March 2, 2009: Josiah Day

WE HAD A BABY THIS MORNING! Josiah Thomas Glen was born at Covenant Lakeside hospital at 7:57 AM, 4 lbs. 13 oz., 19 inches long and absolutely perfect. The following pictures document our entire day.

Our morning began a little later than planned, after only 3 1/2 hours of sleep at 4:40 AM. Travis was up before me...


I had to grab one last "baby bump" picture at home. This would be the largest Kat ever...


We arrived at the hospital at precisely 5:30 AM. Things began to move quickly from that point on. They immediately had me hooked up to an IV and did a quick dopler to find Josiahs heart beat...


The nurse came in to inform me they were moving ahead of schedule. Instead of heading down at 7:30, they would be calling me at 7. I wanted to see my mom before I went in to surgery and became afraid that she was not going to make it to the hospital in time. To ease my anxiety, we took the very last baby bump pictures there will ever be...


They had a special set of scrubs for Travis to wear into the operating room. Doesn't he look dapper?


After we were both suited up, there was nothing left to do but wait to be called down, visit with family and pray. Glen, Cindy, Les, Valinda, Brittany, Mom, and Thomas were there before we headed to the OR. Uncle Les lead us all in a special prayer.


Right before entering the OR. This is our last family photo with the "unseen" Josiah. I was terrified. The nurses made me take off my wedding rings, and I tried to bargain with them to keep them on. Right before going in, we met with Dr. Roberts, the anesthesiologist, who was very understanding of my hyperemesis and drug sensitivities. We decided to risk the meds that make 20% of women very sick. Travis had to wait in the hallway about 15 minutes while they got my epidural set. I sobbed and shook all over and I don't think I would have made it through without one very sweet nurse who encouraged me to squeeze her hand and cry on her through the procedure.


I scared myself so badly, my blood pressure shot up to 154/94, and my heartrate was shot up to an unhealthy 150 bpm. When the epidural set in, it immediately brought down my blood pressure and heart rate so fast I required oxygen. Finally, Travis came in and he took my hand and comforted me.


Getting Josiah out was...interesting. Never one to miss an opportunity to do things differently, our once "head down" son decided to flip into a horizontal transverse position, showing his back and bottom to Dr. Devine and Dr. Burley. This unexpected gymnastic feat caught the doctors off guard, and made the C-section last a little longer. My sweet son hid from the doctors requiring five, 5, people (doctors and nurses) to scramble to try and flip him and squeeze him out of my rib cage. All I remember is Doctor Devine grunting and yelling "Come on, baby!" She's a very tall woman and was hunched over me in a very aggressive position to extract our little gymnist. At one point, Dr. Roberts, who stayed by my head the whole time, reached for my rib cage and gave an aggressive push on Josiah to assist Dr. Devine's efforts. I wasn't so much scared as I was bemused. When he was finally out, he was a little tired and a little blue, so it took the nurses a minute or two to get that first cry. When they did, he was a blonde headed banshee. The entire time they were trying to rouse him, Dr. Devine and Dr. Burley were making threatening comments about how he deserved to be in "Timeout" for giving them such a hard time.


I watched on as the nurses revived him, comforted by the tiny whimper sounds that quickly grew into angry screams. Our limp and pale little boy quickly became a red faced screaming monkey. Upon seeing his blonde hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows I immediately became concerned that I had given birth to an angry albino child. In a weak voice, I said to Travis through approaching tears "is he ok...is he albino?" He chuckled and reassured me that he was perfect...and not albino.


Our angry baby, who managed to elude doctors through his delivery (not to mention the entire pregnancy) came out tiny, but in perfect health. We were thrilled to see that he would require no time in NICU and had a very powerful set of lungs on him.


Surprisingly, he was born even smaller than predicted. As you recall, at his last BPP, he was measured at an approximate 5 lbs 1 oz. However, our beautiful boy made his grand debut into the world at a tiny, but mighty, 4 lbs 12.4 oz. The nurses graciously rounded up. Personally, I think his personality alone can account for the allotted .6 oz.


I was thrilled that Travis was the first person to hold him. I'm glad he got that very special opportunity. I was even more thrilled that Josiah was born in perfect health, allowing me to hold him and bond with him in the OR as well.


Introducing...The McCullloughs!!! Our first family photos.


While I was in recovery, Travis had the privilege of introducing Josiah to his "Paparazzi," as his giant welcome wagon became labeled by our nurses.


Two generations of two very handsome McCullough men. This is my family!!


Studly Josiah with his bright eyes open. "They found me. I don't know how, but they found me. They think they can contain me."


