Meet Nolan!

We should have known, due to the way he has been surprising us from the beginning, that Nolan would find a way to make an exciting entrance into this world. His birth story is, to say the least, not boring. In fact, the surgeon who delivered him (via emergency c-section) said she would bet money that he would be president one day and that he was destined for great things because God obviously put him here for a reason!

Nolan Michael. Such a sweet, photogenic little man!

 After a very calm, routine pregnancy, I expected a normal birth, much like I had with Brady. The day after my due date I began having contractions around 2 AM. They died off around 6 AM so I figured it was a false alarm. They picked back up again around 8 AM and we were heading to the hospital around 10 AM. Everything was progressing pretty normally and when my water broke around 6:45 PM, it was about time to push! I pushed from around 7-7:15 PM and then realized that something was not right. Our midwife called in several more nurses and a doctor and a surgeon. They were all closely monitoring the baby's heart rate which was dropping dramatically during every contraction/push. The surgeon made a quick decision to do an emergency c-section. Everything happened very quickly and Chris and I were, to say the least, confused, and panicked for our baby's safety. There was a lot of commotion and it was hard to stay calm. I had to be put to sleep for the c-section and Chris had to wait outside of the operating room. The doctor came out to talk to Chris before the surgery and less than a minute later she had Nolan out. Chris was able to come in and meet Nolan right away and was briefed on his "unique" situation. Apparently they discovered that the reason Nolan's heart rate was dropping so dramatically was because he not only had the cord wrapped around his neck, but there was a big knot tied in his cord. The surgeon said this was very rare and potentially life threatening had they not gotten him out right away (They told Chris to take a picture of the cord because they were all so shocked by it!) It could have been like that throughout my whole pregnancy, but only became an issue after my water broke because there wasn't any fluid to cushion it. During each contraction, the cord pulled tight, tightening the knot, and cutting off all of the air to the baby.

Our sweet, little miracle!!!

We are so thankful for our knowledgeable, quick acting hospital staff for helping bring our baby boy safely into this world. Things could have gone wrong in so many ways, but they didn't. Nolan was born completely healthy...even scoring a 9 on the Apgar! When I woke up from the surgery, it took a little while to "clear my head" and after a couple explanations as to what had gone down, I was so ready to meet my baby! The things that shocked me the most were his head full of dark hair and big chunky cheeks-he was an inch shorter than Brady was at birth, but almost the same weight. Although my first meeting of Nolan was not how I had pictured it, it was love at first sight!

My boys! Chris is such a proud daddy!

Recovery has been a little more challenging this time around and Brady is not understanding why I can't pick him up like I normally would, but all in all things are going pretty well. Nolan is a total sweetheart and we are always talking about the ways he is the same or different from how Brady was as a newborn. He's much cuddlier and much louder- lots of grunting in his sleep! He's a good eater and as of today(11 days old), is almost a whole pound over his birth weight. Brady pretty much ignored Nolan for the first few days, but each day he is interacting with him more. He has been sharing his play-dough and fruit loops with him lately (so generous!) Twice now he's bounced a ball off of his face (accidentally, of course) but it hasn't phased Nolan.



Sharing his Fruit Loops- that's kind of a big deal.

We are really enjoying this time as a family. We are lucky to have my mom in town to help out with the kids and day to day house chores, which has made things much easier. We were also extremely excited that Spring finally sprung the weekend that Nolan was born. We've been able to play outside, grill out, and work on our garden and other house projects. The newborn stage is not always fun (especially in the middle of the night) but we are trying to not wish this time of our life away and just enjoy our babies being babies for the short time that they are our little guys.


Let's just speed this swing up a bit for Nolan...that's what big brothers are for, right?