April 14, 2007
a few days later...only oxygen and feeding tube
Ethan's very own "spaceship"
Ethan's first day home!
For those of you who don't know, Ethan was about one month early! I had an absolutely normal pregnancy with no problems (what a blessing), so when I went in for my 36 week appointment I wasn't expecting anything crazy. I left that appointment with a scheduled c-section for the next morning. After discovering Ethan was breech at the start of the appointment, I proceeded to spend the next four hours on machines--sonograms and fetal monitoring. It was a tad scary, and Dennis was in and out. (he was on a conference call in another room when she told me Ethan was breech and getting his computer when she told me I needed a c-section, but thankfully we found out before his flight that evening to Buffalo!) Turns out that my placenta was no longer functioning properly and Ethan wasn't getting what he needed in the womb. They said he would be better "out than in" even though they suspected he would have to spend some time in the special care nursery.
So...we left the appointment reeling with things to do (we didn't even have any diapers yet, and I hadn't had my baby shower!) before 5am the following morning. I will never forget that night of contacting our workplaces to let them know we'd be out the next day, running to Target to buy baby gear, and having our final meal at Steak and Shake about 10:30pm. We hardly slept...
The c-section went smoothly and we thought Ethan would be fine at first. I got to hold him in recovery until he started grunting. That was a sign that his lungs weren't quite ready, so they whisked him off to the NICU. For the rest of my stay in the hospital, and the next 2 1/2 weeks, I had to go to the hospital nursery to see my son. I couldn't hold him again for days because he was attached to too many machines. It was hard, but it's one of those things that you can handle in the moment. The Lord was very gracious in giving us a neonatologist who was a believer and prayed with us for Ethan. Many things happened in those weeks, but Ethan grew and we got to bring him home on May 3.
The great news is that at Ethan's 2 month appointment last week he was on the normal charts for growth! He is chunking up, as you can see if you compare the photos from the hospital with the more recent ones.