One Month!

How is our boy already a month old?!

• By my calculations, he weighs 11 pounds.  That means that he has gained 2.5 pounds since he was born.  What a chunk bucket!
• He wears size 1 diapers.  He wore newborns for a week or two and outgrew them.
• He can still wear a few of his newborn clothes, but his 0-3 month and 3 month have already made it into the rotation.
• He is on a pretty good 3 hour schedule (and has been for weeks I feel like) and at night has given us as many as 4 or 5 hours between feedings, though that is not the norm.  We aren't on any type of schedule, yet.  We just go with the flow.  That is going to change soon to get that sleeping through the night thing going.
• We haven't instated BabyWise yet, but we have followed the eat, play, sleep model since he was born.  When he wakes up he eats, then we change his diaper and talk to him/put him on his play mat/lay him down and let him look around until he starts fussing.  Then it is time for him to go to sleep, so we swaddle him up and put him down.  He doesn't always instantly fall asleep, but will look around for a bit and then doze off.  That is great because it means that he is already learning how to put himself to sleep, which will help out a bunch once we really start BabyWise-ing him in a few weeks.
• I am still exclusively pumping.  I was all ready to boob feed him, but at about the week mark he started needing more than I could give him.  He would eat for about an hour (ain't nobody got time for that!) and still be hungry.  I would have to make him a bottle to top him off.  I decided that it was just easier for me to pump and give him a full feeding out of a bottle when he ate.  I am such a cow that I only have to pump four times a day and that gets enough milk for all of his feedings and then some to stash in the freezer each day.  I already have a freezer FULL of milk, which I know is such a huge blessing.  A lot of women have to work really hard to produce milk and I am very lucky to just naturally be a big milk producer.  I do feel like a cow, though - MMOOOOOOO!!
• Today (4 1/2 wks) we put him down for a nap in his crib for the first time.  We have had him napping in the living room swaddled in the bouncy seat next to the white noise made by the MamaRoo (which he has already outgrown - he relaxed much more in something that vibrated).  We have not been quiet, but we have kept the TV just loud enough for us to hear it and tried to keep Caroline from running around him and making a ridiculous amount of noise.  He has done great and slept through everything, but this week is a Wonder Week (a book/app/website that shows physical symptoms that come from cognitive 'leaps' that babies make) so he has been much more aware of what is going on around him.  He started waking up a lot more because of noise and light.  So I decided just to try putting him to sleep in his room because it is much quieter and darker in his room.  He did not bat an eye.  He only woke up for a second during that first nap and we popped his paci back in and he went right back to sleep.  His second nap he closed his eyes and was out for two hours.  We may even let him sleep in his room at night already.  I can remember the difference that made with Caroline.  We all could use a good night sleep! (Haha...jumped the gun on that one!  This happened to be a Wonder Week where he is eating every two hours and is having a hard time getting himself to sleep.  We put him in his crib the night I said we would, but he was up every two hours so we are going to hold off on the crib stuff.  We just need to get everyone through this week using whatever works!)
• For the most part he is a really great baby.  Laid back, go with the flow - unless you change his clothes and try to make him straighten out his arms and legs, change his diaper, make him wait too long to eat, make him ride in his car seat, or wait to long to put him to bed.  So pretty much as long as he is full with a clean butt and put down for a nap after just a bit of being awake - he is happy as a clam!

We love you so much, sweet Cam!  You have been such a great baby and I can't wait to see how you grow and change over these next few months!

Got to have a one month picture with Big Sister!

