Plummer Post: September 2011

To start I am embarrassed, Grant was a month old on Thursday and I am just posting about his arrival it's sad, but we have been getting adjusted to being a family of four and time has flown by. More about that later, I just wanted to get Grant's birth story written down and the pictures uploaded. So here is the story of his arrival.

At 4:00 AM on August 15, 2011, the alarm went off and John and I groggily got up to get ready for the hospital. We had to be at the hospital by 5:30 AM so our wonderful babysitter Whitney arrived at 4:30 AM to watch the still slumbering Noah. All the bags had been packed the night before and we were actually ready when she arrived. It was strange driving away from the house in the dark knowing the next time I saw the house we would have Grant with us in the car seat. I was trying to control my anxiety know what was going to happen in the next few hours, which involved lots of needles. I was also in shock, I was 39 weeks we had made it Grant was happily sleeping in my stomach unaware of his impending extraction, poor baby. I couldn't wait to meet him and quickly get home before they decided something else was wrong with us.

We arrived at the hospital at 5:15 and got checked in and went to our room. While we waited for our nurse we took some last pictures of pregnant Marsha and then the fun began. I got all hooked up to monitors and dressed in the latest in hospital haute fashion and then I told the nurse my tale of woe regarding my IV problems with Noah birth and I said I could pretty much hold it together for one stick and after that I could not make any promises. So she couldn't get it on the first stick and I started panicking. I had told myself I was going to be zen, I was going to be calm, I was going to be a rock. In reality, I was a sweaty, panicking wimp and in the nurses rushed because Grant's heartbeat just like Noah's dropped into the 70's. They started rushing around trying to decided it they wanted to rush us off to surgery and the nurse finally got the IV in, I started breathing again and Grant's heartbeat went back to normal after a couple of tense moments. All this before 6 AM, lovely. After that I figured the worst part was over for a while so I took a nap.

The doctors started coming in around 7 getting me prepped and then around 7:45 it was off to surgery. It was a different experience this time because my last c-section was an emergency due to my IV issue and so I don't really remember the operation room, but this time they had me walk in and I got a lovely view of all the needles and other sharp implements and almost decided that this was not the best idea for today, but the IV was already in and we had the babysitter so I decided lets just get this over with. In went the spinal which was painless thankfully just tons of pressure. I didn't get numb as fast as with Noah so I started to panic (yet again) that maybe it didn't work and I would be able to feel things, but pretty soon I was "comfortably numb" (gotta love the Floyd reference, right) so off we went.

Grant Alonzo Plummer was born at 8:06 AM and was perfect, he had a full head of brown hair and cried right away. The song "Amazing Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars was playing on the operating room radio when he was born and I think it sums up exactly how I feel about Grant. He was perfect and I started crying and couldn't stop I was so happy and relieved and just blessed and so thankful. John stayed with him and held his tiny hand while he got his shot and cut his cord. Then he brought him over to me and held him while they finished the surgery. I couldn't hold him, but I talked to him and touched his face and cried. He calmed down right away, but kind of started to cry a little bit, I think he was hungry. He was amazing and perfect.

After the surgery, we went back to the room and the shakes and the itching started because of the spinal, but I was expecting that. It was just annoying because I couldn't hold Grant because I was shaking so bad, but the nurses and John helped with pillows and stood next to me so I could hold him. We tried to get him to nurse, but didn't have a lot of luck so we gave him some formula. I was not going to put Grant through what Noah went through with the nursing so we made sure he got to eat right away. After about an hour we went up to the room and John got to push the baby lullaby which plays a melody throughout the whole hospital so everyone knows a baby was just born, it was so cute.

We got to the room and got settled and John went and got lunch and Grant and I napped. Grant was very different from Noah, he napped most of the first day and night which was amazing and kind of scary for us, because we thought something was wrong with him, but the nurses said newborns are suppose to sleep, who knew! It was a pretty easy hospital stay, I wanted to get up and walk six hours after the surgery, but the nurses were very hesitant so I did not really get to walk until that night.

One thing John and I noticed right away about Grant was his, as we affectionately call them velociraptor noises. He sounds like a little dinosaur with his grunts, creaks and little noises, its pretty funny, but is less funny at 3 AM. Other than his little noises we noticed right away that Grant has much more of a mellow personality than our little Noah, I didn't really get to see his eyes for the first 24 hours because he was sleeping and when he was awake endured the breast feeding attempts and bottle feeding calmly and never really got too worked up about anything. He is a amazing baby, how blessed we are.

Noah came to see his little brother on August 16, 2011 in the afternoon and was immediately in love with him and wanted to take him home so he could play garbage trucks with him. I was so worried about how he would be around Grant, but he was so proud and happy that mommy and baby Grant were okay, he just wanted us to come home.

Since everything was perfect with Grant and I was doing great we got to go home on August 17, 2011 around 11 AM. I was so happy to be going home so that I could be with Noah and just be home with my family. I am sure I forgot things about the hospital, it was a whirlwind and it has been a month, but the thing I remember most is that my baby had finally arrived and he was perfect. Here are some pictures. I will post some of John's thoughts later.