Boat ride

Some of you may know that my in-laws are big boaters and they have a house boat on the Tennessee river. I find it only appropriate that we should get Noah accustom to the boating life early. His nursery is boat/aquatic themed and he will be addressing his grandfather as captain, but nothing gets a child ready for the boating life then a ride on the boat. Not just one ride but two so far.  So today we packed him up, headed north over the river and through the woods to grandmothers house we went!

Every man needs a good boating outfit. 

The grandmother or (Admiral) as we refer to her while on the boat briefing him of the rules. 

The captain giving Noah his first of many lessons on the water. 

He loves his time with the Captain. 

Noah driving solo. (of course we have to hold him up to the wheel)

Ok time for the exam. All eyes are on you!

Oh My first mate did well!

What better way to celebrate then stripping down to your diaper and getting some R&R

And no boat trip would be complete without our first family photo on the boat.

Seeing our family together in a photo is such a joy for me, but it also made me think of how much life has changed since my first boat ride Katie took me on in 2008.

Or the first one after our engagement. 

 Man life has changed so much but I would not trade it for anything else in the world!

Dedication of Noah to his creator.

For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.  (1 Samuel 1:27)


For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! (Psalms 139: 13-18)

These are my two favorite verses about babies. 

Katie and I share many beliefs. (Thats what makes us so compatible.) We are both Christians, Neither are pro-choice( We stand firm on our views of abortion) , Both have always wanted to be parents, And both of us firmly believe Noah is a gift from us from God. So what better way to show our beliefs and praise God for our son then a public dedication of him back to his creator. 

So the party started on Friday May 10, 2013 with a dinner and class with the other families that were dedicating their children to God. There were quit a few. (Noah was born around the same time as 4 other couples in our Sunday school class alone).  We met the Childhood pastor, listen to some pointers, had his photo made, and rehearsed for the event on Sunday morning. It was good fellowship with a few of our church friends.

Katies mom spent  a lot of time on making his outfits for these two events. This was his outfit for dinner Friday night. 

All the ladies loved his outfit. He is such a laddies man but thats a whole different story. 

Sunday morning my mother and Katie's family attended the event. We dropped them off in Sunday school while Katie, Noah, and I went and consumed the free breakfast.  During the 11 o'clock service is when we dedicated him with 10 other couples. The dedication reminded me of my very important role in raising Noah correctly and helping him to find his way to Jesus. I pray in todays deteriorating world I succeed with the task I have been given. I also hope Gods blessings continue on my household and most of all my Son. 



Below are pictures from the event. 

 After the main event we had both sets of parents over for lunch. We grilled hamburgers on the grill. We hung out, talked, and played games.

Katie's family

Close up of Noah's outfit made by Katies mom. He outgrew the hat after measurements were taken the previous weekend.

Noah and my Mommy. 

This day also happened to be Katies first Mothers day. Man with everything happening it SOOOO snuck up on me! In all the hustle Noah at atleast gave his mother and both grandmothers flowers and cards. 

I can personally say Motherhood fits Katie perfectly. It amazes me to see the love between her and Noah. She has a new glow about her. I have never heard her really complain about it. I get so excited when I see them both smile and each other. I must say I love our little family! 

Wimpy white boy syndrome

Nursing school, it seems like it happened so long ago. Every person who has ever experienced nursing school knows they cram a lot of information into your brain in a short amount of time. The instructors don't really teach so that you will retain the information, but more or less they teach you the skills needed to pass the nursing boards.

I can tell you there was a lot I didn't like about Nursing school. One of the rotations I absolutely despised was the OBGYN rotation. I had no interest at time of my life in pregnant females or delivering babies. Despite my dislike for the OBGYN rotation there was one thing I remember.  I remember the day like it was yesterday. She was discussing something called wimpy white boy syndrome. What is this you ask. Its basically an unofficial diagnosis given to white male babies. Apparently white male babies are more fragile, have a harder time during the transition phase of delivery. (This is the time when the baby has to adapt to life outside the womb.) A few things the babies have to do are normalize and maintain temperature, blood glucose, learn to breath ect.) Fast forward 4 years later and I was living what my instructor talked about. I really had a baby with wimpy white boy syndrome.