First Weeks

First Week

The first week after being home was full of adrenaline and sweetness!  Camden was getting up every 2 - 3 hours, but I was so glad to have him home that I wasn't exhausted yet.  Caroline was far more exhausting than Camden was!  She is SUCH a great big sister and wants to help to everything.  Sometimes that adds 10 minutes to what I am trying to do, but her heart is in such a great place.  He slept on anyone at any time and only really got mad when he got really hungry or you were trying to change his diaper or clothes.  He slept with his hands up by his face and I could just imagine him spending the last few months like that in my belly.  We had lots of people coming by to meet him.  There are so many pictures that I did not get!!  Aunt Michelle, Sherry, William, Kya, and Mike and Bobbie Queen came by and I didn't get pictures!  He is a very loved little boy already!!  I was breastfeeding him, which was going well to begin with.  He was eating like a champ and had since the minute he came out.  I'm not sure if it was being in the NICU and being bottle fed or what, but after a few days, he would eat and eat for about an hour and start screaming because he was still hungry.  So I would pump and he would eat another 3 ounces.  So he was working really hard (latch was great, I could hear him swallowing) and I knew that he was doing things well, I just wasn't producing enough fast enough.  So I started pumping to see if I could make enough to keep him fed.  I breast fed him in the morning and at night to keep my production up.  I did have a scare a few days after coming home when I got a 24 stomach bug.  I was shitting my brains out (sorry, TMI) and I was so worried that it would make my milk go away.  Luckily, Leslie was a reassuring phone call away and my mom was there to help me with Caroline so I could rest as much as possible.  I am glad it was only 24 hours because I felt TERRIBLE, but luckily everyone came out unscathed!  I also had a mild case of mastitis this week.  I felt like I had the flu for a couple of days and my boob was ON FIRE.  Luckily, it never amounted to anything horrible and I didn't even have to go to the doctor.  My mom was there with us that first week and I cannot put into words how much she helped.  Laundry was always done, dishes were washed, meals were made, Caroline was entertained, and I was able to care for Cam and get a nap when I could.  My house also got mama cleaned, which meant that I didn't have to worry about it for a good while.  I was so sad when it was time for her to leave!  That is such a special time for me to share with my mama.

Finally home!

Got to have those hands up by his face!

Harley checking things out!  The dogs have been GREAT with Camden.  They usually come and get me when he is making any type of noise at all!

Daddy LOVES babies sleeping on his chest!

Big sister getting some time with Cam.  She asks to hold him every single day.  So sweet!

Helping me give him his first bath!

'Mom, can I please do the dishes!'

Uncle G and Aunt Michelle came by to see Cam!

Grandpa getting some help feeding Cam.  Big sister is never far away!

We took our first trip over to Leslie and Will's to hang out with Jack while Anna went to Open House.

There is nothing like some Mimi love!

1 Week Old

The second week we went back to the doctor and my chubster was up to 10.1 lbs!  He had gained a pound and a half since he was born!  Needless to say there was no concern of not getting the nutrition that he needed.  He did have two huge bumps on his head (sub-dermal hematomas) from the delivery that had me concerned.  The doctor said it may take weeks for those to go away, but that they would go away on their own.  This week we had some fussing and some general discomfort.  I thought it might be reflux, but when I asked the doctor about it he said that he wouldn't be gaining much weight if it was real reflux.  We did a lot of walking, pacing, bouncing, Mama-Rooing, and not restful sleeping.  Jason's mom was up that week and she did a lot of walking with him.  He would fall asleep and then wake up crying.  We weren't sure what to do with him and I was so worried that this was a preview of what our life would be.  He was waking Caroline up and we couldn't get him to get to sleep like he had the week before.  Jason also went back to work this week (he started at Reynolds HS and couldn't miss the work days because it was a new school for him), so the no sleeping was pretty painful.  Jason was amazing and would get up and take him when he could tell I was just exhausted and getting frustrated.  Jason's mom was wonderful and was so much help.  She made her amazing meatloaf for us, took Caroline out on some outings so I could get things done around the house, and she did a lot of Camden holding and loving.  Thank you so much, Grammie!

His big ol' bump on his head.  He had one on each side, but the one on his left side was by far the larger of the two.

Those hands have to be up!

Hey, little eyeballs!

'Mom, I can hold him and you can take our picture!'

Aunt Kelly came to meet Cam (and get some snuggles from Max)!

Thank you, Grammie!

2/3 Weeks Old

At one point during this week I finally Googled what to do when you have a newborn that is fighting sleep.  I felt like an idiot because the first thing I read was that babies needed to be swaddled and they needed white noise.  When they are in their mom's belly, they are very cramped and it is very loud.  It doesn't make sense for us to try to give them a lot of room and for it to be silent.  We knew all of this.  We swaddled Caroline and it worked great.  I'm not sure why we didn't think of doing that before.  So we grabbed the swaddler, bought a white noise machine, and the rest is history.  We now have a 3 week old that wakes up to eat (and spit up everywhere!), we change his diaper, let him 'play' for a bit (look at the fan, put him under the play mat, talk to him), and then once he starts fussing we swaddle him up, put him in his bouncy seat on vibrate, and turn on that white noise.  He is awake when we put him down and within a few minutes he is fast asleep and will stay asleep for a couple of hours until he is ready to eat again.  During the day he is on a pretty good 3 hour schedule and at night he has been going from 11 to 7 only getting up once (around 3 or 4).  Not too bad at all!  He is starting to be so much more awake and he is changing all the time.  The bumps on his head have started to go down, which I am very happy about.  He does have that 3 week acne pretty badly right now, but I know soon he'll have that baby soft skin that he had when he was born.  I'm excited to see how much he changes over these next few weeks!

