Here he comes

On the night of October 28 2010, we headed to the hospital, since I had, as the doctor called it "a super cervix" he had to do some extra steps before giving me the Pitocin to induce labor. After a night at the hospital, horrible, so uncomfortable - the next morning came and the doctor was not so sure that I would be delivering anytime soon. But we knew better, Pitocin works wonders for me. AT 11:58 on October 29th 2010, the loudest little scream was heard. You have no idea how much that scream made all of us happy. Big scream meant no Pierre Robin! Then they handed me my little man, Nathan. There he was with his beautiful eyes. He was born with a complete bilateral cleft lip and complete palate. They let me hold him for a little bit, his cleft was very noticeable and yes I did stare at it for a little. But then as a mother your heart just melts. This tiny little baby was just inside my belly for nine months and now here he is. With his tiny little hands and feet, in my arms. It is amazing. They took him away into the NI-CU, and I got in the shower, bumped some milk and headed out to the NI-CU to see him again. They put a gavage feeding tube in so that he would eat without a problem. I held him and had a chance to feed him. I hated letting the nurses feed him so I would wake up every 2:30 hours so that I could pump and head down to the NI-CU to feed him. He was doing good, he would drink some of his milk form a bottle (haberman) then we would finish the remainder on the gavage. They wouldn't let us leave the hospital without knowing how to place the gavage tube back in the right way. So we learned to measure and to place it in correctly, it took us both about two tries at the hospital for them to give us the thumbs up. I was released from the hospital, but unfortunately they kept Nathan in the NI-CU. The worst day, and feeling I have ever had was leaving him behind. I felt like I was abandoning him. Man it was so tough to leave that hospital without him. That day I went home and spent the night with my little ladybug Briana. It was Halloween night and I spent the whole night holding my little girl with my heart and mind on my little man. We headed to the hospital with Briana to bring Nathan home the next morning. We ended up spending the whole morning at the hospital. But we finally got to take him home. Once we were at home we had to keep putting the gavage tube in, man was it horrible, it was just so nerve wrecking. I was always worried that it might be in the wrong tube (in his lungs instead of his stomach). I remember one time I put the syringe on the end of the gavage tube but I had forgotten to take the middle part out, so not thinking right I just pulled it and there was a yellow liquid that came up, my poor baby I pulled the liquid from his stomach. That scared the lights out of me, but he was okay. He only had the tube in for two days at home. He kept pulling it out and since I hated it, I just force fed him every time with the bottle. He took it well and drank all of it. The Haberman is our life saver!