On Thursday, October 16, 2008 we welcomed Christopher Neal Holmes to our family. He weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz. and was roughly 19 inches long. I went to the hospital around 9:30 a.m. and I delivered him at 8:34 p.m. It was my longest labor to date--full of lots of unexpected twists and turns, including forceps!!Unfortunately, he aspirated some meconium during the delivery, and had to be rushed to the respiratory therapists at the hospital, so I have no sweet pictures of me holding him after his birth--I had to wait for 2 days to be able to hold him in my arms and nurse him for the first time.
After 2 days of treatments with the CPAP machine, surfactant, and antiobiotics we thought we'd be able to bring him home, but his body just wasn't ready yet. His bilirubin levels were increasing and his little lungs were still hazy. That means we all got to experience the NICU for another week. He received 5 more days of antibiotics, 2 days of "bili lights," an EKG to rule out heart problems, and quite a few more IVs, pokes, and pricks. On Thursday October 23rd, we finally got to bring him home. He still has to be on oxygen to strengthen his lungs, but we're hoping that within the next month he'll be off the oxygen. Many thanks to Emily for taking this adorable picture.
Here are some pictures of Elena and Eva meeting their baby brother at the NICU for the first time. You'll see from the pictures that they each enjoyed touching his cute little piggies. He's still hooked up to the CPAP machine in these pictures.