You have all read the birth story and how Noah decided to pull his plug early. He was born at 36 weeks and 6 days. One day shy of being considered "full term".  This one day lacking in the womb left him in the premature category. After a few days of reflecting on his life and his abilities during the first week I could really see what my instructor was talking about.

After Noah's delivery the nurses quickly focused on his breathing. He was breathing to fast and he was retracting. They threatened him with taking him to the NICU. After being threatened with this he seemed he corrected his unwelcome behavior.

Later we quickly noticed he wasn't really feeding well. He seemed to lack a strong suck reflex and wasn't doing a good job of rooting. Due to his lack of reflexes Katie had to expel her colostrum and place it inside his mouth.

In the middle of night he woke up screaming. We knew he was hungry but could not get him to eat. He just didn't seem to know what to do.  We called the nurse and got some formula. We placed some in a bottle and stuck it in his mouth. He didn't know what to do with this either. He was lacking his suckle reflex.  This was the beginning of our high maintenance wimpy white boy.

We ended up feeding him with a syringe and small tube. He practiced his sucking reflex on our finger while we injected the milk into his mouth. We did this around the clock every two hours.

Later on the first day we noticed him turning a lovely shade of orange. They ran a Billirubin test and discovered he was turning jaundice. The physician decided we would wait until the next morning to see if he continued to climb. Sure enough it did increase. He decided to initiate phototherapy.

Our little pumpkin was sent home on a billibed and needed to be tube fed every 2 hours.

After a couple days on the phototherapy his liver decided to start breaking down the billirubin. Every thing turned out great! You would not know looking at our son today he was such a wimp when he was born.

The birth story the surprise of my life.

Ohh you talk about a surprise. 

Katie and I are big planners. We have syncing calendars on our phones, We plan our dinners, We plan our trips. Long story short we plan everything. We planned we would become parents on March 5. 2013. In fact we planned for all our final preparations to be completed the week before that date. We planned on working up to the day Noah decided to come. I had also planned for my school class to end 2 weeks before Noah was due. 

Little did we or anyone else know that we would become parents on February 11, 2013. 

It all started like most with an early morning wake up from my wife at 04:57 on February 10th.  I awoke to Katie Whispering "Honey, Honey, Casey Wake up. I think my water broke". That led me to jumping head first out of the bed. Chasing my tail a few times to get my bearings. After which I walked into the bathroom and was greeted with clear fluid on the floor. I responded "Honey we are both nurses we both know damn well thats your water". You take a shower and I will clean the floor, change the bed linen, make the crib, pack our hospital bag, wash your clothes you wanted to wear etc etc etc.  ( As you can see we were not prepared for that early morning wake up call) Later I remembered to call the doctor. Why we did this I don't know. I knew she wasn't going to examine Katie via FaceTime on a cell phone. A few minutes later an obviously tired nurse midwife Michelle called and told us to come to the hospital. She said pack your bags you will be staying. Go figure premature rupture of membranes is something they don't take lightly. 

So after my wife's multiple showers because she couldn't find the faucet to turn of the supply of amniotic fluid, we finished packing and headed out at 630 to Kennestone hospital. Of course being nurses we knew this wasn't going to happen fast. We stopped and had Martins chicken biscuits for breakfast and I also stopped and got some man snacks from Walgreens. After parking in the employee parking ( I am to cheap to pay for parking at a health system I work for) we walked the 3 miles to labor and delivery. We arrived promtly right at shift change.

After being told to walk here, walk there, walk back here they finally had us in a triage room. The nursing staff completed the test that confirm the presence of amniotic fluid. It of course came back positive. The only problem was Katie's membranes were ruptured but she was no where near ready to deliver a baby. She was 1 cm dilated and they couldn't even feel the babies head. At this point with small talk between us all the nurses discovered we were also Nurses. Unfortunately for us this brings about a issue known as the nurse curse.  We had a long day,  a lot of work to do, and bad luck coming our way. We were then taken to the delivery room. Our home for the next 24 hours. This room was like a cave, No windows, on the corner of the building, complete with a broken pot. 