Caroline keeping an eye on Cam while Jason and I ate dinner!

Our little sleeping, swaddled bean!

He gets more alert every day!

Bathtub fun!

Aunt Katie came to visit!!

First Days

Once Cam made his entrance into this world and we all had a chance to catch our breath, Leslie and Mom were eagerly waiting to come in and meet our boy.  They hung out with us until they moved us to our Mommy/Baby room.  By this point it was about 2 in the morning and they headed home.  We were getting settled in to our new room and the nurses came in.  There was a nurse there to check on me and a nurse to check on Cam.  I wasn't paying much attention to what my nurse was doing and saying because Cam's nurse was starting to check him out.  When Caroline was born, they took her for a few hours and checked her out, gave her a bath, and then brought her back.  They do everything in the room now.  As the nurse was checking Cam out, Jason and I were watching and listening to what she was doing and saying.  Everything was looking great and then she picked him up.  When she did that, Jason and I at the very same time looked at each other and asked if we had seen that thing on his back.  We asked the nurse about it and she looked at it and said, 'Oh yeah, that looks like something in the spina bifida family.'  I'm sorry - what?!?!  Spina bifida?  She said it so nonchalantly and said that she was sure the doctor would take a look at it.  Jason slowly moved to grab my phone off the edge and I immediately told him not to Google spina bifida. He said that he wasn't.  After a few minutes he put the phone down and said, 'Yeah, I definitely should not have done that.'

So throughout the morning, Cam was seen by the PA that was in the L&D room and a pediatrician.  They both told us that the spot looked like a tethered cord (Cam's spinal cord had fused into and through his skin at some point in his development, which is obviously not supposed to happen) and that it didn't look like that bad of a case, but they wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure.  We felt reassured that they weren't worried, but the ultrasound made us nervous.  The rest of the morning was a pretty normal morning after a baby has just been born.  They kept checking me every hour or so (and I was doing great) and family came to visit.  Caroline came to meet Cam for the first time and was absolutely precious.  She was instantly in love with her little brother.  Leslie brought Anna and Jack up and they were pretty smitten as well.  Deddy drove up that morning and was able to hold him for a bit before things got crazy.

At one point they took him and did the ultrasound.  They brought him back and said that the doctor would be in to talk to us soon.  Everything died down for a bit, so I tried to take a nap.  I was woken up by Jason and a doctor.  The doctor was the pediatric neurologist that was on call for the hospital.  He had been there for the ultrasound and was there to tell us what the game plan was going to be.  He told us that on the ultrasound it looked like he definitely had a tethered cord, but they were unable to tell if it was an open connection from the outside to his spinal column.  This is when it would be dangerous because bacteria would have direct access to his spinal column.  They wouldn't be able to be sure without doing an MRI.  In order to do this, they were going to have to send him to the NICU at Forsyth Medical Center (where he was born and where we currently were) to get him into a sterile environment in case it was an open connection and then they would have to transport him by ambulance to Brenner's Children's Hospital down the road because they have a pediatric neurology program and the ability to do an MRI on him.  This is when I started freaking out.  My baby that I have known for 12 hours is going to be taken to a different hospital.  He was going to be hooked up to all sorts of machines, transported on an ambulance, have to go through an MRI.  My mind was racing and I lost it.  I had held it together through most of what the doctor said, but I started bawling.  He completely understood how scary all of it was and was very nice.  He told us we had about 15 or 20 minutes and then we needed to go to the NICU to see him before he got transported.  He left us and Jason and I just cried and talked and held each other.  It is amazing that any of us are here and so many things have to go just right for a baby to be born perfectly, but we just weren't ready for something to be wrong.  The fact that he was being transported on an ambulance to a different hospital was the part that was so scary.  It might it all a really big deal.  Plus the fact that I would have to stay behind while Jason went with Camden.  We were both a mess.

