While in the hospital...

After everything Josh and I went through, he was finally here. He was beautiful and he was ours. I was able to give him a kiss and then he was whisked away to the NICU because of the fever I entered the hospital with. After I was stitched up and waiting to be transferred to the mother-baby ward. I couldn't stop shaking. I was so cold, the nurses put 5 or 6 heated blankets on me.

Once I was in my room, Josh told me that when they wheeled me to the OR, Kat (my nurse) took him aside and apologized to him. She said that I hadn't failed her, but that she felt like she had failed me. She didn't fail me. I couldn't have asked for a better nurse. Kat did absolutely everything she could to help me and it just wasn't meant to be. Every once and a while, I'll still feel disappointed that I wasn't able to give birth to Cole vaginally, but I just have to remind myself that he is here, he is healthy, and that's all that matters.

Per the doctor's orders, I wasn't allowed up to visit Cole until I had rested some. Josh and I napped for a couple of hours but as tired as we were, we just wanted to hold our baby. We finally got the O.K. to go up to the NICU and man did our beast of a baby look out of place in there! When we left the NICU we were told that Cole would be joining us in a few hours. We rested a little more and finally our son joined us!

We spent the next couple days becoming acquainted with our newest family member. I was supposed to get discharged on the 27th but I was in so much pain, I had to stay an extra day and come to find out, I was having a post-dural-puncture headache (from my epidural). I had to receive a blood patch. For the fourth time in a 72 hour period I was having something inserted into my back. As soon as it was done, I felt a million times better. Josh told me it was like night and day.

On the 28th, which happened to be Memorial Day, we were given our discharge papers. When we were walking out through the emergency room entrance, a bus pulled up. This is a very specific bus that is used to transport wounded soldiers. Here we were, happy to be going home with our beautiful new baby, while these brave men and women who were wounded, protecting me and my family would be entering the hospital and may not come out. Talk about perspective.

Thank you to the Labor and Delivery doctors and nurses of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for helping bring my son into the world. Thank you to everyone for reading my labor journey. And a special thank you to all the men and women of the armed services, especially my husband, Josh. Thank you for all you do for our country.

Happy Memorial Day everyone!