The adventerous beginning of our fourth sweet miracle...

On the morning of Thursday, November 8th Tom and I anxiously prepared to go to the hospital to have our fourth sweet baby. I have been very anxious and have had a string of "anxious" dreams for the past week or so and I was feeling just as anxious that morning. I had Tom give me a blessing and I immediately felt calm. We checked into the hospital at 7:30 am and by 9:20 the process was underway. My body hadn't progressed much since the last doctor's appointment so I was a bit frustrated with my body but once I get going it doesn't take long. I started to tell the nurse it was close to time and then it was waiting for the doctor to come to the hospital. Once she came and I gave one push she realized that this was serious and got her gear on. Then two more pushes and Tyler was born at 3:13 pm. The nurses immediately started to guess his weight and the standing guess was 9 lbs 2 ozs. Tom and I were shocked. We weren't expecting a 9 lb baby so in our minds were thinking no surely not. Then he gets on the scale and he weighed in at 9 lbs 7 ozs. All I can say is I feel very justified in all the waddling and aching my body was feeling. 

 Big and Beautiful!!

 Curly brown hair...it's an old wives tale that the more heart burn you have the more hair the baby will have. I was wondering if this would be true as I had much more heart burn this time around. I was reflecting that since Olivia the other two didn't have much hair so I was curious how much hair Tyler would have. 

 BIG BOY!!

One ounce shy of beating Ashlyn by a full pound. He is certainly our biggest and longest when they measured him at 21 3/4 inches long.

 My doctor, Dr. Day, who delivered Tyler.

I didn't know at the time but the cord was loosely wrapped one time around Tyler's neck. That freaked me out when I first learned it but everyone around me assures me that Tyler was never at risk.

 They had him wrapped in so many blankets when they gave him back to me that he did feel HUGE. It was hard to find him in all those layers.

 First picture with Mommy and Daddy.

Daddy's turn to hold and admire. One of Tom's first observations is what a perfectly round face Tyler has and just what a good sized boy he is. 

As we settled in and started to call people with the good news we knew our kids were being picked up from their school day and would come up and visit as soon as they could transition and get there. This is the soonest my kids have seen me after having a baby as Dylan and Ashlyn were night babies. So I was still hooked up to my IV and was still in my hospital robe. This surprised the kids and particularly Ashlyn - who had been calling down the hallway for me ("Mommy where are you?) - was a bit scared and concerned for me.

Olivia brought me a snack. It's sting cheese, a tortilla shell, and fruit loops stuck together with toothpicks to look like a sail boat.

Getting their first looks at Tyler.

Trying to assure Ashlyn that I was alright and she could sit with me. Nope she wasn't buying it. She only wanted Daddy.

Got Tyler out of bed for his cuddle time and for a closer look.

Dylan told Tyler something to the effect of "Your our little baby and you'll come to your real home and you get to share a room with me."

Olivia got Tyler some presents and she wanted to give them to him right away. The gift included this Transformers shirt, some booties, and an elephant rattle. 

Then Olivia wanted to hold him so badly. 

Olivia is very very pleased that I said Tyler looks like her as a baby.

Olivia's comment when seeing Tyler's hair is that she didn't know baby's had hair. I reminded her that she had more hair as a baby and that was one of the reason he looked so much like her. 

I think Dylan's grin says it all. He is so happy to have a brother and he loves him so much. He gave him kisses and called him a cute cute baby.

All four of my kiddos.

We are a family of six now!! Wow that sounds big.

After the kid excitement died down Grammy Lee got another turn.

Then the craziness started and they needed to go home.

My Sister and her family visited later that evening and Sarah and Kenzie got to hold Tyler.

Then the next day on Friday all started out normal...the pediatrician came by at 6 am and said Tyler looked great and then about 8 am as my new nurse came on shift she felt like Tyler's breathing was too fast and his temperature was a little elevated. She figured he was just warm from sleeping up against me but took him off to check his oxygen levels. The nurse decided that since Tyler was doing so great in every other way that she would just monitor his breathing throughout the day.

After school the kids came for another visit to see us and tell us how anxious they were for us to come home.

 Presents to the kids from Tyler so that they would stay more entertained during this hospital visit.
Dylan got a Lego Star Wars set of Slave I, Olivia got a bunny (pictured a bit later), and Ashlyn got a little Cinderella doll.

Best family photo from the hospital room.

 Our sweet baby boy hanging out with Mom while Daddy helped put kids in bed at home.

 We settled in for the night knowing that the pedititician's office had been notified about Tyler's breathing. Some tests had been ordered and Tyler had passed all of them.

The next morning we were suppose to get to come home but instead we woke up to a visit from the pediatrician saying that even though Tyler had passed all tests because he was still breathing too fast they would not send him home. So instead he was being moved into the special care nursery for closer observation and a round of antibiotics. We then received a visit from the special care nursery nurse who tried to explain to us what Tyler was going to go through. I was a bit of a basket case as the reality of what she was telling us about Tyler sunk in. We would not be taking him home for at least 48 hours. He had an IV stuck in his arm and they were going to do a round of anitbiotics just in case infection was the cause of his rapid breathing. Tests would be repeated and doctors would closely monitor. Then another doctor visited and explained that normal breathing is 40 to 60 breathes a minute but the Tyler was breathing 90 breathes a minute and that although nothing seemed to be the matter that under observation Tyler's body would give us clues as to why it was doing this.

One of our first visits in the special care nursery...

 We tried to get used to the new surroundings and the understanding that Tyler wouldn't leave this room or this bed and if we wanted to see him or feed him we needed to come to him. Also, we learned that while they wouldn't discharge me for as long as possible (through dinner) I would get discharged and if I wanted to stay we'd have to pay for it ourselves. Basically we rented my room and were charged by the night.
Dad was able to come up to the hospital to meet Tyler and Tom and Dad gave Tyler a blessing.

 As they monitored and tested Tyler the only thing that they came up with was some dehydration so they put in an IV drip and we waited some more. We got more used to our surroundings and Tyler's breathing did improve. They decided he could move back to an open bassinet bed and that he could move from one more intensive room to another lower level room. As Tyler's breathing continued to look up we were encouraged that perhaps the end was in fact in sight.

 On Monday morning the last few tests were ordered, the antibiotics (which did not seem to be the matter) were finished out and we were very hopeful we would be leaving. The pediatrician visited again and said that he didn't buy the dehydration theory saying in all his years that dehydrating doesn't cause this. His theory was something about the acidic level of Tyler's blood and was very encouraged that it corrected itself and he is going to be interested to see the blood work results that were sent for state testing.
But the most important part of Monday morning was that we would be going home!!!

 Now when we checked in it was a cool and foggy morning but while we were in the hospital we had a warm snap with temperatures in the 70s...did we got to enjoy that...NO...when we checked out it was a COLD and WINDY day. Oh well...time to bundle up our sweet Fall baby boy!

 Grammy Lee and Ashlyn were so happy to see us come home!!

We were anxious to get the kids from school to show them that we were home too!

 Ashlyn is very concerned when Tyler cries saying "Baby sad" and will randomly bring you something that is Tyler's in case he might need it. She also kept saying "Cute baby" and will blow him a kiss.
 So happy to have our family at home and together!