We headed down to the NICU and I couldn't take it.  He was in an open crib under a heat lamp, but he had an IV in (so his hand was wrapped around a board so that he would leave it in), he had heart monitors and pulse monitors on, and they had put his bottom half in a bag of sterile saline to keep everything clean until his MRI.  I cried and cried and cried.  I had just given birth a few hours earlier, so my hormones were insane, but it was so hard to see my brand new sweet boy all hooked up like that.  So the nurse told me to sit and that I could hold him.  Wires and all, she put him in my arms.  I cried and cried.  Jason cried and cried.  It was a tough thing to see.  After a little while, our crying was done and we were able to talk to each other and talk to Cam and we started to get a hold of ourselves.  The PA told us that she thought things looked good and that as long as it was closed that we were lucky because there are a lot of kids that are born with a tethered cord and they don't know it and discover it when they are trying to learn how to walk.  The fact that we can see and know about the tethered cord make ours a really good case.  That helped put things in perspective.

So we sat and waited and waited and waited.  My mom had come to the hospital and came back to see us and Michelle (who hadn't met Cam yet) came back and got to spend some time with us. The way the doctor made it sound, the Brenner's transport team would be there quickly so that is why we only had 15 minutes to get down to see him.  Four hours later, my feet and hands were swelling up pretty badly and I was starting not to feel great.  Plus my nurses were looking for me because I had missed some checks and some medicine I was supposed to be taking.  We asked if they knew anything about when he would be taken and they said that the transport team had gotten an emergency call and that they were on their way.  I told Jason as much as I hated it that I needed to go back to my room.  So I gave Camden a kiss, gave Jason a kiss and headed back to my room.  The transport team made it to the hospital about 30 minutes after I left.  Jason said they put him in an incubator and he was all hooked up before they took him away.  They took him in an ambulance while Jason had to follow behind in his car.

Meanwhile, I was stuck at Forsyth.  It had been less than a day since I had a baby and all they would allow was a few hours pass for me to go to Brenner's.  So, Mom came up to stay with me and Deddy brought Caroline up and  Greg and Michelle came to visit for a while.  They brought dinner and we sat and hung out. Caroline had a tough time understanding where Jason and Cam were.  She was so upset because she thought she was coming up to hold and see Cam for only the second time and he wasn't there.  It was heartbreaking. Throughout the night the nurses would come in and let me know that they knew that Cam was at Brenner's and they were going to try to get the doctor to release me as soon as possible.  Every time they checked me they let me know that I was doing really well and that things looked good.  Everyone had their fingers crossed that that would continue so that I could be released the next morning.  At one point, Jason called me and asked me if it was okay to give Cam formula since we weren't together and I obviously couldn't feed him.  I told him that I would really rather not start that because I was afraid that it would screw up me feeding him for good.  So when Michelle and Greg came up with dinner they stopped by my house and grabbed my pump.  That way I could pump out the little bit I was making at the time and some how get it over to Brenner's so that Cam could have that.  My Mom was incredible and was my little milk runner that night.  Brenner's is about 5 miles away, so I would pump and get an ounce or so of colostrum and she would jump in the car and drive it to Brenner's.  She even did this at 4am!!  What a trooper!  She did this while she was staying with me at the hospital, which means she sacrificed any bit of sleep she may have gotten to stay with me and run my milk.  And I know that she would do it again tomorrow! :)  I was able to get Cam enough that the whole time he was in the NICU, he only had a few milliliters of formula.  Not too shabby for being away from him for a good bit of the time he was there!

That next morning, Dr. Ponder came in and asked me how I was doing.  I told him I was great and he told me that was what he was hoping to hear and that he would go ahead and start processing my discharge.  So I immediately hopped in the shower and started packing up my little room.  I was so ready to get out of there and get to my boys.  Jason had been with him since the ambulance ride and had luckily found a pretty decent place to sleep.  He called and let me know that they were going to take him for the MRI that morning.  It was scheduled for 8 am, but we had found out that in a hospital things rarely happen whent they say they will!  I was discharged and got to Brenner's around 10.  I got there right after they took him to the MRI, so I didn't get to see him.  We waited for him to come back and we were lucky because Leslie used to work at Brenner's in the PICU and knew a lot of nurses working the NICU.  She was able to pull some strings and get us updates on when they would be back. So we sat around and waited until the MRI was finished.  While all of this was going on, Jason's best friend and college roommate, John, and his wife, Jamie, were at Forsyth and Jamie was being induced a few weeks early.  They were telling them that there could be major complications with their little boy.  Once I got to Brenner's, Jason headed back to Forsyth to see how they were doing.  Leslie stayed around with me until Camden was back from his MRI and we were able to go back to the NICU to see him.  He was no longer wrapped up in his sterile bag, but there was still so many wires coming out of him.  I was just so glad to see him that I really didn't get upset when I saw him this time.  Being in the NICU, however, put things into perspective for both Jason and me.  There were some VERY sick babies around us and we were very lucky to have a chubby, healthy boy.  All of the nurses kept talking about how big he was because they were so used to dealing with little bitty tiny babies!  Leslie hung around with me until Dr. Couture came back after reading the MRI.  He FINALLY got back later that afternoon with some very good news.

