Moments with the McGuires: Our hospital stay...

The emotions hit immediately in these first precious moments...

Surprisingly, I'm smiling in this picture because in most of the ones we have, I'm giving the ugly cry face. I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to react. I remember just feeling like I was still in a twilight zone when Teagan was born and it didn't hit me until later what had really happened. And at one moment in the night leading up to your arrival, I remember thinking "Wait a sec, I hardly remember even being pregnant. How are we here about to meet our son?!" Twilight zone for sure. My prayer had been that I would be able to take it all in. And the second that the doctor told me to reach down and grab you to bring you to my chest, my heart melted. I was totally head over heels in love with you from your first breath Reynolds.

After several minutes of sweet snuggles while the nurses tried to clean you off and stimulate you, they took you away from me. I wasn't exactly sure why at the time, but they noticed something with your breathing. They wanted to get you under the light and monitor you more closely.

And then...they picked up the phone. The phone that minutes before I had just told your Uncle Joe about. It is in the room in case there is ever an emergency or a need for a special staff to come in. And my heart sank. You can't pick up the phone...not for my baby. {and now, insert when things really did start to become a blur} And in a matter of minutes, two people came in and began checking you out. You were grunting and breathing fast. This can sometimes mean that you are in distress and that there might be fluid in your lungs. We learned later that this can sometimes happen when the pushing is so quick because the fast transition from water to air and that the baby doesn't have enough time coming through the birth canal for the fluid to be pressed out.

I'm not sure exactly what was determined after these moments with the doctor. {Like I said, it all became a blur.} I think they were able to determine there was not fluid in your lungs and so I was able to be reunited with you...and the emotions hit again. Sweet little love.

Then, it was time for your first bath, so even though in the craziness your dad hadn't gotten a chance to hold you yet we called the family back in because we knew they'd want to watch.

Once the room cleared again and before we headed to our postpartum room, your daddy finally got to hold you!

On the way to our postpartum room where the rest of the family got to get in on the sweet snuggles.

And then, we got to introduce you to your big sister! Papa G and Gigi (my aunt and uncle) brought her to the hospital after her nap. And you two exchanged the presents that you had picked out for each other.

oh sweet love.

McGuire, party of FOUR!

my uncle, Papa G

All the "Papa"s...good job dad on looking at the camera. ;)
Pappy, Papa, & Papa G.

"Crazy Uncle Bill" came to visit too.

Then, it was just the three of us. While we were enjoying the quietness and giving you sweet snuggles-we noticed what we thought was the "grunting" again. We called the nurse in and she decided to take you to the nursery where she could monitor you more closely.

So while they were monitoring you, it was just the two of us in the room before your dad went to pick us up some dinner and then I was left alone in the room. Felt quite strange to go from a crazy life with a 2 year old, to labor & delivery, lots of family, and then being totally alone in my room with nothing to clean or anything else that needed to be done.

And then the nurse came in while I was still alone and said, "Okay, he needs to eat so you can either pump or give him formula." To which I immediately started bawling in front of this nurse trying to figure out why they wouldn't just let me feed you myself. And she was super sweet...but it wasn't going to change anything. My options were still to pump or give formula. They had been monitoring your sugar and breathing. She said that since you still seemed to be in some distress that it would be better if they could monitor what you were getting and then they could test your sugar and breathing again. Patrick came in a few minutes later to find me still bawling while I was waiting on the nurse to deliver the pump. Pumping is already not a favorite of mine-more a necessity for me going to work or ever hoping to leave the house for longer than 3 hours. But to have to do it in less than 24 hours was just even more tough.
You and I both passed the "test" though and were able to be reunited again without having to pump or give more formula. Your dad snapped this picture after you were brought back to me and I was able to feed you myself again. Got to love the smeared mascara.

We did opt to put you in the nursery that night so that they could continue to monitor your breathing. It made us a little too nervous sleeping with you in the room and being unable to monitor it ourselves. But I did get to see you through the night anytime you needed to eat. Here you are giving some sweet smiles {and some other funny faces} at 2am...

The start of Day 2...

Day 3...We were hoping to leave the hospital between 10am-12pm. That was until the pediatrician came in early in the morning to tell us that she had just evaluated you for your discharge and she had some concerns. You had passed your jaundice test at 3am, but she thought you looked a little more jaundiced than what those results showed, so she ordered a blood test as well. Oh and she had heard a heart murmur, so she was ordering an echocardiogram and a pediatric cardiologist to evaluate you. Lots to take in at 7am in the morning. Day 3 became a long day of waiting...and a lot of time alone in the room as you were kept in the nursery waiting on the cardiologist and your echo. We found out a few hours later that you were in the clear for the jaundice but had to continue to wait around for results on the murmur. Finally by 3pm that afternoon, the cardiologist was able to come by and evaluate the echo results. He diagnosed you with muscular VSD-and told me NOT to google it, and so I haven't. It is a hole in the lower two chambers of your heart that normally closes after birth, but yours hadn't. He told us that medically speaking, you were fine and even if it didn't close on its own, there was nothing that we would need to do about it. Your dad asked if you would still be able to play whatever sports you wanted to, and the doctor told us absolutely. He said that the two big hang ups with this are that it is a pre-existing condition for insurance purposes and that if you still have it later in life you won't be able to join the military. Routine is to check it again in 3 months or he suggested that we could wait until your pediatrician thought it had closed and then re-evaluate you to confirm. The cardiologist was great at explaining everything and putting our mind to ease. And even though there were more tears shed, I know we serve a God that is bigger than that hole in your heart and that He holds you in the palm of His hands.