Introducing {Emerson Paige Graebe}

Welcome to the world Emerson Paige!

Our beautiful baby girl was born Thursday, June 26 at 8:19am weighing 6 lbs. 11 oz. and measuring 20 1/2 inches long. We've spent the last week soaking up every minute with her and enjoying our new life as a family of four. I'll do my best to update the blog this week about our first full week together, but overall it couldn't have gone any better. For now, I want to write about her birth story and the special day it was!

Backing up just a bit, the night before she arrived we took Ethan out to Papaw and Ginka's where he would be staying for the next couple days. We got him all settled and unpacked and put him to bed one last time before he became a big brother. I had him sitting on my lap and we explained to him that baby sister was in my belly tonight, but that in the morning he was going to be able to finally meet her! It was definitely a tearful 'goodbye' for me that night, but not as bad as I had expected. We then headed to Jiffy Treat for one last yummy treat  - I had been thinking about a s'mores blizzard all week and made sure that was part of my last meal before surgery =) Rob and Cathy had just arrived in town from Tennessee so they met us there and we were able to visit before we headed back home for last minute preparations. I wanted to make sure the house was spotless so that we could come home to a clean house. We got to bed about midnight that night and it was a quick 'nap' before our alarms went off at 4:30am.

We arrived at the hospital right at 6am where they immediately started prepping me for surgery. We unpacked some of our stuff, got my IV started, took our last bump picture, and had about 30 minutes or so of down time before they wheeled me off.


Last bump picture!

 

It's go time!

About 7:30am everything started to happen so, so fast which definitely made my nerves start shooting through the roof. Nurses were coming in right and left, the anesthesiologist  came in to talk about the spinal, Dr. Stowell came in to say hi, and before I know it I'm waiting outside the surgery room door having to say bye to Eric while they make him wait outside. My nurses were fantastic and their number one priority was making sure I was 100% comfortable and talking me through any last minute nerves I had. I got my spinal and within minutes I'm on the table and they had already started the surgery. I had such an awesome team working on me between Dr. Stowell and his tech, the anesthesiologist and his med student, my two nurses, and the newborn nurse. My biggest fear going into all this was the actual surgery itself and it went flawless. It was such a different experience than Ethan...I didn't get nauseous, I didn't get the shakes, I was able to breathe through the whole surgery (with the help of some added oxygen!), I didn't get groggy and loopy, and I just felt really relaxed the entire time. After one big tug and pull, I hear a cry and Dr. Stowell announced she was out!

8:19am! Here I am!!

Got a good set of lungs on her!

 The newborn nurse took her right away to start cleaning her off and listening to her vitals. I was able to watch over my left shoulder and proud daddy was over there taking pictures. I remember how teeny, tiny she looked because she was still scrunched up and just thought what a little peanut she was! After she was all cleaned up, the nurse finally announced her weight at 6 lbs. 11 oz. and what a happy moment that was! I was thinking she might be in the low six pounds so to hear 6.11 was awesome.

 

They got her all swaddled and handed her to Eric who then brought her over to me. Our anesthesiologist was sooo nice and offered to take pictures of the three of us - how cool is that?

Meeting my sweet girl for the first time

 

One proud papa

After they were all finished up with me, they wheeled us off to the post-surgery room which is just a dark holding room where they monitor you for about 45 minutes. The nurses immediately tried to get baby girl (who didn't have a name yet) to nurse and she latched right on! It was so exciting. Eric texted our parents who were anxiously waiting out in the waiting room to let everyone know baby was here and everything went smooth. We finally got wheeled into our "mommy and baby" room where we would spend the next couple days. The next hour or so was busy with nurses coming in about every 15 minutes to take vitals on the baby and I.

 

Once we were settled back in our room, Eric went out to the waiting room to get Ethan. I was so excited to share this experience with him and have our first moments as a new family. As soon as they walked in I got the biggest smile on my face and Eric sat him in bed right next to me. He seemed maybe a little cautious, but not scared at all. He actually laid his head back on the pillow and just kinda relaxed while we talked to him about his new baby sister (who was nursing). It was like Ethan knew instantly that she was his baby sister...he touched her feet right away and leaned in to get a closer look at her. Little did we know this would be the start of his complete love affair with her! =)

Our first family picture!

 

Kisses for baby sister!

Checking out all five fingers

After some time had passed, it was time to introduce Emerson to all the grandparents (ps: I will make a separate post with all the grandparents/family pictures meeting Emerson)! We felt slightly bad because she literally nursed the first six hours of her life - which the nurses encourage...even if she wasn't actively nursing the whole time it gives her practice and also helps your milk come in faster. However, it meant that no one got to hold her! By the time the grandparents came in is when my memory starts to get pretty foggy. It was just the change in hormones that happen directly after giving birth, but wow, I felt pretty icky. I was very light-headed, dizzy, nauseous and just overall out of it...which apparently showed because my family could see it written all over my face. We visited for awhile, but they all decided to leave and give us some space knowing they would be back to visit later in the afternoon.

