Mikey Carter - his grand entrance!

Ok finally - now that he's 3.5 months old (OMG seriously?) I decide to sit down and blog about his birthday...and the days leading up to it.  I actually thought I would get around to posting this when he was 5 weeks old and thought that was bad....but I guess 3.5 months old might be a little worse.  But here we go!!!  Just so you know, because as a third kid, he had to make sure we knew he was here and here to stay (that's what the doctor's told us - haha!).  You can find Maddie's birth story here and Charlie's here.

The beginning of project "evict Mikey" began at my 38 week check up.  I was dilated to a 2.  I had Strep B (again - had with Maddie).  I also had 3 kids at home and knowing how freaking fast my labor went with Maddie, I was a little panicky thinking about having this baby at home or on the side of the road.  I love my doctor and she heard my concerns and was like - yep, agree.  We need to get you in the hospital at a scheduled time so we can ensure you get the 4 hours of antibiotics in you before birth (which I didn't get with Maddie).   So that was it.  She said, "What are you doing next Friday (July 15)?  Let's have a BABY!".

To say I was relieved was an understatement.  While I did kind of like the excitement in going into labor with Maddie, it was so nice to know that there was an end in sight to being pregnant AND knowing when I was going to meet this baby - especially because I was so anxious at this point to know if it was a boy or girl!  So the countdown was on.  She said to not go into my scheduled 39 week check up because we were having a baby at 39 weeks and 1 day.  So I skipped my check up that Wednesday and Thursday I was SO excited.  Last day of work.  Last day of being pregnant this time.  And ready to meet this baby.  I had Jimmy take my last (or so I thought..) bump picture, grabbed bagels for my department and headed into work in the BEST mood.

The kiddos had their summer carnival after school that Thursday, Maddie had gymnastics and I was planning on having a one on one date with Charlie to go see the Secret Life of Pets.  It was going to be a great night.  I went a little early to the kids school.  They jumped in the bounce house.  We ate ice cream.  Maddie went nuts and Charlie was ready to leave - but Jimmy wasn't there yet.  I was losing my mind so we just went to the car to watch a movie in there and wait for Jimmy.  Well, at 5:15PM, he still wasn't there.  And I got a phone call.  It was the hospital.  While, yes, I was set to come in at 7AM for my induction...there was a wait list.  YES - a freaking wait list.  That's what I get for having a baby in the busiest months of the year AND during the KC World Series baby boom.  The nurse told me that someone would call me at 5am and let me know if I should come in or not.

You can only imagine the devastation I felt.  I know how some people have their own opinions about scheduled inductions--- but for REAL don't tell a 39 week pregnant mama that she's going to have her baby...and then untell her. That's just cruel and I think we can all agree on that.

Of course 3am gets here and I can't sleep anticipating that call (and we had to let my MIL know because she was going to come and take Charlie and Maddie to school). Finally at 5:30am Friday morning I just called a random number at the hospital and finally made it to the L&D charge nurse who told me to not come in and just wait.  Seriously.  I hung up and started bawling.  Realizing there was potential I wasn't going to meet this babe today.  Wasn't going to find out if I was having a daughter or son.  

Since they told me to still not eat in the off chance they were able to get me in still (which is true torture in itself because I was starving 24/7 at that point), I went back to sleep after taking Charlie and Maddie to school.  Jimmy was working from home and came to check on me lots.  Then around 10:15- the call came. There was no room and they called my doctor and we are rescheduling to TUESDAY.  Like in four days. The nurse hung up the phone and told me to "have a good weekend".  And then I sobbed...because I was still going to be insanely pregnant and uncomfortable in the 100 degree July heat for 4 more days and I wasn't going to be holding my baby in the hospital this weekend.

Emotionally, I was spent.  Especially after I told everyone and their mom that we were having a baby on Friday.  Answering texts with people checking in, etc was so hard for me for some reason too.  I am not a huge emotional person but I was that day.  Man was I.  I was sad.  So sad. Sad because I wasn't going to meet my baby like I had mentally prepared for but also then mad at end feeling sorry for myself because really it wasn't the worst thing in the world and guess what I still had a healthy baby in me.  Like was it ok to be sad and feel these emotions??

