Baby Banks

Baby Banks has joined the Hanna boys, and we couldn't be more excited! 

This delivery was an interesting one with a few hiccups here and there.  My due date was June 15th but I'd hoped to deliver before then, each of my boys being 7 - 10 days early.  I'd started preparing for the baby to come with the usual - sorting through all the hand-me-downs he'd be wearing, buying the things I'd lost with the last baby, new bottles, diapers, etc..  

One way I've been able to tell when I'm about due is an unbearable itching from head to toe that comes near the end of my pregnancies.  I've had this with each other baby and when I've complained about it was told to use good lotion, take oatmeal baths, blah blah blah.  

My doctor, straight out of med school, was the first to check me for something called Cholestasis, a condition where the liver produces too much bile, getting it into the bloodstream.  One big side effect, itching!  

I was tested on Tuesday the 22nd for it, the results came in on Thursday, and I got a call Thursday afternoon saying I did have Cholestasis and needed to be induced...IN THE MORNING!  The risks to the baby were scary enough (possible still birth around 37 weeks) that my doctor thought it best to induce me at 37 weeks, barely full term, than to continue on with the pregnancy. 

We got to the hospital at 6:15 am, Friday, May 25th.  I had an epidural at 9:30am, they broke my water at 2:00 pm, my epidural wore off by 4:00 pm (I couldn't feel my legs, just the horrible contractions), and my doctor said it was finally time to push!  After just one push, baby Banks was born at 4:07pm. 

I was shown his perfect little body before the nurse took him away to wipe him off.  For some reason, the little guy decided he didn't want to breath and gave us quite a scare.  Johnny and I  watched as 10 different people in the room, some from respiratory, some from the NICU, tried to get him breathing on his own.  Because he didn't want to, they had to run him up to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit.  Johnny went with him and called me to tell me how he was doing.  

I didn't get to see him until almost 8:00 that night, but I am so grateful for the amazing doctors and nursing staff at that hospital!  I don't think there was a better place in the world for us to be with our baby.

In the morning Johnny and I were finally able to hold him!  

They let us help with his first bath, it only took six hands to do it : )

He is perfect and I still get overwhelmed looking at him thinking about what a miracle it is to have a baby!  He has been home for a week on oxygen and an apnea monitor and everything has gone so well!

Thank you to everyone who kept us in your prayers! We felt so much peace in knowing everything would work out. Little Banks quick stay in the NICU was a great lesson to us of how blessed we are to have healthy babies and live in a time and place that can provide the medical care needed so we can all live  : )