The MRI had confirmed that he did, indeed, have a tethered cord.  It was completely closed, which was the very best scenario. There was no need to clean it a certain way or worry about keeping anything on it or off of it.  It would only start to cause trouble when he grew and the tethered part would start to get stretched tight as he got taller and starting walking upright.  Since it is tethered and we know that it is there, all we are going to have to do is have surgery when he is 6 months old.  At this age he is able to handle a surgery, but he is not mobile enough to pull on that cord.  It will be an outpatient procedure and they will go in, sever the connection between the cord and his back and fix the cosmetic appearance of his back.  And that will be it.  There will be no therapy needed, no follow up surgeries, nothing.  That will completely fix the situation.  This is the absolute best news we could have received in our situation.  He then let us know that he no longer needed to be in the NICU because there was no longer the need for a sterile, protective environment.  He was downgraded to intermediate care just a few hours later.

That night, Jason and I both decided that we needed to go home and get some sleep and Caroline wanted us both to be home and be there to put her to bed.  Jason's mom had made it up to meet Cam and she and Caroline got there in time to go back and see him in the intermediate care room.  Around 9pm, we all loaded up and headed home.  Leslie was sweet enough to come up to the hospital and be there to feed him at 11pm so that we could go home.  After we got Caroline to bed I pumped and discovered that my milk had come in!  I had left a few ounces of what I could produce and just asked them to mix what they had with a little bit of formula since I knew we were going home for the night.  That way he would get some breast milk with each feeding.  I was so excited that Jason offered to run the milk down to Brenner's.  Leslie was there waiting to give him that late night feeding, so he went and dropped it off with her.

I had planned on being there for the 8 am feeding and I got there at 8, but little buddy decided that he didn't want to wait until then to eat.  So the milk Jason took got him through the night and they only had to add a few milliliters of formula to that 7:30am feeding to get him full.  Not bad for not being there with him!  I hung out with my boy that morning and soon Jason and his mom and Caroline came up to see him.  Since they had whisked him away from Forsyth so quickly, there were some routine things that he didn't get.  So that morning they were making sure he had a hearing test (passed with flying colors!), the state screenings, and other blood tests.  (They only thing he didn't have done was his circumcision.  We had to get that done at a doctor's office a few days after we got home.)  Slowly, nurses and doctors were coming around to get things signed off, the wires and IVs were slowly coming off and we were finally able to put him in a cute outfit!  Around 2pm that day (August 14th) we got to take our boy home!  What started out as an extremely intense situation had ended up with the best news we could hear.  God was looking out for us and our sweet boy.

Through those rough few days, Jason and I were so incredibly thankful for all the support we got.  We were slow to tell people to begin with, but when things got serious we knew we needed all the prayers we could get.  We posted what was going on Facebook and the calls, texts, messages, and posts started pouring in.  I just want to again say a huge thank you to every single person and please know that we read every single word and felt every prayer.  We are extremely lucky to have a sweet, healthy boy that we get to watch grow up!

Mom and Leslie finally got in to meet Cam!

Caroline FINALLY gets to meet her little brother.  It was love at first sight!

 Our first picture as a family of four!

Jack and Anna getting to meet their cousin.  Jack was on his way to pinch his 'squeaky' cheeks!

Deddy came up to meet grandson #2!

 

This is what Jason and I saw when they picked him up that first morning.  This is the tethered cord that will be removed in a few months.  When the surgery is over, all he will have will be a small scar where this is.

 Holding my boy in the Forsyth NICU waiting for Brenner's transport.

I finally got released from Forsyth and got to Brenner's to see my boy.

