Baby Carter is Here!

Carter Wilson Gussenhoven

Born on February 14, 2011 at 3:30 p.m.

9 pounds, 4 ounces - 21.5 inches

We knew Carter was going to be a big baby, so the doctor scheduled us to be induced 2 weeks early. This turned out to be a very good decision because none of us expected him to be this big.

Here I am right before we went to the hospital at 38 weeks pregnant:

We arrived at the hospital at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 13th, and they started me on a tablet about an hour and a half later. The tablet is supposed to help start labor by thinning out the cervix. So I had one around 9:30 p.m. and another at 1:30 a.m. The tablet was enough to make me have regular contractions every couple of minutes so they didn't think it was going to be necessary to put me on pitocen. My doctor was going to come around 5 a.m. but they were short on nurses so he didn't end up coming in until 9 a.m. to break my water. I was pain free up until that point and he said that I'd start being really uncomfortable in about half an hour, so we got the epidural right away. Then we waited... and waited... and waited some more. Around 1:00 p.m. they determined that I had peaked at 5 cm and that pitocen was necessary to get things moving along. At some point between then and when Carter was born I started to feel some pain and pressure. The anesthesiologist came and gave me a boost of some sort and I was back to being pain free just in time. My doctor had a flight to catch at 3:00 p.m. and we had all hoped that Carter would be born well before that, but having the shortage of nursing staff bumped us back a few hours and the time came for my doctor to leave. His replacement was his wife. She came and checked on us around 3:15 and after a few short pushes Carter was born at 3:30.

This is when things got a little rough. This next picture is super scary and my Mom didn't take pictures for awhile after this one.

Carter was having trouble breathing at first and what a relief it was when I finally heard him cry. He had some really bad bruising on his face and shoulder. They thought that he might have broken his clavicle, so they took him in for an x-ray and said it looked good and it would just be tender for a little while. We thought everything was great and were all really happy.

Everything was good until bright and early in the morning. It had been a few hours since Carter had eaten and he wouldn't wake up for anything. We tried everything to get him to wake up so he could eat, but nothing worked. They checked his vitals and determined that he was breathing very quickly and they took him away for some chest x-rays and blood work. They determined that there was fluid in his lungs that he needed to work out and that his white blood cell count was up, which meant that he was fighting off an infection. They started him on an IV of antibiotics and said he'd need to stay in the NICU for a minimum of 48 hours. They also wouldn't allow him to eat for an entire day because they said that breathing was more important and it's really hard for a baby to try to suck-swallow-breathe when he's going breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe very quickly.

This was a lot for this Momma to process and I basically cried non-stop for the next 2-3 days. The hormones didn't help any. I would stop crying just in time for someone to say, "Hi Jessica, how are you doing?" and then I'd instantly start bawling again. I was a serious emotional rollercoaster. I was discharged, but they put me on boarder status, which meant that I got to keep my room and 3 meals a day (complimentary) but if they filled up and needed my room, I had to leave ASAP. I spent a lot of time in the NICU sitting with Carter and crying. I missed being home. I missed Cooper and David. I came home every now and then when Carter was sleeping so that I could see Cooper, who wouldn't even acknowledge me. He totally ignored me and acted like I wasn't even there. That made it even harder and the tears kept on rolling down my cheeks.

The 48 hours came and we were super hopeful that we'd finally get to bring him home, but they decided that they wanted to keep him for one more day. He was doing a lot better, but they really wanted to make sure he was good to go before they discharged him. He had also started to look a little yellow and had to spend some time under the lights.

The next day was a great day. He was more alert, eating great, and breathing better. The blood work came back clean and he was finally released. WOO HOOO! We were so excited!

To be continued...