July 6, 2011

Sam,

I have been so excited to see you.

You've been in the hospital for nearly a week now, and you've been doing fabulous. 

When you were born the pediatrician said you were very opinionated. Later that was confirmed when you refused to nurse on your mother's left side. For some reason you only liked the right. Good job son; choose the right. It's good to know that you are so young and only choosing the right. 

You were strong-willed from the beginning. When I told Papa Fin that you were strong-willed like he is he said "Poor sap. He'll have to deal with that the rest of his life." I laughed. It will serve you well as you master it in these last days.

So, here's a break down of your birthday. Mom went into labor the midnight after your baby shower. If I'm right you were probably excited for all the presents mom was opening. She woke me up, with much difficulty. I'm a heavy sleeper. Nana Fin, your mom and I hoped in the car and started to drive.

We were headed toward Provo, but then did a u-turn toward American Fork Hospital, which is next to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. Once we were there mom started to dilate about a centimeter an hour. She was focused and, for some unknown reason, enjoying the labor. At one point she was crying saying "I love it, I don't know why, but I love it."

Then she started to say things like "You guys are so rude," because we wouldn't let her have an epidural. She made me promise not to give it to her, and that was a great sacrifice she made for you. Later we found out that the placenta was pulling away from the uterus and causing her excruciating pain. She stopped dilating at 9 centimeters. She just needed one more, but it never happened.

The doctor came in and made some quick decisions. Before I knew it she had forceps around your head, was telling your mother to push, and was trying to pull you out. After your mom popped her IV out from pushing so hard, and after Doctor Kari Lawrence gave her an episiotomy, which hurts by the way, you were out in the air screaming.

You had blood in your lungs and stomach from the premature dismissal of the placenta. They put you on a table and cleaned you off and sucked out as much blood as they could. They laid you on mom for a second, then whisked you away to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. The whole way down you were grunting. One of the doctors explained some things about your lungs. 

They put you on a ventilator for an hour and a half. During that time they poked your heel and did other necessary procedures. You cried and I whispered "Hey Sam," and continued to soothe you. "If he does well when we take the ventilator off then we can keep it off," the pediatrician said. You did well. At that point I knew you were a strong soul.

And you continued to be strong. Your first nursing was 41 minutes long. You only needed to go for ten minutes to move to the next level. You did great. In the mean time your mother was pumping milk, called colostrum, and conserving every little drop with a syringe.

They put a IV on your head. We all laughed because for a second it looked like a bow.

Eventually we moved you to the Timpanogos Hospital, for insurance reasons. That was a hard move for your mother and I. You did great, but we struggled to adjust to the new hospital and new procedures.

You kept improving. I was so happy. You went from two breastfeeds to three, and now we have hope that you will improve to four breastfeeds. 

And that's a quick rundown of when you were born.