He's Here!

"Freedom has a scent like the top of a new born baby's head" - U2, "Miracle Drug"

Well, finally, after a very long pushing stage, we had the chance to see the new addition to our family. Amber's temperature started to rise near the end (as did her temper!). Even though she got an epidural, the pain of delivering was excruciating. By the end, Amber was just saying, "Can't you just pull him out or do something!?"

Because of Amber's temperature, they were a bit concerned about the baby's health, so the intensive care staff were asked to be present at the birth. Everything went extremely well on baby's end, and Emerson Bahler was born at 7:17PM, weighed 8lb 7oz, and was 22inches (we're still not sure where Amber was able to store that big of a kid in her belly!).

Amber, however, needed a lot of repair work, and, needless to say, it was a very long process. It took them 2.5 hours to stitch (and re-stitch) her. The pain medicine wasn't working, so they gave Amber more through the epidural and wound up giving her too much. So, she hit a point where she was losing feeling in her hands and even had trouble breathing. Her heart rate dropped, so they had to give her some other medicine to counteract that, which made her blood pressure shoot way up. By this time, Amber was looking pale white and shaking uncontrollably. Thankfully, our friend Kristin showed up around this time to just provide some TLC while I held baby. Nice.

After a couple hours of trying to stabilize her just right, the nurses and doctors were comfortable with where she was to get some rest from all the activity. The doctors hooked her up to some antibiotics and continued checking on her until 4AM when we were finally moved from the labor and delivery room.

This morning, we managed a few hours of sleep, but it has been hectic and frustrating trying to get acclimated to Emerson with doctors coming in every few minutes, machines beeping, and numerous pamphlets of information being shoved in our faces. We'll be happy when we can get home and don't feel so rushed.

But, now we have a little baby. And as the saying goes, that makes all the pain worth it, right?

I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the whole event. Not only is it an emotional roller coaster, combining lack of sleep, watching my wife go through so much pain (I now have a newfound respect for her!), and being introduced to a new child, but I have just been overwhelmed by all the love and support we have received so far (and thankful at the same time that we haven't been bombarded with a ton of visitors!). We had one nurse who was with us through the entire labor and as Emerson was crowning, her shift was up. She stayed overtime to be there until he was birthed and even came up to see us today. And dozens have already congratulated us over email/web/facebook (I also have a new and profound admiration for the benefits of facebook! How else can you tell everyone you know and love and appreciate the events of your life all at the same time!?