When I left off on Monday, Bethany was in the Labor & Delivery room and the baby was working his way down. I drew the blinds and shut off the lights so Bethany could take advantage of feeling sleepy and get some rest while everyone waited for the baby to drop lower.
The OB group Bethany uses has just two doctors. The doctor who had been on call Sunday and been at the hospital with us most of the day had a family emergency and had to leave late in the afternoon. The other doctor (who had done the c-section and delivered the twins) came in to finish the night out with us. Since the Superbowl was on (on TV, not on in the delivery room!) and we were keeping the baby’s name a secret even from the doctors, the OB said she’d call him Eli.
Just before 6, the doctor came in and said everything was perfect and we were ready to begin pushing. I sent out a quick text to our family to let them know. Bethany was incredible – over the course of the next hour, she pushed 3 times with every single contraction. We could see the hair on his head very quickly. With every push, he worked his way down – it was all at once that his head finally came out along with the rest of him! He gave a big cry that we were both so excited to hear.
About an hour before Beth started to push, we heard another baby’s first cry down the hall. The baby’s unmistakable first cry was quickly followed by celebratory laughing and cries from the parents. I remember that moment as the final excitement-builder as we waited for our turn.
So everything happened all at once – we heard Noah’s loud cry and there he was! Everyone was quick to get his nose/mouth suctioned out and then lay him up with Bethany. This picture (a repeat from Monday) was from that moment:
Noah was born at 6:50pm. The next hour or so was great – he laid with Bethany while the doctor did some stiches and finished taking care of her. When we were ready, they called for the nursery to send a nurse down to start taking care of Noah. That was terrific – we loved keeping him there with us. They cleaned him all up, weighed and measured him, and got his first diaper on.
After everyone was ready, the family got to come back to see us. After their visit, the nurses came back to check on Bethany and get us ready for being shuffled out of Labor & Delivery up to the Mother/Baby unit.
We zigzagged through a few doors and were quickly over at the Mother/Baby unit. I was so excited to have a couch that converted to a bed to sleep on (with the twins, I slept in an uncomfortable chair that barely reclined). The nurses came and went, getting Bethany and Noah checked out – they even brought me sheets and pillows.
Through the night, Noah slept so well and we all got as much rest as we could. On Monday morning, Noah had several different tests/shots/etc and Bethany was feeling so much better. She’s remarked repeatedly how her recovery was so fast compared to the c-section.
We had some visitors on Monday afternoon and evening:
Lilly and Josiah both wanted to see inside Noah’s crib at the hospital. For size comparison, I held them in. Wow they’re big!
On Tuesday, I had to run into work for an hour and then get back to the hospital. Just before we left, we got to stop in and see Beth’s friend Amy and their new daughter who was born the day after Noah.
We had one last little adventure before leaving the hospital. When Bethany was admitted, they put an electronic device on her hospital band. I noticed they also had them on the hospital beds and presumably other assets that they needed to track. They had a different kind of electronic tracker on Noah’s ankle intended to trigger an alarm if it left the boundaries of the Mother Baby unit at the hospital.
Our nurse was leaving early but stopped in to start our discharge paperwork before she left. She removed Noah’s tracker and bands and said we could call for a nurse to take us out when we were ready. About 15 minutes later, another nurse comes in the room frantically checking Noah’s ankle and asking us to confirm we had been with Noah over the last half hour. There was a lot of chaos at the nurses’ station at the end of the hall.
Yes – the conclusion was that the nurse left for the day with Noah’s ankle tracker in her pocket, setting off the “Stolen Baby” alarms!
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