Weekend Update

This "weekend update" may not be as funny as SNL's version but it will update you on our life. Exciting.

Well, we left the hospital late Friday afternoon but not before I had a good old fashioned emotional meltdown. Yes, that's right, I totally lost it around 10am and I cried until 11:30am. And when I say cry, I mean I sobbed. I feel like I remember this happening after I had Emerson too...maybe it's just a post having a baby thing or maybe I'm just weird. Either way, it happened. I sobbed to Garrett and I sobbed to our lactation consultant. I was in pain and I wanted to get to know my baby.

It all started when the day before they had finally let us hold Evan and the night nurse told us that she thought I would get a chance to try and nurse him on Friday night. So, while I had been bummed to leave him at the hospital I was excited to get to come back that night and get some good snuggle time with him (trust me, this is a baby you want to snuggle). So, you can imagine how disappointed I was when Garrett came back from running some breast milk to the nursery on Friday morning and told me, "Evan had a rough night. They think we pushed him too hard yesterday. You aren't going to be able to try and nurse him tonight or handle him much today." I finished drying my hair and then I layed down on the bed and cried.

All I wanted was to get to know the little person I had carried around for 9 months, and then had cut out of my body a few days earlier, and I couldn't even hold him. Enter the lactation consultant. I was already sobbing when she walked in so I just let it flow (keep in mind we kind of know her from Clemson and really love her...she wasn't a total stranger). Well maybe it was a divine appointment because after my sob session, our lactation consultant marched herself down to the NCU and convinced them to let us hold him again before we left that afternoon.

And hold him we did. And his numbers stayed great the whole time (heart rate, oxygen saturation levels, respiratory rate, etc). It was definitely the encouragement and time we needed with our little guy before we left him at the hospital.

On Saturday, Garrett's sister Courtney flew in from Colorado. We spent most of the day at the hospital with Garrett's family. When we walked into the NCU that morning, I walked over to Evan's bed and when I looked at him I noticed he looked really different....it took me a minute to realize NO OXYGEN! They had taken him off the oxygen! And he was breathing. And his saturation levels were at the target and his respiratory rate were where they should be! They let us know that they had just taken him off and that we would wait and see how he did. As we were leaving they asked if we wanted to come back at 3 and try to nurse him....um yes. Clearly we came back, and it went great! He latched on immediately....I'm not gonna lie, having something go smoothly was such a huge blessing. And holding that baby skin to skin might have been the greatest gift I could have ever been given.

To top it all, little Emerson might have done the sweetest thing I've ever seen her do (and she does a lot of sweet things). Em isn't allowed in the NCU but there is a window she can look through. So, before we left I held Evan up for her to see him. Well, she definitely did not enjoy seeing me hold a baby. But, as we were leaving Garrett was holding her up to the window and he said, "tell your baby brother bye bye." And Emerson said, "Bye bye baby," and then she leaned over and kissed the window. As soon as I think I couldn't love that little girl anymore she goes and does something like that. Luckily, we got it on video so I can relive it over and over again.

Whew. All that to say, it was a long but good weekend. Evan stayed off of his oxygen all weekend and we were able to spend most of the day with him today. We held him lots and got to nurse again twice. I am so thankful that he is doing well. I am so thankful for our amazing family and friends. And I am so thankful that Courtney got to spend time with both of our kiddos and us this weekend.

I still feel pretty awful physically but as my sweet mother-in-law reminded me, "today may not be a good day, but tomorrow will be better." I'm clinging to that. Family and friends, we love you so much. Thank you for everything. Sorry we have been so out of touch but please know how much we appreciate all of the sweet phone calls and messages. I promise to be better at keeping in touch very the near future.

Hopefully we will be reporting on Evan coming home soon! In the meantime, enjoy this little pic of my sweet husband that I found in the photo archives. Hopefully, Evan will be as cool as his daddy.

Garrett Reed, circa Summer of 2005 (pre-marriage), and yes, he took this picture of himself.