The Glovers: October 2015

Miley was so excited to finally see Camden when we got home from the hospital. She ran right outside to meet him and insisted on helping Todd carry the car seat in.

Katelyn was excited to hold him again and Emma was having a little bit of a hard time with all of the attention that Camden was getting. She has a hard time when things change but about 20 minutes after he was home she decided that it was ok to have him here and warmed right up to him!

Because no one could hold him in the hospital we had to wait until people came over to visit to get a picture of them with Camden, this means that I probably only got picture of about half of the people when they met him for the first time.

We had a relaxing afternoon at home and just enjoyed cuddling with Camden. He slept pretty well his first night home and we were able to get Emma off to school on time the next morning so we considered that a huge success.

This is a terrible picture of me, but I am glad that Todd took it. I waited a long time to be able to cuddle him on my chest like that, it is my favorite thing to do with a newborn!

The next day, Kimberly, Laurie, and Jeffrey and Brooke all came out to see Camden. I love introducing my new babies to all of my family! We also finally convinced Miley to hold Camden which only lasted long enough for us to take the picture.

I am sad this picture turned out so blurry!

That night, we gave Camden his first bath! He was my first baby that actually liked his first bath. I love freshly bathed newborns and Camden is especially great because his hair gets so fluffy after!

We were very grateful for all of the support and love we felt from our family during the first few days at home. We had alot of people call, text, or come visit us and we felt very loved!

Our baby brother was finally born on 10/22/2015! We were starting to think the day would never come. We are all so happy that he is finally here and we couldn't love him any more than we do. He is the perfect addition to our family.

I was scheduled to be induced early in the morning on the 22nd. We were planning on being at the hospital at 6:30 but they called me at 5:00 and told me they were too busy to take me then so I had to wait till they called us back. We got Emma ready for school and hung out around the house until they called me and told me I could come in at 8:45. We were all very excited! My mom stayed at our house with the girls and Todd and I headed to the hospital.

By the time I was admitted and answered the thousands of questions that they ask you, they started my induction at 10:00 and I was dilated to 3 cm. The placenta has always been at the front of my uterus and basically on top of Camden through my whole pregnancy so they had a hard time keeping the monitors in a place where they could read his heart rate consistently, so they had to place some internal monitors on his head around noon.

The doctor came in and broke my water at 1:00 and I was still dilated to a 3 and the baby was still really high. The anesthesiologist was supposed to come in about 20 minutes after my water broke to give me my epidural but as with my other pregnancies, he got stuck in a surgery for 2 hours longer than he was supposed to be there and I had to wait for him until 3:00. It was a pretty rough two hours for me as I wasn't planning on having to feel very many contractions. Todd's poor hands took a beating as he helped me through them. I was thrilled when the anesthesiologist walked through the door! After he was done and I was starting to feel less pain, they checked me around 3:30 and told me I was only dilated to a 4. I was super bummed that the last two hours of torture had only helped me progress by one centimeter and he was still way too high.

About an hour and a half after I got my epidural I started to feel really nauseous and shake-y. I ended up throwing up all over the floor before we could find something for me to throw up in. The nurse came in and said that must mean that I was almost complete. After I started feeling a little better, they checked me and I was ready to push! They called my doctor and she got in my room around 5 and we got things going. Camden was born at 5:16, he weighed 8 lbs 9 oz and was 21.5 inches long.

We hung out in the labor and delivery room for about and hour and then they came to take Camden to the nursery for testing and his first bath. They moved me to my postpartum room around 8:00 and most of my family was in there waiting for me and waiting to meet Camden. Todd came in from the nursery to say that they had put Camden on oxygen because he was having a hard time keeping his oxygen levels stable. My parents took the girls home since they weren't going to be able to meet him that night. Todd was able to take his parents in to see Camden in the nursery and then they came to tell us that they needed to take him to the NICU to monitor him more closely. We were pretty bummed that we wouldn't be able to keep him in our room with us.

Once he got down to the NICU they noticed that his blood sugar level was very low so they started him on iv fluids as well as his oxygen. They also took some blood samples and did a chest X-ray to see what was causing his oxygen levels to be so low. His X-ray showed that he had a lot of fluid in his lungs, probably resulting from swallowing amniotic fluid when he was born. His blood samples came back showing that he also had an infection so they started him on antibiotics for that. They told us in order for him to go home he needed to be off oxygen for two days, be able to maintain his body temperature and blood sugar levels without his iv, and complete three days of antibiotics. The first 24 hours that he was in the NICU he was always acting like he was gagging on something, so they had to pump his stomach three times to get excess fluid out. It was so sad to watch him, it made him really mad!

Camden was very sleepy and lethargic for the first day and had a really time nursing so we mostly bottle fed him while I pumped to try and get my milk to come in. Friday afternoon Camden came off of his oxygen and they started slowly weaning him off of his iv fluids based off of how much he ate at each feeding. I was discharged from the hospital on Saturday morning so it was a little sad to be able to leave without him. The hospital lets parents of NICU babies "room-in" at the hospital until their babies are discharged. They gave us a room to hang out in between feelings and to sleep in at night but we were allowed to come and go as we want and didn't have anybody taking care of, or checking in on us.

Todd stayed home with the girls Saturday night and Sunday and I hung out at the hospital, going home to eat a few times and shower and to spend some time with the girls. It was hard for me to not all be together as a family and I was especially sad that the girls hadn't been able to meet Camden yet. Camden was finally able to come off of his iv fluids on Sunday afternoon and kept his sugar levels stable through two feelings. Once that happened they told us we could have Emma and Katelyn come into a bonding room where they would be able to meet Camden! Emma was a little nervous about it at first but they both were so cute with him and loved that they got to hold him and see his hands and feet. They are going to be such great big sisters. Miley was still too young to meet him so she stayed out in the waiting room with Todd.

The girls loved to come visit the hospital because they got all the slurpees and ice cream they wanted!

Camden finished his antibiotics Sunday night as well and they told us that now he just needed to pass his car seat test and his last exam and then he would be able to go home! Monday morning I went down to feed Camden and they said that he had been cleared to go home. I called my parents and they went out to my house to watch the girls while Todd came to pick me and Camden up. He passed his carseat test (which was just sitting in the carseat for 2 hours to make sure his stats didn't drop) and we were on our way home.