Sammy boy's birthday........May 27, 2010

Yikes!! I can't believe how swollen I was!!! (and miserable)

Me right before we left for the hospital to have Sam!!! I'm sooo huge!!

Daddy "cutting the cord". They obviously already did, but left some for us to get the pic.

Me seeing Sam for the first time. I thought I would cry a lot more than I did because I would ball watching a Baby story, but I did get a little emotional.

Sam brand new!

Seven pounds ten ounces!!!!! (that's 4 weeks early too, he probably would have been 10 lbs if born at 40 weeks!).

Me holding my baby boy for the first time!!!!

Mark changing one of Sam's first diapers!

Sam's cousins William and Gracie meeting him for the first time. We live with them right now, so they were so excited for him to come!!! And they love playing with him still!!

My perfectly healthy baby boy!!

I wasn't going to do a post about this day after posting the video of Sam being born, but for journaling purposes, I decided I wanted to write down my feelings about the day Sam was born. The day before he was born I had an amniocentesis to see if his lungs were developed enough to have him be born 4 weeks early, and luckily they were!! So they told me to be at the hospital the next morning at 8:30am. Mark and I decided to go on our last date as just us 2 so we went and saw Iron Man 2. That night, I hardly slept thinking that the next day I would meet my baby!! That morning I couldn't eat, so we just got ready and took the lovely pics of me, said bye to William, Gracie, and Debbie, and we were off to the hospital.

Sam was born at Banner Desert Hospital, the same hospital Miles was born and I was worried that it would be hard, but luckily it wasn't bad at all. (I'm pretty sure he was born in the exact same room too.) When we got there, we had to wait for a while but then they had to pump me full of antibiotics and fluids which took a while. Then, once that was done, they wheeled me into delivery and gave me a spinal block. That was so weird!! Slowly, from my toes to my chest, it all went numb! It kinda freaked me out too because I couldn't feel myself breathing and I had a cough and when I would cough I couldn"t feel that either (that cough later caused me to get pneumonia when Sam was 5 days old). I almost started freaking out, but decided if anything was going wrong, they would be doing something. I remember the anesthesiologist (sp?) was really funny and his assistant that stayed all during the delivery was hilarious and kept telling jokes to keep my mind off of it. He was so good at it, I didn't even realize they had started the delivery. So before I knew it, they were telling Mark to stand up to video! Mark also said my blood started squirting in the air!! But once I heard that cry, I was so happy! He was alive! Right after he was born, the NICU dr's looked him over and said he was healthy and great!!
That was music to my ears. After everything that happened with Miles, I was so worried about Sam. After getting me stiched up, I was in recovery for a couple of hours while they waited for the anesthesia to wear off. I loved holding Sam, just staring at him. He was my baby!!! My parents, Mark's parents, and several siblings came to see him there. The rest of the day was great!! We had lots of visitors. Including Miles' nurse Megan and his Dr., Dr. Weng from the NICU. It was so great to see them in much better circumstances.

I am so grateful for Sam. He is now 5 months old, and the light of me and Mark's lives. The baby right after losing a baby is called your Rainbow baby, and Sam is definately that. A rainbow after the storm. He is such a happy, friendly, smiley, cute, chubby, baby!! I love him so much and so grateful for the Plan of Salvation that allows me to be with him forever!!!