Jimmy picked me up and we went to the grocery store and out to eat spicy Chinese food (didn't work)...

...then I sat on the porch eating pineapple (another theory)...

Didn't work.

Saturday I dragged my sulking butt out of bed and tried to have a good last weekend with my two kids.  We went to Deanna rose and I almost died of heat exhaustion but it was a good weekend (read about that here),

Sunday night rolled around and I had a ton of pressure. Like enough I didn't want to sit down.  Jimmy swears that's what I said before I went to bed the night I went into labor with Maddie.   I knew it wasn't intense contractions but called the doctor just in case.  When the doctor on call called back we talked through my symptoms and when she found out this was my third baby, she said better safe than sorry to go check it out.  Apparently she had a patient recently that it was her third too and she waited too long and delivered the baby in the car...which just to get that cleaned was an enormous chunk of cash so she said just go.

Yes, I do not want to have a baby in my car for multiple reasons.  So we called my mom (kids were asleep) and told her this might be it!!!

And then I took my last picture pregnant (spoiler - I didn't have the baby, but this was the last picture I took pregnant!):

Oh wait....did that make it seem like I had the baby. lol. I didn't- sorry to trick you.  But it was nothing. I was having contractions but no further progress from my 38 week appointment because I was still a two!!

Not going to lie- I was super bummed.

Back home with no baby in hand.  Not a fun feeling - especially when it's your THIRD baby and all I'm terrified about is the baby coming too early and too fast!

Monday, we were up and took the kids off to school.  I'm so thankful that Jimmy has a flexible job and was able to work from home because he stayed home with me on Monday and we ran some errands, I caught up on my blog posts I had been meaning to write and we just hung out.  Evict baby #3 was going to happen Tuesday morning - it was scheduled!!

HA.

Guess what?   We went to go get our kiddos from daycare at the same time we do every day.  When we got back into our car...I looked at my phone and I literally couldn't believe it.  The hospital had called and left a voicemail.  I listened to the voicemail and started bawling instantly.  It was the nurse and I was on the wait list again.  AGAIN.  How is that possible?  The voicemail left a number this time and she told me call back at 9PM for an update.  I was so upset.  This couldn't be happening again!!!  I knew that it wasn't realistic to think that there would be an update in 4 hours (as they didn't know who would be coming into the hospital).  I was not happy.   We put our older kids to bed and I laid down in bed.  At 9PM, I called and no news - but she did say I was first on the wait list....so I had that going for me.  Talk about a rough night of sleep.  I really think that Jimmy might have been more terrified to see the wrath of 9 month pregnant Brittany if tomorrow wasn't the day then I was about hearing if we were going to be able to go in.

And GUESS WHAT??  At 5:15AM - my phone rang.  We both popped up out of bed and the most wonderful nurse in the world told me - you're going to have a BABY today!  7AM!

O.M.G.  Best news ever.

I texted my MIL, who was coming over to take the older kids to school and was just over the moon.  And then we made our kids guess (and apparently give their two cents on the name...).  They were obviously super interested in me!

However, I was a bit skeptical still and told Jimmy I wouldn't believe it until I was in the bed and hooked up - then they couldn't kick me out!

When we got to the hospital, another girl that had my doctor was there getting ready to be induced as well (yes, I did judge her because she didn't have any of the pre-paperwork filled out - I'm horrible, but seriously, I almost forgot to do all that but am so happy I did!).  On our way to the room, we saw a familiar face!  The nurse that delivered Maddie two years ago - and guess what?  She was going to be our nurse for baby #3!  (Side story - she actually went to high school with me and was a few years younger.  She found me on facebook after I had Maddie and I love that we have been facebook friends and I've seen her have her sweet little girl after hearing about her struggles with infertility!  I had messaged her telling her when I was scheduled to come in - she has the same OB as me - and she said she was on call that day....so I was thrilled to see her and hear she was our nurse!).  

