Roller Coaster Ride

First things first! I'd like to introduce you all to my brand new grandson! Jackson Ryan (or Jaxon - we're still waiting to hear the final decision on the spelling) made his world debut at 9:52 pm on Thursday, July 23rd, weighing in at 7 lbs 15 oz, and 20 1/2". We're still trying to decide who he looks like - he does bear a resemblance to what his older sister (who everyone swears looks like me when I was little) looked like when she was born, but I can see features from both families in him! No matter, because you know I think he's adorable no matter what!!

What a roller coaster ride it was tho! My son was heading from work to meet everyone at the hospital and ended up in an accident on the freeway - luckily he wasn't hurt since he was the one of the last vehicles in the 6 car pile up, but the funeral for his truck is being planned... not the last of the craziness to plague what should have been a smooth and beautiful event tho.

We knew the delivery day was likely to be an unusual one while we were out walking the halls early the next morning trying to move the labor along and all of a sudden we heard a thud in a nearby room and then a nurse yelling a code blue. Turned out that a dr had passed out in one of the patient's rooms. Just a tad disconcerting, but ultimately not serious.

To add to the general feel of the day, I have to mention that I must admit that I have never witnessed a team of medical professionals who almost blatantly refused to work together. I won't go into details, but I can tell you that I've now attended 4 of my 5 grandchildrens' births and this experience bordered on absurdity... but I won't go there again or my blood pressure will rise for sure! But of course, it didn't end with that.

We had all been up for the better part of 36 hours straight by late afternoon when the attending physician came in and suggested that my son and his significant other start planning for a c-section. This came not more than an hour after the dr's associate, a midwife, had told us that the contractions were looking great and everything was going well. It was definitely a WTF moment after he left the room, although his logic made complete medical sense. Since we had a couple hours to pass until a definite decision was made, the other grandma had decided to go grab something for dinner since her other daughter had arrived and not too much was going on with this non-progressive labor. About 10 minutes after they left the room, the daughter came flying back into the room asking for her mom's purse, obviously distressed. Turned out that on the way to the cafeteria, her mom had slipped on a small puddle of water and fell - and was now in the ER!! Talk about adding stress to an already stressful situation! But, Etsy to the rescue! I noticed that the mom-to-be's blood pressure had risen and was staying up since the news of the injury, so I grabbed my son's laptop and got her involved in some window shopping for baby items... worked like a charm!

About an hour and a half passed and they checked her again just to make sure she had changed, but she was still at the same place she had been for the past twelve hours even tho the contractions were strong and regular, so they started the paper work for the c-section, called in the anesthesiologist to change the anesthesia from a regular epidural to a stronger epidural and started getting her ready for surgery. They had told us it would probably be another half hour or 45 minutes because they had an emergency surgery to finish, so we settled in to wait. But the wait didn't last long because the midwife came back in and said that she wanted to check her again (why, we weren't sure, but...), did so, and announced that she was "progressing" all of a sudden. The next 3 and a half hours were a mixture of confusion, a little bit of unsureness and worry on the part of us veteran moms, and elation when the baby finally arrived - altho there were a few scary moments immediately following the birth - to those of you who are familiar with Apgar scores, he scored a 3 at one minute, but thanks to some wonderful nurses, he was a perfectly beautiful bouncing baby boy just minutes later, not too much worse for the wear!

Mom did an amazing job, and recovered extremely well! They're going home today and with the exception of a failed hearing test, Jax is one very healthy happy baby... and I am one very relieved and proud grandma! 7 months until the next grandbaby is due - and after this experience, I'm a bit relieved in a way that I won't be in attendance for that birth! I love roller coaster rides, but not this kind!