Logan Merrie Anstey!

March 20, 2018

Logan Merrie Anstey!

Our daughter, Logan Merrie, decided to surprise us all by breaking her bags of water inside mommy on Wednesday, March 7th, which led to her birth at 35 weeks at 6:08 pm on Friday, March 9, 2018. The morning of March 7th started out pretty normally, with Natalie heading down to Charlotte for a couple of in-person meetings with a high-level manager in town from San Francisco. Things took a turn when in the middle of a meeting, around 1:15 pm, Natalie felt a trickle come out of nowhere. Fifteen minutes and phone calls to Mitch and the OB office later, Natalie excused herself and headed to meet Mitch at the OB office. Though the in-office test was negative for amniotic fluid, the doctor felt it was highly likely that my water had broken, and so they sent us across the street to the hospital for further testing. A long wait later, it was confirmed that my water had broken, and just like that, I was stuck in the hospital with the plan to run antibiotics in an IV to protect against infections and to get two steroid shots to help with the baby's lung development.

It was a bit up in the air as to whether I would have my c-section to deliver the baby on Friday evening or Saturday morning. In fact, we didn't get confirmation until Friday around 9 am that our baby would be born around 6 pm that same day. Luckily, Mitch's mom, Grandma Rose, was able to fly down from Buffalo to help and stay with the boys while Mitch and I were at the hospital. Our nanny, Monica, also worked extra hours to help while we were in the hospital. This was good, since both Noah and Micah came down with a virus on Friday and were vomiting all over the house. Yikes! Luckily, their illness was only really bad for one day, and they really enjoy drinking Pedialyte. ;) Overall, the boys were really good with dealing with the sudden absence of mama and then daddy being gone too.

Anyway, once we got confirmation that the c-section would happen on Friday evening, it was a very surreal "go time" for Mitch and me. Mitch had to take care of some stuff at work, but he visited me in the morning, before heading out to pick up his mom at the airport, driving her home, packing up some stuff, and coming back to the hospital for the birth. There was also a little confusion between the anesthesiology team and my labor & delivery nurse about the start time for surgery prep, so my surgery was actually pushed up by a half hour or so. Overall, the surgery went well, though it took longer than normal due to my stomach having healed very tightly or something. It just took my doctor a while to safely cut through all the layers...so we were kinda just waiting behind the blue sheet wondering how much longer it would take. Then at 6:08 pm, our little girl arrived into our world, weighing 5 pounds 6 ounces, and measuring 18.5 inches. She was having a little trouble breathing and was given a little baby oxygen tube, which helped her regulate breathing just fine. Still, the neonatal specialist wanted to make sure she was doing okay, so we agreed to have Logan go to the NICU for monitoring and care.

It was very weird to be in the recovery area and then our room having given birth, but not having our baby. Mitch got to visit her in the NICU while I was recovering and still hooked up to my IV and leg cramp sleeves. Once I was free from those things, Mitch wheeled me down to the NICU and I was reunited with my girl! She was doing well in the NICU, and we got confirmation around 5 pm that she was good to come back to our room with us! Hooray! We spent the next day and a half as a partial family of three in our room, feeding her every three hours and otherwise letting her sleep. While we still had a lot of visitors in the form of nurses, doctors, lactation consultants, and techs, it surely wasn't as crazy as when we had the twins. We were feeling good, and ready to go home, when there was a minor wrench in our plans: slightly elevated bilirubin levels. The hospital wanted to keep Logan another day under the UV lights, but since we had dealt with this with the boys, Mitch advocated for us to take home a rented bili-blanket so we could get home that day, Monday. The doctor and special-case worker at the hospital agreed and helped us locate a medical vendor with one for us. So after that was delivered to us, we got to go home!

It was a happy reunion for Noah, Micah, mommy, and daddy! It was also a happy introduction for the boys with meeting Logan for the first time...it helped that I had gotten Bruder Fire Trucks for Logan to "give" to the boys as presents. They loved the fire trucks and they loved their sister. And just like that, we were a happy family of five. :)