Once we got to the room, everything was so fast.  It cracked me up.  Like an old pro I guess?  I got undressed, gown on, in the bed, hooked up to the machine and the antibiotics for Strep B started going.  At 7:45AM, my doctor walked in to say hi.  She said, I'm going to break your water and then you should probably get an epidural because I'm guessing this is going to be fast.  So by 8AM, my water was broken and the call for the drugs had been made.  My sneaky (and awesome) nurse had apparently already started the pitocin drip, so that explains why i was starting to feel contractions and they HURT!!  Just in time, the miracle worker (aka anesthesiologist) came and got me my epidural.  By that time - I'm guessing it was like 9:00ish?

My parents came in to say hi and chat and pass the time.  At this point, it was just a waiting game.  I wasn't in pain but still be monitored.  I was super uncomfortable just sitting there but knew it would be over soon enough.  I couldn't deliver until after 11:45 regardless because the medicine needed to be in me for 4 hours and we started it at 7:45AM.  

At 10:15AM, she decided to check me and yep, I was at an 8.5!!  My doctor was correct this was going to be fast!  My nurse is hilarious and said "you cannot have this baby for another hour and a half....so I'm turning of the pitocin and you shut your legs and wait!".  Yes, I love her.  And I did just that.  

And then when the completely surreal part happens.  When someone tells you...it's literally time to have a baby.  While that is a small statement, it's literally life changing to us.  I was so excited - I really thought I was going to have a girl, but after the kiddos guessed that morning it was a boy - I had no idea.  Since my nurse knew how fast Maddie came, she said she wasn't going to have me push with her and she was just going to wait and have the doctor in the room the whole time.  So after 11:45 came, my doctor walked in about 11:55 and then the pushing with contractions began because I was a 10!

And 25 minutes later, at 12:20PM - we got to meet our sweet baby BOY!!!  I was literally in shock.  For multiple reasons.  A) he came in like 3 pushes B) it was a HE!!!!!!!  Jimmy was supposed to announce the gender (in my head it was going to be some grand thing...).  But then when she lifted him up, his junk was right in my face so DUH and I just said "it's a boy!!!" and I also said C) "Hes' HUGE" because he literally looked like a 3 month old when was born.  I couldn't believe it!!  He was the cutest big boy newborn I had ever seen.  And just like that, I got to hold my sweet baby boy!!

I held him while the doctor did her work (ugh, I mean it's bad enough you have to carry the baby, push the baby out - which that part is magical - but the aftermath part...gross).  He was a little loud and making some grunting noises, but I didn't mind.  Plus Jimmy pulled through and got me a Jimmy John's beach club.  Because momma was #starving.

In the midst of coming to terms that we had another son and were parents of three kiddos now....we had to come up with a name.  It would have been easy if he was a girl because we had actually had a civil conversation about a girl's name and were pretty much in agreement.  But of course, this baby was a boy and we had a list of 7 names we "kind of" liked.  If you didn't know, we aren't name people.  We each had a name we loved with Charlie and Maddie and ended up meeting in the middle with both.  So I'm going to say this here - I wasn't in love with either of my kid's names when we first named them!!  Nope...I had other favorites (Luke for Charlie and Caroline for Maddie).  But guess what?  I LOVE their names now and they are traditional enough that I know they will carry well with them through life and their suit both of their personalities just perfect.  So I refused to stress over it all.  I knew we would come up with something. 

And then just like that - with no discussion at all - Jimmy says, "What do you think about Michael Eugene?".  I thought about it and said I wasn't in love with it, but I liked it.  I think it suited him and we could call him Mikey.

Yep, that was it.  Nothing to grand about it.  But that's also just how we roll these days.  The biggest debate we had in there was "Mikey" or "Mikie" spelling.  Obviously, we went with the first.  But that was it.  Jimmy has a brother named Michael and we also have a mutual friend with that name.  Eugene is Jimmy's grandpa's middle name.  And it was great.  Charlie, Maddie and Mikey were all ours.  (told you it was very simple!)