What does a women do to go into labor besides eat egg plant parmesan? You WALK! So we started our journey of walking about 8:30.  We walked alot,  20 times around the 2nd floor of L&D. I myself was tired after this. Of course there were a few visitors in the waiting room room since babies are not only born during office hours. The old men who cheered us on every time we walked by was awesome. The other man who tried to jinx twins on us, not so much.

So after walking and making very little progress they decided they would try to induce her labor. The physician started with an oral medication named Cytotec. Katie swallowed her pill and waited, 4 hours to be exact. This gave us time to visit with each other and our families. I also had a few exams that were due for school the following day. After 8 hours the nurses rechecked her and it was decided to repeat the medication again. A couple hours later the second pill finally got the ball rolling. In between her worsening contractions I was completing my final exams for class.

After two doses of Cytotec they put my wife on the medication that is rumored to be formulated by Satan himself. Pitocin or also known as Pit,  that crap is no joke. They start slow and titrate up "To desired effect" Watching what is was doing to my wife it seemed to seep through her skin and put my stomach in knots also. After failed rounds of pain medications we quickly decided to hell with natural childbirth and said bring on the epidural!

The anesthesiologist came pretty quickly. Without saying much he was putting needles in my wife's back within what seemed like 5 minutes after calling. He stuck it in and literally struck a nerve. My wife's right leg shot straight up and almost took out the very part of my anatomy that got us here in the first place. It took him, my wife, and me off guard. He finished by explaining that striking that nerve is an uncommon side effect. It happens in so few people he forgot to warn us. (The nurse curse at us again)

After the epidural was in and medication flowing it was all down hill we thought. My wife was numbing up, the contractions were getting more organized and also easier to deal with. In the mean time we both were attempting to rest during the contractions.

Very Late that evening or early morning Noah's head could finally be felt. It was discovered he was not rotated in the position he needed to be. The nurses started turning Katie onto her side to attempt to get him to rotate into the correct position. This complicated matters because he either fell on top of his cord or he decided it was something fun to grab. Either way a compressed cord leads to major complications. Noah started experiencing decelerations with his heart rate.  His heart rate dropped down to 80 beats per minutes at one time. While the nurses were busy grabbing ephedrine and bags of fluid I decided to take the easier route. I grabbed my wife's bed linen and rotated her back the other way. While it did work for the short term he continued compressing his cord.

Around 2 am we sent Cindy to care for the dogs. They had been housed in our basement since leaving for the hospital that morning. Not 30 minutes after letting Cindy leave the nurses came it, checked Katie, and decided it was time to start pushing. I called Cindy who hadn't even made it to our home yet she turned around and came back. The dogs would have to wait. After Katie began pushing she discovered the left side of her stomach was not really numb. She could also raise her left leg off the bed. Nursing staff told her hit your button on the epidural pump. Doing this resulted in nothing happening. It was decided the pump was broken. The nurse curse again is making its presence known.

They called the anesthesiologist again, he quickly delivered a new pump and pushed some medication into her epidural. Crisis resolved now it was time to get down to business.

Katie begin pushing with direction of an awesome nurse who had been with us since shift change. Her name was Brandy. She was a new nurse but you really couldn't tell with her confidence level and skill set.  She kept calm and helped us get though it all.

After  2 more hours of pushing Mr. Noah Campbell Stokes made his grand entrance into the world. He was born at 4:57 in the morning. A little over 24 hours after our journey started. He weighed 6 lbs 10 oz and was 18.5 inches long. After this grand entrance we quickly learned we can plan all we want to but he is the one who is really in charge.

 And a few videos to remember the occasion.

Getting the nursery ready for the little man!

When you think about all the responsibility being a father has its kind of overwhelming. One of the important jobs in my mind is getting the nursery ready. This important room becomes his space in our home. He does alot of his early learning,  playing and sleeping in it. It just serves so many roles so I wanted it to be perfect. Of course from my previous post you saw I started early on it. That gave me plenty of time to make it perfect.

