our little miracle.

as most of you know, graham is here!  he was born last thursday, december 3rd @ 7:29 am.  he weighed in at 7 lb 11 oz and 20.25 inches long.  he. is. beautiful. 

the details of my labor are few.  i pushed two, maybe three times, with barely any effort (and if you can get craig to reenact this, please do- it's hilarious.).  and then without even a push, graham came sliding right out.  it was all so calm and peaceful. one set of my in-laws were on the phone listening and so was my sister.  my dr. said he was sure it was his first conference call birth. :)

the details of the rest of the day are many.  everything was great with little graham until about 30 minutes after he was born.  the 2nd time i got to see him, he was in one of those bubble nicu tube things hooked up and strapped up to who knows what.  they were rushing him to tc thompson because they thought he had an imperforate anus and needed surgery right away.  they said that in the worst case scenenario, this means that he would basically have to have a bag that came out of his stomach where his poop would go until he was older.  exactly what a mom likes to hear, right?  next thing i know, i am strapped to a stretcher and being transfered to erlanger to be with graham.  keep in mind, my legs were still very numb.  although i was oh so fashionable in my hospital gown and uggs.

while in the stretcher with an EMT male who couldn't of been more than 22... i lost it.  all the recent events just hit me like a ton of bricks and the feeling was starting to tingle it's way back into my legs and i couldn't move anything b/c i was strapped down.  i started to flip.  i yanked off the straps and threw off my boots and the poor EMT guy just stared at me in shock until he finally said "you really aren't supposed to take those straps off..."  i looked at him square in the eyes and said "really?  and who's going to stop me?  you?"  then i informed him that if he didn't come up with some very interesting conversation to distract me, i was very likely to start screaming hysterically.  after a big gulp he says, "so.... do you have any pets?"  and then we started to talk for 15 more minutes about pets and animals.  we finally concluded that he doesn't know what a weimaraner is, and i have a phobia of gerbils. 

as much as i'd like to have a better ending to this day, i really don't.  graham was in the nicu and i had nurses telling me "don't quote me, but...blahblahblah."  i had no information from any doctors.  i know they are very busy there.... but i gotta tell you, it's a freaking rat race to find out any information.  it was a horrible experience for me, and obviously not to peachy for graham.  all i wanted was to be back at women's east where the nurses were awesome, where my room wasn't the size of a thimble, and where my baby was safe and healthy and not being probed by doctors and nurses on the opposite side of the hospital from me.

the next day did get better.  one of my doctors partners came to check on me and i told her the run around we had recieved and she took care of it.  after that, i had a lot of pediatric doctors and nurses giving me information.  and GREAT information.  information like, "what we thought was wrong, isn't wrong anymore."  turns out he has a small case of rectal stynosis, which means his rectum is a bit narrower than what's normal.  so, he got to come back to my room and stay and we waved adios to the nicu.  i know that God intervened for my little graham cracker.  there were hundreds of people praying for him and our prayers were answered.  God is good and so faithful!!

a whole lot of drama that i really wish we hadn't of had to go through.  i'm pretty sure i lost at least 10 years of my life from stress and worry.  i'm just glad it's over and we're all safe and sound at home.

graham is such a good baby.  he eats, sleeps and poops like a champ.  there are no words to describe how proud i am of him and of his new big brother.  ben has been awesome with him.  his best phrase is, "it's okay grammy, your big brother is right here."  precious.  i love it.

more later... time for brown eyes to eat. :)