One year ago...

Well, it happened... my baby turned ONE! With him turning one, lots of memories have been coming back from this time last year. When reminiscing about Myles' birth and difficulties in the hospital it occurred to me that not a lot of people know exactly what we had to go through the first 12 days of Myles' life. Along with it being the happiest times of our lives, it was also the scariest, and at the time, worst time in our lives. 

Brace yourself for a long blog entry :)

I had a rather difficult pregnancy with  nerve pain, leg numbness, and then premature labor. At week 29 I was put into the hospital to get my contractions stopped. I was in there for 5 days and at that point I was already dilated to a 1. From that day on, I was on fairly strict bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy, which happens to not be very long.

At home, I was to stay in bed or on the couch all day. I quickly found things to keep me busy. If you know me at all, you know that I can be fairly anal and need to make lists for everything! 

*A list for Blake to get all of the Christmas gifts

*A list for mom to get last minute baby/mommy stuff. ie: nursing bras, hospital pjs, etc.

*A list for Blake to get the necessities for baby that we didn't get at the showers

*A list for mom or Blake to pack up my hospital bag

*A list for my friend Julie of bedding options for her little one that was coming in March.

And keep in mind... all of these lists had colored pictures besides all of the items, what stores had them for cheapest, and where to locate the item in the store. CRAZY I know! But everyone, I think, appreciated it. :)

I also had a schedule of shows that I watched daily and got some good reading in. It was definitely very boring at times but on the same hand, kind of nice to get waited on. Don't tell Blake. :)

34 weeks

Week 34.5:

December 29 2010, I went to bed thinking I would be in the same position tomorrow morning. Well, come 3:00 am my water broke and I ran to the restroom. I yell at Blake that my water broke and he doesn't believe me. He tells me to quit playing around and come back to bed. I then proceed to say rather forcefully, "Blake, LISTEN... I'm not peeing!" That got him. He quickly jumped out of bed and then proceeded to freak out. I always thought it would be me to freak out, but I was actually having to be the calm one and tell him what our game plan was. I called the doctor and told them that we would be coming in. We then took our time packing and getting ready all while contractions were starting. We got to the hospital around 4 and had called our parents on the way. We had told them that they didn't need to come up right away and that we would call them when we knew more from the doctors. Well, we get there only to beat my parents there by like 5 minutes. I think they were a little excited. 

Even though I was scared out of my mind about him being too early, the timing actually was perfect. Both of our sisters were home on break from college, my grandma was in town from Wichita, and my doctor (which by the way is the best one out there... Love Dr. Snider) was going out of town the 31st. 

When we got there I was already dilated a 4 and they told me I could get a epidural at any time. I decided I wanted to see how long I could go. So Blake and I took to the halls walking around and stopping in pain with every contraction. I felt as though the contractions in my stomach we not that bad, but my back labor was what was killing me. There was no relief from that. So when I was dilated to an 8 I decide to get an epidural. Due to me having a fractured lower back I was concerned that the epidural wouldn't take very well. It ended up giving me some relief from the contractions on my left side of my body, but my right side was still feeling everything. ugh. Come time to push, both sides of my body were back to normal and I was able to feel everything. Yea! So because I was able to feel everything, and it really didn't take, I a lot of times leave out the fact that I supposedly got an epidural, because dang it, I was a tough mama that had a baby with out it!

It felt awesome!

Tara's trying to give me a pep talk before I have to push. She's telling me that, "It won't hurt that bad!" I didn't believe her.

December 30 @ 10:44am, Myles Carson Revelle came screaming into this world!

5 lbs 14.5 oz

19 in. long

Here he is! Best feeling in the world!

New family of 3

Sweet baby boy

Ohh I just love his little piggies.

Seeing the new family member

Some how the paparazzi got in too!

So here's where everything changes...

Myles was able to be in our room for an hour. I think they let me have him that long before they did his routine tests because they knew they were going to have to keep him. At this point, I didn't know that I wasn't gong to be getting him back and that we weren't going home for 12 long days.

When I was in the hospital, during week 29, I had gotten a steroid shot to speed Myles' lung and brain development along. Because of that, when he was born 5.5 weeks early, his lungs were fully developed. Thank God! The rest of day one, Myles was in a warmer to regulate his body temperature and was given some extra oxygen. By then end of the day he was off of both. 

Poor baby had a ton of monitors on him.

This is the extra oxygen that he was getting on day 1.

Still not too little to hold mommy's hand.

 This picture puts it in perspective of how little he was.

Me changing my first diaper. 

At this time (the first two days) we were allowed to come into the nursery to see him at any time and we could only take in one family member at a time. 

One of Myles biggest obstacles was not knowing how to eat. So because of this I was continuing to pump every 3 hours and bring the milk into the nursery. 

New Years day was by far the worst day! That was the day we got a new nurse (that was not the nicest and not extremely sensitive to new moms whose babies are in the nursery in our opinion) Myles was not eating all that he needed to from his bottle so she immediately said that he was going to have to get an NG tube put in. With me being a first time mom and not knowing alot of medical stuff, I immediately thought that this meant he was here for a LONG time, not just days. In the same day, she had tested his Billy Ruben levels and they were a half a point too high so he was then put into an incubator under the lights. So I went from holding and feeding my baby whenever I like, to NOT feeding and NOT getting to even hold my baby because of the Billy Ruben lights. Worst day ever! Needless to say, I was extremely down and out that day.

Thankfully Myles was only under the lights for 1 day. He did have to keep the NG tube and heart rate/respiratory monitors on for the whole next week. We slowly got to do 1 bottle feeding a day, then 1 every shift, every third feeding, every other, then finally little buddy was able to do every feeding by bottle. A very long process. I wanted to breastfeed Myles, but with having a premature baby in the nursery, the quickest way to get home is to have them go home on bottles. Breastfeeding takes a lot more energy for these little guys. I was still pumping every 3 hours and he was getting all breastmilk. Our plan was to make the transition to breast at home, not in the hospital. 

Daddy taking Myles over to get weighed. He got to get unhooked from all his monitors to get weighed every night. So little.

Sweet baby.

This was the NG feeding machine. The syringe is full of his food and the machine slowly pushes it through the little tube. The tube goes in through his nose and feeds all the way to his stomach.

Here is a picture of little man with his NG tube in. I didn't take too many pictures with it in because I thought it was ugly.

Mommy cuddle time.

Sweet boy after one of his baths.

It wasn't until day 10 that we were able to finally have him in our room. This was so huge to me! Even though we were still in the hospital, I was able to finally feel like a "real" mom.

You have friends that prepare you for child birth, breastfeeding, sleeping, etc. but NO ONE can prepare you for what it feels like to not be able to take your baby home from the hospital. I found that I didn't want to hear what anyone had to say because, well... they had no idea. Every time I heard, "Oh he'll be home soon." I just wanted to yell "Shut up! You don't know that!"  I know that sounds harsh, but wow... I had crazy feelings of anger, depression, excitement, sadness, you name it. So throw in the crazy hospital stay stuff on top of the emotions of just having a baby and you have one very emotional mama.

We were so excited to finally take home Myles. I don't think we could have walked out of those doors any faster!

Finally going home. FINALLY... after 12 very long days!

Happy birthday to my sweet baby Myles! You are truly the joy of my life!