(not very) Quick! To Grcade!
Our little boy arrived with us on Friday afternoon! 3 weeks early and weighing just 5lb 6oz!
It's been a pretty stressful few days. My wife's waters broke on Wednesday evening, but labour didn't start. We went to the hospital to get it checked, and they said we could either induce immediately, or wait 24hrs to see if it starts on its own. We opted to wait, and nothing happened, so back to hospital on Thursday night to induce. By Friday morning, there'd been very little movement, but they registered that the baby was starting to get stressed, and my wife's temperature had spiked, so concluded there could well be an infection. I got the call to go in and join her on the hospital, but I was there for all of 30 minutes before she got wheeled into theatre for a caesarean under a general anaesthetic, and I don't think either of us really had time to take in what was happening. Then, an hour later, I was holding my son!
He was straight on the antibiotics to combat whatever infection it is they think he's got, sadly, but otherwise all seemed well, just very small. My wife was out of theatre shortly after and recovered quickly, but her memories of Friday are pretty patchy. I was allowed to stay on the post natal ward with them both for a few hours, then had to leave the hospital.
Yesterday was difficult too, because he became very unresponsive and stopped feeding. The doctors were concerned about this infection, and took him for a lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis, then had to connect him to a feeding tube to get some formula milk in him. After a few feeds like that, he perked up a bit, and began to feed with my wife normally as well.
The results came back this morning, and there's no sign of meningitis thank god, and his infection markers have dropped from 60 to 40, although they need to get down under 10 before discharge from hospital. Expecting them home Wednesday at this point, but there's no visiting them at the hospital because of Covid restrictions. Best I can manage is to head there and meet my wife in the car park, assuming she's recovered enough from the surgery to make it down there as well.
It's been the longest few days of my life, but so relieved to see he's improving, and otherwise perfectly well, and just can't wait to have them both home soon.