 We got a clean bill of health and got to take our boy home!  Big sister FINALLY got to feed him as we were getting ready to leave.

Camden Michael

Man, oh, man - what a whirlwind these past couple of weeks have been!  I want to get this down before I start to lose the details!

Starting around 35 weeks I started to hurt.  My hips felt like they were breaking apart and things were just generally uncomfortable.  Sleeping was nearly impossible and I'm just glad that it was summer time and I didn't have to be on my feet trying to teach.  Caroline watched way too many movies during these last few weeks, but you do what you gotta do!

At my 38 week appointment, the doctor checked me and I was 2 cm and 60-70% effaced.  I knew that I could walk around like that for weeks, so I didn't get too excited, but at least it was something!  That night, Jason and I were watching a movie and I started contracting pretty regularly.  I started to get a little bit nervous that the doctor had started something, but figured I would go to sleep and if it was real it would wake me up.  So we went to bed and woke up the next morning and nothing was happening.  The next night the same thing happened.  And the next night.  And the next night.  The contractions were pretty intense and pretty regular for a couple of hours at night and then nothing.  It was so frustrating!!

I got checked again at my 39 week appointment and I was 4 cm and 70% effaced.  Those contractions were doing a little something.  The doctor thought for sure that I would go that weekend, but we set an appointment on my due date just in case.  At that appointment, we were going to set up an induction plan if he still wasn't here.

After my 39 week appointment, I kept contracting at night and waking up to nothing.  It had become so routine at this point that I was afraid I was going to be in real labor and not know it and just drop the baby on the floor!  So, I called Mom on Sunday and told her just to come up on Monday.  My appointment was Tuesday and Jason had football for a good bit of those next few days and it would be nice to have her around.  It may be early, but she was dying being so far away and I figured something had to happen at some point.  Plus, Sunday (August 10th) was a super moon.  It was supposed to be one of the biggest moons of the year.  With all that I had heard about babies and full moons, I (and my mom, sister, and sister in law!) just knew that would be it.  That extra gravity would pull Cam on out of there.  I went to bed Sunday night (everyone with their phone on because they knew they would be getting a phone call) and woke up Monday morning with nothing.  Damn it all!

Monday morning, Mom headed up here.  She got here around 4, so Caroline, Mom, and I loaded up and headed to Leslie's to hang out for a while.  We had some hibachi for dinner and the whole time I was contracting pretty regularly.  I didn't think anything of it because it had been happening for weeks.  Mom asked me how my contractions had been lately and I told her that I had been contracting most of the night.  She asked me on a scale of one to ten how bad they hurt and I told her they were at a six.  Both Mom and Leslie dropped their mouths open.  They couldn't believe that I was sitting there probably in real labor, but it was what I had done for weeks.  No big deal.  We left Leslie's about 9 and headed home.  The whole way home I was still contracting pretty regularly.  They were all in my back and wrapping around to my hips and not so painful that I couldn't talk or sit still.  We got home and Jason was home from football.  He helped me get Caroline in the bed (which I wanted to make sure we did if things were really happening).  After we got Caroline settled, I sat down.  My back was killing me and I looked at Jason and told him it might be time to pack up his stuff.  We both kind of laughed about it, but then I realized that I was pretty serious and he hopped right up.  Mom told me to go take a shower and if they were still Braxton-Hicks, a shower would relax me and they might stop.  If it was real labor, I would know and at least I was have a clean va-jay-jay!  I got undressed and into the shower and I couldn't stand up at all.  Those suckers started to hit and hit HARD.  It was the real deal.  I barely even dried off, got my clothes on, and grabbed my stuff.  We were in the car in less than 5 minutes.  The contractions were getting super intense at this point and there was no real break.  They were right on top of each other.  Like the scene of a movie, Jason flew down Silas Creek Parkway and I was just breathing all that I could and trying not to pass out from the pain.  I don't think I opened my eyes one time.

