Carter meets the family

We have been so lucky to have our family to help us through this past week. It started with coming home to Chris' mom and sister making us a wonderful dinner after having the sidewalk and walkway all shoveled and free of snow so that we could easily make it in the house. Since then, Carter has gotten to meet a lot of his relatives who have helped us to get a little more sleep and ensure that we are all remembering to eat.

Carter meets Mona


Carter meets Grandma Cupcake


Carter meets Aunt Lindsey


Carter meets Aunt Kellie


Carter meets Grandma J


Carter meets Grandpa Roger


Carter meets Uncle Nick



** More photos to come of Carter's other introductions as I get the photos uploaded

Daddy's new football buddy

Chris has a new buddy to watch football with and when needed, take a nap with.

Carter's story..

Let's see, where did we leave off? Ah yes, I was completely stressed out that Carter would be delivered by a search and rescue team. As the "Arctic Blast" continue the very next day, we received a call from our doctor letting us know that she now thought it would be safest to get to the hospital while we could and induce labor. Since all the weathermen said that it was going to snow the entire week, we agreed with her.

We quickly grabbed our overnight bag, asked the neighbors to take care of Mona and then, ever so slowly, drove to the hospital with chains on the truck. When we arrived, they were ready for us, and got us set up in our birthing room. We had to do a few hours of monitoring to make sure that I would be able to handle the medications and that Carter was doing well. Once complete, I started taking medication and the contractions started right away. They were completely painless until 6am the following morning when we actually started the pitocin to produce stronger contractions. By 8am my doctor had arrived and broke my water. There was no turning back now!

In an attempt to make a very long story short, labor/contractions lasted until 2am before I finally reached 10 centimeters and was ready to push (apparently, the pitocin worked completed diffrerently on me than the doctor or nurse had ever seen - they had to turn it off completely every hour or so and then restart it to make more progress). As we neared what we thought was the finish line, we realized that the baby seemed to be facing the wrong way. So, after every contraction, the doctor would attempt to flip him around which was more painful than anything I've experienced in my LIFE! After an hour of pushing and no luck getting the baby to flip, we had to try a C-Section. 

In the hour or so it took them get the operating room ready and get me there, the baby made it PAINFULLY clear he was ready to come. Chris got to come with me and he sat next to me on the same side of the curtain as they moved quickly to deliver the baby. I kept waiting for them to bring him around the curtain like they do on TV, but he didn't come. I then realized I had not heard that big baby cry that you always here on TV. Chris tried to calm me by telling me he had heard the baby make noise. At some point, they told Chris he could go see the baby.

After an eternity he came back and reported 8 lbs, 1 oz. I felt like something was wrong - why wasn't I getting to see him? Chris told me that he was fine now, but he had be stuck in the umbilical cord and had to go to the "nursery" for observation. He brought the baby over for me to see and then left with the baby to go straight to the ICU.

Scary, scary stuff! I got wheeled back to my room where different family members came in to check on me. Some already had gone to Chris and were able to see the baby. They told me that it sounded like he was fine and Chris' aunt even gave me a camera from Chris with numerous pictures of the baby on it. Other relatives had no clue what had happened except that he want to the ICU which was not a good sign. I assured them that Chris said everything was OK.

The most amazing nurse arranged for me to be wheeled to the nursery to be with Chris and see for myself that the baby was OK. He was, and he was absolutely beautiful!

So, what happened? The baby WAS facing the wrong way and likely would not have been able to come via normal delivery. He also had managed to get wrapped in the cord more times than my doctor had ever seen and had already made it pretty far down during our hour of pushing. So, by the time they got to him, he was blue in color and not breathing. They quickly resuscitated him and emptied the extra fluid from his lungs.

Talk about a miracle. They ran all sorts of tests, but had him back in our hospital room within a couple of hours. He has been perfectly healthy and lively since. He is a our true Christmas miracle, keeping us awake all hours - and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Baby Pics

Here are some pictures of little Carter. Many more to come...

http://picasaweb.google.com/HeatherDRoberts/CarterOReillyRoberts#

I thought stress was bad for the baby...

