On March 5 Emery Rose Powell was born. We went into the hospital at 7am and by 7pm had a brand new healthy, happy baby girl! She weighed in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and was 20 1/4 inches long. And she had hair! Beautiful brown hair. When we were checking in I saw the L&D nurse that we had during Brantley's birth (the one that I raved about and will be forever thankful for having during my first labor and delivery. She was beyond phenomenal)and I wanted her with us again. Badly. I started wondering if I could even do it again without her. I asked Kris if it would be a bad thing or like telling people their job if I asked to have her again and he said that it appeared that she was leaving. I was a little devastated. Luckily, compared to my labor & delivery with Brantley, this one was a cake walk. After I started "labor", which our nurse (whose name I don't even remember) informed us begins at 5cm, I had a few hours of contractions and approximately 30 minutes of pushing. The contractions were manageable through breathing. Heavily. And when she started pushing, I was ready. It was amazing.
However, going home was a different story. GrandPattie had arrived at our house at 6am that morning to stay with Brantley. We knew that I would have to stay overnight in the hospital and that was going to be a first- my first night away from Brantley. Ever. But I was okay with that as Pattie was going to stay at our house with Brantley so that she would be comfortable and she was also going to be taking her to a birthday party on Sunday afternoon that would be guaranteed fun. Sunday morning came and I was cleared to go home and Emery had to stay in the hospital 24 hours after her birth so that should have put us at about 8pm to be discharged. GrandDaddy & GrandPattie were supposed to bring Brantley to meet Emery at the hospital before the birthday party on Sunday but GrandPattie reported that Brantley had a fever (102.5) and was not acting well. Kris went home to assess the situation and later that evening ended up taking Brantley to the ER. Luckily, the pediatric physician on call for the ER was the same one who had been upstairs with Emery. He said that, if possible, we needed to keep the children separated until Brantley was fever free for 48 hours. She was diagnosed with an ear infection and started on an antibiotic. It broke my heart not being able to be with her when I knew she was sick. So GrandPattie took Brantley home and Kris, Emery, and I went to Lux at about 11pm. On Monday we took Emery to start her bili rueben testing at FGH's outpatient facility (that went on for a week & a half) and Kris checked on Brantley at our house. This day was also our anniversary, which I didn't realize until I looked at the date on the paperwork from the outpatient visit. We'll do better next year...On Tuesday, we were finally reunited with Brantley and got to introduce her to Emery. Not how I had planned for this to happen but it was precious nonetheless...
And Big Sister presents are pretty cool...
PS: The nurse that we had with Brantley's labor & delivery recognized Kris as he was going out to pull the car around for us to leave the hospital on Sunday night. She came by to say 'hello', meet Emery, and ask how everything went. I honestly couldn't believe she remembered us but was thrilled. There were lots of hugs. And I may have cried a little tear or two...