We got to the hospital at about 10:30pm.  We pulled up to the curb in front of the hospital and just left the car.  There was no way I was walking from the parking deck and valet was closed for the night.  They checked me in and told me to head to triage.  Once we got there, the computers were down and they were taking their sweet time while I couldn't even stand up straight.  I was in an extreme amount of pain.  When they finally got me to go around the corner to the rooms, the girl asked me to stand up tall when I had a chance so that they could get my height and weight before heading back.  Are you freaking kidding me?  What part of 'I'm in labor' did they not understand!  I'm pretty sure instead of 5'9" like I really am I was somewhere around 5'2"!  I finally got back to a room, changed into a gown, and then we were just sitting there.  I couldn't lay down, I couldn't stand up, I was in the middle of the real deal and no one seemed to be very concerned.  Jason finally went out of the room and asked for some help.  A nurse came in and checked me and yelled out, 'I've got 9 centimeters!'  HOLY SHIT.  No wonder I was in such freaking pain.  I was about to pop that baby out right there!  I started to panic because I didn't think I'd have time for an epidural.  I also wasn't going to have to get the doses of penicillin that I needed for Group B Strep that I was positive for. Not much I could do about either of those at this point.

They wheeled me up to labor and delivery and shit got REAL crazy.  I had people putting IVs in my arm, putting wrist bands on, asking me my birth date and name, introducing themselves - meanwhile I have both hands white knuckling on the bed rail and I am in so much pain I am crying and asking for an epidural as quickly as humanly possible.  Jason told me that every time someone would ask me my name and date of birth I would just yell out, 'SARAH COLLINS SMITH! 9! 2! 84!'  I was not playing around and I did not have time to have conversations with people unless you were the anesthesiologist and you were about to put a huge needle in my back.  Dr. Ramsay (the OB that we really liked that happened to be on call that night!) checked me soon after we got to the labor and delivery room and she told me that my amniotic sac was still in tact, but was right there and this was going to be happening really soon.  I asked if I was going to be able to get an epidural and she said that the anesthesiologist had been called and they would see what they could do.  Within a few minutes I heard someone introduce themselves and say they were the anesthesiologist.  HALLELUJAH!  She asked me my name and birthdate (ahh!!!) and started going through the risks of getting an epidural and asking for my consent.  I think at some point I had to sign something.  WHAT?!  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Eventually, she got to work and was a complete miracle worker.  I was laying on my side and she got that epidural in and it worked like a charm.  With Caroline, it only worked on one side, but this time it worked perfectly.  Within a few minutes, the edge was taken off and I was in a MUCH better place.  By the time I settled down it was about 11:45.  Jason and I were talking and I told him how cool it would be if Cam was born on his due date.  Dr. Ramsay checked me again and said that everything was ready to go when we were.  Jason asked her if we could wait a few minutes and she said she would check her other patients and come back in a few.

At 11:57, Dr. Ramsay came back in and she said that it was time to get things cranked up.  She went ahead and broke my water, they broke down the bed, and it was time to rock and roll.  We waited for a contraction and it was time to do work.  I pushed through that contraction, we waited for another one and I pushed through that one.  I pushed through four or five contractions and Dr. Ramsay said that the next contraction would be it.  We waited and the next contraction hit and I pushed.  All of a sudden Dr. Ramsay says, 'We need NICU.  We need help.'  Nurses knock Jason out of the way and jump up on the bed. I have two grown women pushing as hard as they can on my stomach and I am yelling from the pressure.  Jason could see that the umbilical cord is wrapped around Cam's neck and that Dr. Ramsay is using everything she has to pull it up and get it unwrapped.  The nurses push on my stomach for about a minute and finally he is out.  12:15 am on his due date - August 12, 2014.  They take him over to the warmer and we don't hear a thing.  Dr. Ramsay keeps reassuring us that he is in shock and just to give him a minute.  After a solid minute, we finally hear those cries.  I didn't realize that I had been holding my breath, but I finally let it out and started crying.  That was the most intense couple of minutes of my life.  Poor guy was so big that his shoulders couldn't turn like they needed to once his head was on the way out and he got stuck under my pelvic bone.  Thank the Lord I had an epidural because there is no telling how bad that would have hurt!!

Once Jason got over to him, he could immediately see that his face from his nose up to the top of his head were completely black and blue.  He was totally bruised up.  What a rough way to come in to this world!  His initial APGAR score was a 2, but then his score after 10 minutes was a 9.  Once things settled down a bit they weighed him and told us that he was 8 lbs 10 oz!  He was a big boy!  They checked his shoulder and let us know that there had been no damage on the way out.  He very easily could have dislocated it when it got stuck, but we were very lucky.  He was good as gold!

We were finally able to meet our boy!!

Welcome to the world, Camden Michael!!

8.12.14  8 lb 10 oz  22 in