Dad and Mikey!

I'm not going to lie - Jimmy and I still talk about how weird the next part of the day was.  So you get 2 hours in the delivery room after the baby is born before you have to move to the recovery room.  But unlike after our other two kiddos were born, they didn't whisk him away right away to get a bath and get measured.  He just laid on my chest and all the nurses went on their merry way.  We both commented on how odd it was.  When one nurse came in, we asked why they hadn't weighed or bathed him and she said that they wanted to see if he would stop grunting by himself - I guess that giving them a bath doesn't help to stop that.  So then the two hour window came and they had to hustle.  Lots more nurses came in and they finally took his measurements (after he pooped on me and then peed and pooped on the nurse - oops!).  

So after much excitement of sharing our news with family and friends via text and phone...we headed to our room.  But the bad news was, this new little Mikey would not stop grunting.  They were very worried about his breathing and I started to get the feeling that it wasn't good when the nurses brought the nurse practitioner down to talk to me.  She said she would give him 30 minutes and was going to call our pediatrician, but there were a number of reasons the grunting concerned her and one was that he could potentially have trouble breathing longer term.  After she called our pediatrician, just like that my sweet boy was whisked off to the NICU and Jimmy went along.  And I was left there alone.  I'm not going to lie.  I was so so upset.  It just so happened that Jimmy's cousin's wife had a baby the day before and his aunt decided to pop in at that moment and say hi.  I completely lost it and bawled like a baby that they just took my baby away because this was not how I imagined it happening.

So many emotions as a new mama regardless of how many times you do this.  Oh man!

Luckily, my parents showed up soon after with Charlie and Maddie.  However, Maddie was #notpleased when she walked in the door and immediately said "where's the baby?!" in her sassy voice.  My sweet boy, Charlie, of course ran up to me to see how I was first.  So funny how different they were.  I texted Jimmy and he said absolutely not to bring them up right now because Mikey was getting the IV at the time.  But could soon.

And there we were.  Sitting in my hospital room with my parents trying to keep our older two kids entertained and to not destroy my hospital room...while I sat in bed just a few hours earlier given birth and so sad because my boy wasn't right by my side.

However, I will say that having other kids who are looking for your loving makes you pull yourself out of any hole I was going into.  I told them we would see him soon, while Jimmy kept us updated.  And then he said "You can come up!" and my sister pushed me in a wheel chair upstairs to see our little baby boy, Mikey!

And there was our first picture as a family of 5.   And it was perfect.  Because while they weren't sure what was going on with Mikey yet, our family was all together.

Big brother and big sister wanted to touch him and love on him SOOOOO badly!  And he was by far the biggest baby in the NICU topping the scale at 9lbs at birth.  

After our two older kiddos went home with my parents, we braced ourselves for the first night, unsure of what exactly that would look like.  Mikey had nursed for a while when he was first born (even though I wasn't supposed to let him - oops).  But since he was in the NICU and hooked up to an IV, that meant I already had to start pumping.  So just like clockwork, I would pump every 3 hours and take the little tubes of colostrum up to his room, where Jimmy was with Mikey.  Looking back on this, it's crazy because I do think that in the end it really helped with the Mikey/dad bonding because with our other two, it was all mom/baby time.  Jimmy stayed up there like the amazing dad he was, talking to the nurses, getting updates from the doctors, etc.  Everything was checking out good - all the Xray's and blood tests showed now issues, which was great news.  At one point, Jimmy suggested to the night nurse to roll him on his side and there was lots of fluid that he spit out - likely extra fluids that weren't pushed out of him because he came down the birth canal so fast.

Daddy and his second baby boy!

This was the comfy bed in Mikey's NICU room that Jimmy slept on.  He might have been a little too tall :)

I made several trips upstairs overnight to visit him and hold him - and then around 9AM on Wednesday morning, Jimmy texted me and said - "don't pump!  They think he's ready to try and eat".  YEAH!!  So I headed upstairs to see if he would nurse again and he did great.  So after that, they slowly started to decrease his IV fluids...until around 3PM Wednesday afternoon when they said he was ready to come off it completely because all his blood sugar levels before and after feedings were coming back great.  YEAH Mikey! 

