Our baby boy Josiah has arrived and with plenty of excitement tonight. All praise honor and glory to God for this beautiful baby boy. Josiah was born at 8:24 PM via c-section and he came in at 8 lbs 10 ozs and 20 1/2 inches. As you can see he has arrived in grand Osborne style with the head full of black hair. He is a beautiful little big baby. 😉 Okay, I know I said that once already.
Josiah is currently in the level II nursery. He was elevated to level II about an hour after birth when his respirations remained at about 80 bpm. They like for newborns to breath between 40 and 60 times per minute. He was also having a hard time with his O2 saturation levels that were hanging in the low 90s without oxygen.
As of about 1AM Josiah was sill on oxygen. The pediatrician felt that there was a need to go ahead an start IV fluids and precautionary antibiotics in the event his breathing problems were related to an infection. His blood work showed a white count in the normal range but on the upper end. His chest x-ray was normal and his heart sounds great. PRAISE GOD! Can I get an Amen?
2:30am
The nurses were not able to get an IV in so they consulted the neonatal specialist. The neonatal lady stopped by about 30 minutes ago to get permission to put a central line in through his umbilical veins. There really wasn’t much of a choice on our part. Even though he is on room air now, his respirations are still not where the pediatrician wanted to see them before she would allow him to go to the breast and they still needed IV access to anyway to give the antibiotics. They had already tried sticking him in every limb plus his head with no success. As of this moment they have successfully placed the central line and can start fluids and antibiotics. The most discouraging thing for us about this central line is that they will require him to be off of it for 12 hours before he can go to the breast. That does not add up for me, but I will sort it our with them in the morning. How will he get nutrition and hydration during those 12 hours of he is not allowed to eat and he no longer has the line. Anyway… Sherry and I wanted so much to get him to breastfeed and now that window off opportunity in the first hour(s) has once again been taken away. Now it looks like he will be nearly 24 hours old before he gets to eat if he can get off the central line first thing in the AM.
Sherry and I
Mommy is doing much better physically than emotionally. I have not been much help emotionally. I think I may have cried more than her tonight. Sherry has not been able to hold her baby boy Josiah yet and will not be able to for a while due to the central lines. This one little thing has hurt me to see more than just about anything else. We have both had some pretty emotional moments this evening as you might imagine. The events leading up to the delivery will make for a whole story in itself.
The delivery went good for Sherry physically, but there was a scare when Josiah came out. It was a cross between what I felt when Caden was born and somewhat similar to what Pastor Josh described in his sermon last week. Josiah was fairly discolored and not crying for a while and the nurse and respiratory therapist were frantically working on him to get him to breathing for what seemed like minutes. He did finally give a couple of good cries that comforted Sherry and me.
Sherry has had one other little point of aggravation tonight. After finally learning that there was no chance that Josiah would be allowed to be breastfed tonight she has just been given a breast pump. The aggravating part has to do with hospital procedure. They will only issued her attachments for pumping on one side at a time. The pump will do both sides and they have the kits, but they won’t issue her another hose and bottle kit. It is the exact same model of pump she used when Caden was born.
We are so thankful to God for giving us this healthy little boy. I say healthy because most of what is going on now is precautionary. There has been some rabbit trails suggested by the neonatal unit who want to rule out DiGeorge. They have suggested checking Josiah’s calcium level for abnormalities because that is a very common presentation of Di George. I asked what would be next if the calcium was a little off. Would it be an electrocardiogram or a swallow study that follows? I ended up telling them to cut to the chase and pull blood work for a genetics test to look for the 22q11.2 deletion. Let’s just say that this subject hit a BIG nerve with me. If I could get my hands around Satan’s neck right now, I am sure I could make him squeal like a pig. I guess if I want to be brutally honest with myself, Satan probably won a few points against me tonight.
Prayer Request
Please pray for the following:
– Rapid healing for Sherry
– Blood test results that show a clean bill of health for Josiah
– A compassionate staff
– Peace of mind and rest for Sherry
– Peace of mind for Riley and Caden
AS Riley and Caden left the hospital with Ms. Audra our super awesome sitter this evening, I told Riley and Caden that they would get to meet their baby brother in the morning. I was anticipating a first picture to be with all three boys together. You know, the “My Three Sons” theme. It might be a couple of days before I get that picture now. In the meantime here are a couple more pictures for you. You can click on any of them for larger copies.