Travis in the newborn nursery with Josiah. After a nurse took the first picture, she informed him that he was indeed allowed to touch his child, so she took a second picture. lol


Getting to know each other in the Post-Partem



I'm so blessed that he does not have to spend any time in NICU. I was only in recovery for 45 minutes, and as soon as I was out, I was able to start nursing and get some of that precious bonding time that some women miss out on after c-sections. It didn't take us long to catch up on those missed hours...

Tired and sore mom...


Look at that nearly-white head of hair! I was telling Travis just a week ago, "I hope he has blonde hair!"


"Thank you, Lord for getting me here safely. And thank you for not letting my mommy die. Amen."


So that was our Josiah day. He's perfect and precious. We'll have many more pictures to post. I'm so exhausted, but he's wonderful and so worth it. I'm gonna go take a nap before he needs to be fed again.

We want to thank everyone for their prayers and words of encouragement that brought our sweet baby here in perfect health. We could not ask for more. Thank you all so so much.

God bless,
Kathleen, Travis, and Josiah

38 Weeks, 2 Days

Oh my oh my oh my oh my oh my oh my.

I've been FREAKING OUT all day! I've been putting off this entry until the LAST second because I knew sitting down to blog about this would freak me out even worse! Sure enough, as I type this, my stomach is in knots and my hands are shaking! Why am I so scared?? I cried about four times today, just in complete emotional breakdown.

I'm scared for a bunch of reasons I guess. I'm scared right now because I won't be able to take my Zofran tomorrow morning, or eat anything, so the idea that I might be nauseous or throw up is terrifying to me. I called the charge nurse because I was supposed to "check in" the night before, and I asked her if there was anyway I could get around the rule of no ingesting of anything after midnight with my medicine, and she said no. She was nice about it, but she said no. So I'm going to take it at 11:59 here in a few minutes and pray it holds out until I get to the hospital. Then maybe they could put it in my IV if needed. She said they just want my stomach empty... so perhaps there are ways to get around the rules. So, fear #1: puking.

Fear #2: Surgery. Never had one, never wanted one, terrified of this one. And I know it's a minor minor surgery, but holy crap it scares me! I keep thinking about it over and over again, and I just shake all over when I think about someone cutting me open. I know you don't feel any pain, but I've heard it can feel like you're being "unzipped"... well, I like my body to stay zipped. I had a mole removed once from the back of my neck. I almost passed out and did throw up later when it got to the part where they used the little laser to cut off the blood flow on the tiny blood vessels before they stitched me up. The smell just did me in. I couldn't handle it. It was a TINY incision. So I'm pretty concerned about how I'll handle tomorrow. Yikes.

Fear #3: Really don't wanna die. I don't. I read an article early early on in the pregnancy about a lady dying during a c-section from blood loss, and I've never gotten the story out of my head. I shouldn't ever read up on anything. This always happens. However, now the fear is there, and I don't know how to chase it out of my mind. I just keep praying and praying. I know God will be there with me, and I'm at zero risk of dying on the table. I'm just a naturally anxious person, and this is the riskiest thing I've ever done.

Fear #4: Josiah. Worried I won't hear that tiny cry, which will indicate that his lungs really aren't ready. Dr. Devine joked about little wimpy white boys. She said that for some reason, there is a trend that indicates that white baby boys struggle more during pregnancy and right after birth than any other race. So weird. I know if I don't hear that initial little cry, it doesn't mean anything is necessarily wrong, he just needs to cook longer, which he'll do perfectly in NICU. But still, you long for that cry. I hope I get it.

I also hope there's nothing wrong with him that we somehow missed. I absolutely refused to have any kind of amnio done to check for chromosomal abnormalities or genetic disorders, and I'm scared that I should have. It's such a hard decision. Travis and I wouldn't have changed anything if it came back positive, and it would have just worried us and made us sick with dread. I also felt at peace every time I prayed and asked God to protect him-from day one of this pregnancy- and I felt like getting those blood tests and amnio tests done would show a lack of faith. So I just need to trust in that peace I've felt over and over again. But the night before when you can't sleep and are crazy anxious, it's hard.

Tomorrow's huge, and in a few hours we'll be getting up to head to the hospital. Thank you all so so much for your continued support. We couldn't have made it this far without your prayer and friendship. Please continue to pray for us! We'll keep everyone posted and have some beautiful baby pictures up here tomorrow!

The nurse said usually 7:30 appointments run on time, and the latest we'd get in there would be 8 or 8:15. So definitely by 9 tomorrow morning, we'll be parents. Oh my. I'm freaking out again!!

Thank you all again and God bless,
Kathleen and Travis