Crewe Christen

Emily's original due date was the 29th of January, and the plan all along was to have her induced a week early, on the 22nd. After talking with the midwife at her 37-week appointment, and some other communication afterwards, it was decided that she would be induced even earlier, on the 15th. So, then everything I was putting off to get ready, all of a sudden had to get taken care of. We got Emily's mom a flight, and the girls and I went and picked her up at the airport on Sunday morning.

The induction was scheduled for 7am on the 15th, so we got up early, hit up Jack in the Box on our way, and got checked in at the Pavilion. The took us up to the 3rd floor and got Emily hooked up and ready. Well, it took three nurses to stick her, but they eventually got the IV in and hooked up. They then started the process of Pitocin at around 9am. When they first checked her, she was 3cm dilated and 60% effaced. They also said the baby was still just a tad high. So, we waited by watching "Is it Cake?" and "Guys Grocery Games."

The process seemed to be pretty slow, and they'd come in every so often to check on Emily and bump up the Pitocin. At around 3:45pm, they got to a point where they felt comfortable enough to break her water. At this point she was up to 16 on the Pitocin. It was expected that with her water now broken, things would speed up a lot. And they did. Her contraction started to come regularly every 2-3 minutes and were getting more and more intense. 

It was at about 4:20pm that Emily started feeling like it needed to happen soon, and had me call the midwife and her sidekick. From the very beginning, I told them straight up that using a pain scale for Emily was going to be useless, and that they weren't going to be able to assess what kind of pain she was in by just looking at her. So, there was really not a lot of urgency because Emily was actually pretty chill. And what was also throwing them off was the fact that she wanted to give birth naturally, and not have an epidural, but she was talking and acting like someone who had an epidural because she wasn't moaning and screaming in pain or whatever.

After they got everything set up, they had her start pushing to see what would happen. They were all kind of just standing back at this point. One of them was like, "Oh crap, there's his head." So, that prompted them to get down in the catching position and after another set of contractions, and one last big push, our little guy was born at 4:50pm.

Crewe Christen was born just as the sun was setting.

The midwives had a good chuckle about it all, and one of them was like, "you right about gauging Emily's pain threshold, and I'm pretty sure all the nurses in here thought she had received an epidural." Everyone was extremely impressed with Emily. Later in the evening one of the nurses that came in to help get everything set up so we could move to the recovery floor said, "Oh, so you're the one that came in and had a baby like it was nothing?"

He came in weighing 7lbs 10oz, and measured 20.25" long.

I went to go get some dinner, and when I came back, he had pooped all over Emily.

We enjoyed our first night with Crewe, and did really well all swaddled up. He slept really well that first night, and who knows how well he wouldn't done if we didn't have to wake him up every 2-3 hours to feed him.

He was born with quite a bit of very blond hair, and multiple people commented that they haven't seen a baby in here with that blond of hair.

The next morning the lady performing the hearing test came in, and he failed his first test. She said she would come back a little later and try again. 

In the meantime, a nurse came by to take some blood and test him for jaundice.

After he left, the lady came back in and tested his hearing again, this time he passed.

At this point, the only thing preventing us from going home were his bilirubin results.

So we made sure to get some pics of our little guy. When I looked at these pictures, and noticed his coloring and mentioned to Emily that I wouldn't be surprised if his results came back indicating he had jaundice. 

When his result came back, we were told he his levels were at 12.2, and they needed to be under 9. So, because of this, he was need light therapy for the jaundice. This was the same thing we dealt with after Hadley was born, and so we knew it could take a few days.

Since we wouldn't be going home, Meemaw brought the girls in to meet their brother baby. It was like Harlow sensed something was up, and she immediately went and sat with Emily.

The girls weren't able to hold him just yet, but they enjoyed taking a peak at him under the lights.

Hadley and Cambri went with me to go grab some Chick-Fil-A for dinner, and also stop by to get a prescription for Emily. While we were gone, Emily gave Crewe a bottle, and Harlow did not like when he was placed on the bed with her. 

Hadley and Cambri are very excited for him, and are anxious to bring him home.

They tested him again Wednesday morning and his numbers had risen to 16. So, going in the wrong direction, but not uncommon. If he kept going up, they were talking about moving him to the lights down in the NICU. 

Just as we did when we did this after Hadley was born, all we could do was wait. We thoroughly enjoyed the moments when we could take him out for a bottle and a quick snuggle.

Wednesday night his bilirubin had risen to 17, which was considered progress because the hope was it meant they were plateauing and would start to come back down. The pediatrician looked into doing the phototherapy at home with in-home visits from nurses, but they didn't go as far out as Sultan. So it meant more time in the hospital. By this time, Emily had been discharged and recovering very well.

Thursday morning's test results showed his levels dropped by one. So, good direction. they also decided that instead of sending him down to the NICU, they would bring the NICU lights up to him. They claimed these lights were more intense, so we were anxious to see what they could do.

Since we knew we were going to be in the hospital for at least night, I ran home to get some more clothes for Emily and restock the fridge at home for Meemaw and the girls. We obviously hadn't planned on being in the hospital for more than one or two nights.

After one of his feedings, we took the opportunity to take some more pictures of him, and well as a photo of the three of us.

This is the picture where I really see that he might take some after me.

Man, we were so ready to go home. With the exception of a few times at night, Crewe has been so chill throughout all of this, so that has helped. One of the nurses made a comment that we have been so low maintenance that they almost feel like they are neglecting us.

They didn't bother testing him Thursday night, and waited until Friday morning. At this point the days of just sitting in the hospital room had all kind of just blended together, and I kept forgetting what day it was. Also, at home, they were getting rain that then froze, and then snow to cover it. Hadley's school got canceled on Wednesday and Thursday because of it. Then strong winds knocked out the power downtown and the PUD couldn't repair the lines because it was too windy, so school ended up getting canceled again on Friday. When I went home on Thursday to grab supplies, the van looked like it was frozen to the ground with a thick layer of ice covering it.

Friday morning's test results came back showing his numbers had dropped back down to 12. So that was such a relief to see that big of a drop. The pediatrician wanted to keep us for another test later in the evening. He explained that there was conflicting guidance for what his levels needed to be at before he could be discharged. The traditional one took into account how many days since he was born and the goal for that one was to be under 11. The other, newer guidance, was that his numbers had to be under the original baseline of 9.

Half an hour later, the nurse came in with a cart and ask, "who's ready to go home?" His results showed his level dropped to a 11 and the pediatrician said he felt good about sending us home. We quickly got everything packed and we're out of there as soon as possible. 

Hadley and Cambri were almost asleep when they heard us come in. They jumped out of bed and were just so hyped. They started doing donkey kicks and hand stands, and Hadley even jumped over Crewe at one point. 

So glad to be home.