Katie had decided on a design already. I just had to make her vision a reality. I applied crown molding, picture molding, alphabet letters and numbers around the whole room. I must say it did turn out perfect! I hope the little one enjoys it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

 After more then 1 month of hard work and some furniture it started to look like a nursery. 

This piece of art we bought when we were on our last trip to the beach in September. We visited St. Simons Island. It's hand made of metal. Fits in quite nice with our nautical theme.

Later on in October Katie's Aunt Kathy lost her battle with Cancer. It was a long couple months for everyone. She wanted soooo much to make Noah a quilt but could not ever find the energy to do it. As she took a turn for the worse her quilting club got together and put her quilt together in honor of her. At her memorial they presented it to us in memory of her. It now hangs above his crib. It has become quite the center piece of his nursery. 

Belly photos week 6-12

Photography being one of hobbies we decided as soon as we found out we were going to become parents that we would take "belly pictures" once a week. This way we could really witness the miracle growing inside Katie. Below are our first Trimester photos.

6 Weeks along! The day we confirmed we are pregnat!

                               

7 weeks! Eery pregnancy begins with eating healthy

8 weeks at the beach house with Katies parents, Aunt and Uncle, Will, Marie, and August. Still our little secret!

10 weeks along

11 weeks in Charleston S.C visiting Monica

12 weeks along and the end of the first Trimester

The beginning.

Well its never to late to start a blog. I am only three months late. I am going to change the dates on these post so they will be in the order they are supposed to be.  So this post is nothing but a catch up.  I think about everything that has happened to me since finding out I was going to be a father, its so much and and it scares me that I might not remember EVERY single detail. I figure its better to let the internet remember it all for me. So here are the highlights of the story of me becoming a dad.


June 2012
This month gave us letdown. Katie was 11 days late but with all negative pregnancy test. I guess what they say is true. Worry and stress can throw off a women's hormones. I still remember that feeling of defeat and the feeling of sadness when I woke up that morning to her telling me mother nature had finally visited. I mean this was the ultimate goal to grow up and start a family. But happier times were to come!

July 12, 2012. I get the call that will forever change my life and outlook on things. It was a stressful day in the emergency room. My wife called me to say "Honey guess what. (Whispering) I am pregnant! I did a double take and asked her to repeat herself. After all this was what we have been trying to accomplish last three months. Suddenly I could care less about what was going on at work. I was thinking ahead to the future! I am going to be a daddy! I couldn't wait to get home to celebrate with her! We took multiple pregnancy test just to be sure. Then finally took a picture with the first one.

After we found out it was really true. The man nesting started. All those projects around the house I wanted to do but had put off needed to get done. We started with the nursery! We picked out our paint color and she already had a design in mind. So off to work Katie went on August 7th and secretly I did to. When she left the room looked like this..

and when she got home it looked like this.

It was a surprise to everyone. We hadn't even had our first ultrasound and here I go preparing the nursery. I looked at this way. It gave me plenty of time to make it perfect for our little precious gift from God.

August 7th, 2012. This was very awesome day! It was our first OB appointment and the first OFFICIAL glimpse of our little person. We got to spend about 10 minutes exploring my wife's insides via ultrasound. No picture I saw on the screen that day was better then this picture!

Measuring about 1.5 inches long and under 1/2 pound was our little person. We had decided it would be Noah Campbell or Teagan Elizabeth. It would be another 10 weeks before we would know who the little person would be. It was amazing to see what our little man looked like at only 10 weeks after conception. I really don't see how any pro-choice people can argue that this is not a live human being.

This first official ultrasound started a creative streak in Jodi to flood us with different drawings of all the things our first born could become.

 

 

Also one of the cool things we got to witness was seeing his heart beat for the first time. I am so excited we caught that on video.


Now it was time to officially start deciding how and when to tell our dads. We had been on two vacations with Katies parents and managed to keep it a secret. We had already spilled the beans to our moms due to the 4 page health history of the family the OB wanted to know. So this is how we did it. We took our first ultrasound picture and turned it into photo announcements for them. My father received this one.


Her father received one also that said "Introducing your official first mate. This was just the very beginning of a very exciting journey!