NICU

Carter's arrival was definitely a surprise and quite the bumpy ride. I woke up Saturday morning around 7:30 am (three weeks before my due date) and just as I was rolling out of bed my water broke. Six hours later, Carter was here. I was told that first pregnancies usually go past the due date and the delivery lasts about 10-18 hours. That sure wasn't the case for me! I was only in the delivery room for about 30 minutes when Carter officially arrived. He weighed 6 lbs 5 oz and was 19 inches long. There wasn't enough time for an epidural but thank goodness I was able to have an intrathecal (sp?), which is pretty much a shorter lasting epidural. Thankfully, it lasted long enough. Overall, the delivery was the easy part. Little did we know that the hardest part was yet to come. I only got about 5 minutes with Carter before he was taken away because his breathing was very labored and hoarse sounding. It didn't take him long to end up in the NICU, where they placed a CPAP on him. A CPAP helps force oxygen into the lungs. Eventually, Carter required a couple doses of surfactant to help the air sacs in his lungs open more easily. They actually had to put a tube down his throat to do that. He was a little fighter, though. We were already so proud of our little guy.