We took this picture last night as the final photo before the baby arrived.


Yes, his due date is the 24th, but our doctor had decided that if he did not arrive by 9pm on the 21st, we would go ahead and push him along. She told us to call the hospital the day of at 8pm to verify that they would be able to accomodate us (obviously women who were in true labor get first dibs on the rooms). A little anxious, we called at 10 this morning.

The nurse, Laura, was really nice and told us there shouldn't be any problem and that it was so good that we were inducing since the roads have been bad lately - this way we would be sure to be at the hospital, in a controlled environment instead of risking being able to make it to the hosptial when they time comes. The only concern was that they had us down for midnight, not 9pm. She wanted to confirm the time with our doctor and would call us back.

Instead, our doctor called. She wanted to reschedule the whole thing until tomorrow because the roads were bad. Problem is, the roads are not supposed to be any better tomorrow. She said not to worry and that if we were unable to make it on our own, we could always call an ambulance to get the hosptial. Furthermore, if the ambulance can't make it, they will send "search and rescue".

No, I'm not kidding. This was supposed to make me feel better. We went from a nice planned, controlled environment to a search and rescue team delivering our baby. We went back and forth about which would be safer, a planned induction where we have time to borrow a 4x4 vehicle and get to the hosptial, or taking our chances that we will be able to get out of the house at all.

In the end, our doctor was completely fine leaving me stressed out that my baby would be born at my house with (at best)a search and rescue team. She thinks this will be "safer". We have nothing scheduled and now will just wait and see when he decides to come.

The snow has continued to come down and we are feeling even more trapped in our home than before.


Since we've been stuck here the last few days, I guess we started to go a little crazy. We decided to take a walk (they say walking induces labor you know). So, with help from Chris, we got my snow pants and jacket on (OK, not zipped, but on) and my snow boots.



Even Mona had her sweater on - although, after walking for about 2 minutes in the snow, she was over the whole thing and "walked" inside daddy's jacket.


We walked in the deep snow for a decent amount of time and still, no baby.


**No real worries. We put chains on Chris' truck and if we can't get up the hill from our house in that, we have a list of people we'll be calling who have 4x4s. Sorry in advance if we have to call any of you at 3am :)

Sneak preview of what's to come?

Grandma J read our recent post about Chris working with his dad when he was little and shared with us that he was hooked on technology from an early age. We just had to share!

What a Christmas Present!

We're still on schedule for a Christmas Eve baby

37.5 weeks

Let's go wook

When Chris was little, he couldn't pronounce the letter "r" so, instead of wanting to "work with dad" he wanted to "wook with dad". Grandma and Grandpa Roberts have some adorable home videos of little Chris with his fisher price wheelbarrow as he "wooks with dad" in the yard.

Times have changed a bit. We currently do not even own a wheelbarrow and Chris' work consists of laptops and blackberries. It is only fitting then that his thoughtful coworker, Debbie, would get Baby Roberts the appropriate tools to "wook with dad" - his very own laptop and cell phone.

Can you even stand it?! I can't wait to see my men wooking together!




























As if Debbie couldn't be thoughtful enough, she made sure to remember Mona who received a new toy (wrapped in pink to distinguish from the blue gifts for Baby Roberts). She has been having so much fun with it!

The bump

The bump, the buddah belly, the baby.. it's getting bigger. So big in fact that Mona decided it looked like the perfect spot to take a nap and climbed up, made herself comfortable and fell asleep.

The most stylish carseat

We were pretty frustrated when Babies 'r' Us decided to stop selling the carseat we wanted which matched the swing and diaper bag we had selected. That is until we turned to Ebay and found a seller who makes custom carseat covers! Now he will have a stylish carseat AND a completely unique one!

Our little angel

A picture is worth a thousand words..