide world.

lincoln was born via a "crash c-section." (an emergency c-section is when the mom has an epidural and a horizontal incision is made, a crash c-section is when mom has to be knocked out completely and typically a vertical incision is made because it is a life or death situation for either mom or baby) he had to be vacuumed out because he had already started to make his way down into the birth canal. as he made his entrance into the world, he breathed in amniotic fluid and it went into his lungs.

he immediately had to go up to NICU to be monitored, for what we told would initially only be about 4 hours. that 4 hours turned into the longest week of my life.

while overall he was healthy, the fluid in his lungs was causing breathing problems for him and they told us after the initial 4 hour monitoring that he was going to have to be admitted and a c-pap (breathing mask) would have to be put on to help him breath. he also had to start a round of antibiotics that could potentially last 7-10 days and would keep him in the hospital that long.

little man is a fighter though, and after 3 days he was able to go off the c-pap and stop antibiotics and we were told that he may even be able to come home early. they just needed to monitor his food intake and how well he was digesting everything and then we would get to go home! that was music to this new mama's ears.

on monday, we found out his biliruben levels were increasing (which causes jaundice) and that he would need to be monitored for another 24 hours to make sure that they didn't go into the danger zone. if they got too high, they were going to have to put him on "light therapy" to help break down the biliruben so he could pass it. we came in tuesday morning, to find the little guy stuck under intense UV lights and knew he wasn't coming him with us.

these little sunglasses protected his eyes from the uv light therapy he had to do. 

my mama heart broke and there were lots of tears that day. not only was he not coming home, he had to stay under the lights as much as possible, so we went from being able to hold him anytime we wanted, for as long as we wanted, to barely at all. he could only come out for feedings, and because he wasn't exclusively breastfeeding yet, he could only be bottle-fed, which meant no more skin to skin contact for me an my little man. i think i lost most of my water weight through my eyeballs that day ;0)

by wednesday morning his biliruben had dropped extensively and they were already weaning him off the lights! by 8 pm that evening he was off light therapy completely and we were told that as long as his biliruben levels continued to drop throughout that night, we would be able to take our little man home on thursday morning.

finally wire free, cord free, mask free and sunglasses free!!!

on august, 7, 2014, lincoln's one week birthday, little man came home with mommy and daddy. after the hardest week ever, we had the best day of our lives and baby boy came home with us.

one week old today and ready to come home! 

he's been home a little over 5 hours now and is asleep in his very own crib as i write this. i'm listening to him on the monitor, trying not to run into the room with every little sound he makes, and i couldn't be happier. this little guy has made kevin and i so very very happy and while he had a rough start, we're so excited for everything we're about to experience as a healthy family of four (our fur son is feeling a little left out right now, but he'll get used to him soon enough).

naptime for both both lincoln and porter (it's been an eventful day for these two!)

over the past week, we've felt so much love from so many people who have kept lincoln in their thoughts and prayers and have sent us texts and emails. we're so grateful for the wonderful people in our lives and can't wait to introduce mr. lincoln to each and everyone of you!

XOXOX,

meghan, kevin and baby lincoln