Welcome baby Josiah...

Our family welcomed it's newest addition, Josiah Aaron Miller. He was born on October 5th at 6:15am, he weighed 6lbs. 10oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long.

I was woken up at 2am on my birthday, October 4th by contractions that were coming about 2-4 minutes apart. They were pretty intense at that point but I was in denial that it was actually time. I woke Adam at about 6am that morning once I KNEW it was really happening. I wanted to labor at home for as long as i was comfortable with being there. So we started packing bags (well Adam did the packing) and getting ready for the hospital in between contractions. We left the house about 11:30am and headed for the hospital, when we got there I was put on monitors and checked, contractions were 1-3 minutes apart and i was only 2cm dilated. We were sent out to do a little more walking. After just 2 hours of walking i knew it was time to go back, so back we went. I was 4cm dilated and ready to be admitted. Ahhhh! I labored from about 4:30pm with an epidural that worked for the abdominal pain until about 3:30am when it completely stopped working, i went from not being able to feel my legs, to being able to feel and move them like normal at about 4am when they checked me it was time to start pushing.

When Josiah first came into the world he didn't cry like most babies, instead he was just grunting. They called in a team of pediatricians to assess him and decided it would be best for them to take him to the Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to fully look him over and make sure he was alright. It was so hard to say goodbye to our little baby boy while they wheeled him away, but we knew it was what was best for him.

Once I was settled Adam went to go check on Josiah, they informed him that he had a pneumothorax and should be fine but they want to keep him in the NICU to monitor him and make sure. A pneumothorax is in his case a SMALL pocket of air or gas just outside the lung cavity. In minor cases such as his it resolves itself and there are no further complications.

As soon as my nurses would let me, which happened to be just 2 hours after he was born I was on my first walk without my huge belly. Off to the NICU to start breastfeeding my little boy and cuddle him for the first time. He was the healthiest baby in the ward and was only hooked up to a few monitors and an IV. He never had to use oxygen or any other medical interventions to help him breath. He was so brave and ready to leave that place. So ready in fact that he was trying to help them discharge him by pulling out his OWN IV. They had to unfortunately put another one in and use almost a whole roll of tape to make it "Josiah Proof!" :) He doesn't like needles just like his Daddy.

Our first 24 hours in the hospital were spent counting down the time for our walk to the NICU every 2 hours so i could feed him. After an uneventful stay being monitored for 24 hours in the NICU Josiah was able to come to our room to be with us. He was there with us for a few hours when we were informed that his bilirubin was a little high for a NICU baby so they wanted to put him on the ultra violet lights for 12 hours. That was our first LONG SLEEPLESS night, but after 12 hours he was tested again and was well enough to be taken off the lights.

Later that day we were able to go home. :)

I have a hungry baby right now though so i will finish this in another post a little later...