I was elated to bring him back to my room AND the fact that he was going to get to go home with me when it was time for me to leave the hospital.  Before we left the NICU, I said so many prayers for all the babies and family's that were still up there.  Man, only having him away from me for 36 hours was hard enough as a new mama - I'm tearing up now thinking about all those babies that are born so early and spend months and months in the NICU.  The nurses were amazing, the doctors were amazing and those babies and parents are rock stars.  Looking back, I'm thankful for our short stint, as it gave me perspective of a different side - that I'm happy I didn't have to spend much time on - however, organizations like March of Dimes have a whole new meaning to me.  

When Mikey made it downstairs, we finally got a picture of the 5 of us.  And it was perfect.  Because right here - I'm so so filled with love.  Giving birth is just the most amazing thing ever.  There are no words that I can come up with to describe the feeling of having a baby and loving it and seeing your older kids love it as well.  So so blessed and so so thankful for these four wonderful humans that I'm lucky enough to call my family.

After that, it felt like a regular, old hospital visit.  You know, when you feel like shit because the after-birth stuff is no fun...but then at the same time, so happy because you have this little baby that is just perfect.

We had to hustle to get all the "normal" hospital stuff done that Thursday before we checked out.  Had to do the hearing test, get the circumcision done and of course, the hospital birth pictures.  Oh and the most important part - the birth certificate!  At least this time they didn't put Michael Eugene Michael (they put Carter Francis Carter on Charlie's!!).

But look at this adorable baby boy.

It's a BOY! 

Can I tell you how excited I was to go home?  SOOOOO excited.  Mainly because I was ready to just have this baby in my arms nonstop.  And he was sooooo tiny compared to my other two toddlers (even though he was the biggest baby of the 3!)

We got home that Thursday afternoon with a healthy and adorable baby.  And we couldn't have been more happy.

When his siblings got home from school that day - haha - he was already grasping my shirt.  Like he knew I would protect him from their crazy.  Oh yes, I will baby Mikey!

However, big brother and big sister couldn't WAIT to get their hands on their new brother!

The first few days, there was a lot of this.  And it was completely adorable.

Oh...and a lot of this.  Oh Maddie.

This first week at home was rough...mainly because this little boy was such a loud sleeper.  He was next to me all night, getting up about every 2-3 hours to eat, but the in between even when he went to sleep I was not sleeping because he was LOUD.  At his one week check up, the doctor suggested that we move him to his room.  I was soooo hesitant.  But I got the Dock-A-Tot (because I really liked that it was something that surrounded him and made him feel more comfortable that I could but in his big ole crib - but was breathable and safe) and put him in his room.  And it all worked out great.  We both started sleeping better.  Got into our own little routine with nursing and sleeping.   It was magic.  Not easy, but magic to get to do it again with baby #3.  I'm forever thankful for this little man adding himself to our family.  And while I'm writing this 3.5 months into his life, it hard to even imagine our lives without him in it!  I'm so glad I can call him mine!

And of course - the story of his birthday would not be complete without Jimmy's amazing baby "playbook".  It is in the same notebook with an hour by hour (and in this case....day by day because we thought 7/15 was originally his birthday!) with what was happening.  He even included "world happenings".  Thanks Jimmy for always documenting this - I treasure looking back on these for sure!!

As for wondering if this is the last birth story that I'll write...we are not quite sure yet.  We have always said we wanted four kiddos, but we would take it one kiddo at a time.  So that is still yet to be determined.  However, Mikey is like the most wonderful baby (it's all about perspective people - the fact that he just lays there and smiles at you and lets you dress him in whatever you want and is a great sleeper ----- all things that our older kids do not do...), so it's easy to want another one after this adorable little man!!  We shall see!

Baby Mikey - so happy that you joined our family on July 19!!