Pure happiness.

We were keeping our family (and friends) in limbo because by Thursday night she still didn't have a name! Leading into her being born, we said we didn't want to name her until we were back in our recovery room and we actually had time to look at her (plus we wanted to see how I was feeling during/after surgery). Time was flying by that whole day and I felt so crummy in the hours following birth that it just wasn't high on our priority list! Eric and I laughed several times throughout the day because we weren't even talking about naming her. My dad was going on the air the next morning at 6:30am so he requested we name her by then =) Our top three names were Reagan Elizabeth (Eric's favorite), Parker Reece (my favorite), and Emerson Paige (one of our first original names that we both liked). Since I didn't like his favorite and he didn't like mine, we decided Emerson would be perfect. Plus, that was the most "sweet" sounding name out of our three choices and it was nice to watch her throughout the entire day on Thursday to see what her demeanor was like...very sweet indeed =) We love that fact that Ethan and Emerson have the same initials...EPG.

The sweetest face ever.

 

 

My biggest side effect from the surgery was itching, a common reaction after being given morphine. By Friday night, I was absolutely miserable and kept asking for the medicine that calms the itch down. I think overall I took four or five doses of it because it kept coming back and keeping me from sleeping. At one point the doctor was going to give me Ambien because I literally could not sleep...I was an insomniac (seriously) all Thursday night into Friday afternoon and couldn't fall asleep at night or during the day for a nap. I was able to stand up out of bed Thursday night (about 12 hours after surgery!) and take a couple steps with the help of a nurse. By Friday morning, they unhooked me from all my machines, took out my catheter, and gave me the green light to shower. They couldn't believe how well I was doing - my pain level probably never exceeded a 3.5-4 on a scale of 10.

 

The next couple days were filled with lots of visitors in the hospital. My parents brought Ethan once on Thursday and Friday and twice on Saturday, Dad brought us dinner Saturday night, multiple visits from Jeff, Kristen, and the boys, Rob and Cathy got to visit plenty before they headed back to Tennessee, Mary and Steve came by a couple times, and David, Arynn, and Hutch came by on Saturday as well. So much fun having family around. Every time Ethan came to visit was the highlight of my day. My mom would pack him a lunch and we would try and have a 'picnic' in my hospital bed...although he was more interested in playing with his big brother gift, a toy lawnmower!

 

He also had way more fun playing 'peek-a-boo' and 'where's Ethan?' in the curtain that hung from the ceiling. There was also a fish tank in the waiting room so I'm pretty sure Ethan thought the hospital was awesome! Our nurse made several comments on how I was overdoing it with visitors...haha. That's the price you pay for having a big family! My siblings thought they were going to be kicked out when at one point we had four boys under the age of 2 1/2 all in my tiny room...hey, at least we got a great family shot out of it!

Perfection!

Emerson spent most of her four days in the hospital on my chest in bed. She seemed to sleep a lot better when she was cuddled up next to me which I didn't mind a bit.

 

Sunday morning Emerson, Eric, and I were all able to take a 2 1/2 hour nap before we started to go through the check-out process and head home. By the time it was all said and done, it was about 5pm before we were headed back to meet Ethan at the house. Emerson did great in her first car ride and it's funny how we were so much more relaxed this time (whereas with Ethan we about died every time we went over a bump).

First car ride!

 My parents met us at the house with Ethan and dinner from McAlister's which was a perfect way to come home. We were able to put Ethan down for bed that night in his own crib and it was the first step in adjusting to our "new" normal as a family of four!

 

In the next blog post I will write about our first week together, but her first night at home Emerson slept for six hours straight! She has shown us from day one what a great sleeper she is and we hope our 'luck' continues. We can't say enough about all the doctors, nurses, and lactation consultants who took care of us during our stay (the lactation consultant was actually our nurse when Ethan was born and she remembered us because we sent her a card saying how amazing she was to us)! Our favorite nurse this time was a woman named Deb who wiped my tears during a hormonal emotional meltdown on Saturday, put a handwritten sign on our door that no one could enter until after 12:30pm on Sunday to give us our rest, gave us her final words of wisdom and stuffed our bags with free stuff before we checked out, and just made us laugh with her funny sense of humor and east coast accent. Our experience the second time around definitely had its differences from our birth story with Ethan, but man it is just as precious, just as amazing, and just as gratifying knowing our sweet baby girl is finally here. {cue the tears!} We were so calm and ready to meet her and those first couple days in the hospital are to be absolutely treasured. It all feels so natural and feels like this is exactly how life should be right now. She has definitely increased our joy and happiness and made our hearts so full with love. We can't wait to share her with y'all through this blog! We love you Emerson!