HudsLuvs: and then, there were four

i know this is about six weeks late, but i finally found the time to tell you the story of how our little family went from three, to four.

i was scheduled to be induced at 6am on june 10th, but our little Coltin had other plans and my water broke at 12:45a that morning! i can't even tell you how excited i was to not have to be induced. since we were already planning on going into the hospital early, miss Evalie was having a slumber party with her papa and grandma Sue. we made one pit stop at the chevron so Chris could stock up on redbull (we didn't go to bed until after 10pm the night before) and then we were off to the hospital.

we have our insurance through tricare which meant i had to deliver at Madigan Army Hospital in Tacoma. there are both pros and cons to having insurance through the military. pro: it's practically free, con: all the doctors that work in labor and delivery are on an on call basis, so you don't know who your doctor is until you get there.

after waiting in the triage room, which was basically a closet with a bed in it, we were moved to a birthing suit. The suit was much nicer than the closet, and Chris immediately made himself comfortable on the "daddy bed", a chair that converted into a bed which was super nifty. by this time it was about 5am and i was visited by my first nurse. oh my goodness, now i understand that she was working the night shift, but you would have thought that the girl could have brushed her hair or something! she looked like she had just rolled out of bed! not a great first impression.

nurse messy hair informed me that she wasn't going to be my nurse for long because shift change was at 7a (thank God!). she was given the task of putting in my IV. ok, so i think i'm a pretty tough cookie when it comes to being poked with needles, but omg you guys, this was the scariest part of my delivery! first she tells me that she can't draw blood with a regular needle and has to use a butterfly needle. (ok, so i know this probably doesn't mean a lot to most people but since i took a 3 month phlebotomy course and mastered the skill, i really think nurse messy hair should have been able to too.) so i was already a little nervous while she puts the IV in and for good reason apparently because she failed to put pressure when she was switching the attachment and i bled all over the place. she managed to fix it, and then much to my relief left for the day.

my next nurse was a-mazing! she actually reminded me of Evalie's preschool teacher, she was so sweet! my contractions weren't progressing much so they started me pitocin (ouch) and soon after that, an epidural (yay)! by 10:19a i was ready to push, and little Coltin was born at 10:30a! well, 9lbs 3.5oz little haha.

another draw back about having Coltin at Madigan, is that they have a policy where they don't allow anyone to stay in the room with mom and baby over night. this meant at 9pm when visiting hours were over Chris had to go home :'( sad right?! so naturally i was completely sleep deprived, i think at this point i had clocked a whopping 4hrs of sleep when the peds doctor came in to check on Coltin at 1a. his respiration levels were higher than normal and he was immediately admitted into the NICU.

the doctors suspected that he had bacterial pneumonia, so they started him on a three day course of antibiotics which was later extended to ten days. at the end of ten days, when Coltin was still suffering from bouts of high respiration and low oxygen levels, we were told that it was most likely a case of viral pneumonia and that it was just a matter of waiting for his little body to heal itself. in the end, little Coltin spent his first 16 days of life in the NICU. although it was horrible being away from my little man, and it took us 30 min to get to him everyday, he did have the most amazing nurses that made the whole experience suck a lot less.

oh, and remember those pros i was telling you about having Coltin at Madigan? well we were told that just his bed space in the NICU cost $500 a day with out insurance, and that didn't include any of his treatments. thanks to tricare our bill at the end of his 16 day stay only ended up being $200!

well, coltin will be 7 weeks old in a couple days and is doing great! he is such a sweet, mellow, happy boy who lets his momma sleep at least 5 consecutive hours every night. it is such a blessing to have him in our family!