Welcome home, Calum Xavier Verghese

What a week we've had. At 4:45 p.m. on Thursday the 23rd I spent the afternoon shopping with my sister in law Rachel. On my way home I leaned over to grab our satnav from the glove box and felt a huge whoosh and lots of wet.... For a good minute I thought maybe I peed my pants and I didn't want to find out until I got home so I drove the 20 minutes home in a state of acute alertness wondering if this was it, if my waters had broken. Upon arriving home I realised that in fact they had (thank God I didn't pee my pants!) and called the hospital who advised me to sit down and eat something and call back in an hour. After a call to Mark at work asking him to come home ASAP, a timely call from Dett & Ashley and a call to Rachel to tell her what had happened, I called the hospital back and they told us to come in. We arrived at the hospital around 7 p.m. and they confirmed my waters had broken and sent us home with instructions to return to the hospital when my contractions were regular and 2-3 minutes apart. As we hadn't eaten and were in for a big night ahead, Mark and I headed to McDonald's to get something to eat and got home around 9.30 p.m.-I hadn't had any contractions yet. Within about 30 minutes the contractions started coming on so I had Mark hook me up to my TENS machine which had only arrived the day before. Within less then an hour they were close enough for Mark to decide it was time to get to the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 11.30 p.m. and were checked right in and given a lovely midwife-unfortunately I don't remember her name but she was with us right until Calum was born. Very quickly I was given gas and air and by 3 a.m. I was fully dilated and ready to push. Whilst I was in a lot of pain, I was really proud of myself for not getting the epidural and sticking somewhat to our birth plan. After an hour and a half of pushing it became apparent that Calum didn't want to come out so the midwife sent in a doctor who told us that in addition to being a big baby (they guessed 9 lbs), he was looking upwards towards his feet which was making it hard for him to get through the pelvic bone. They were going to have to send me to "theatre" (operating room) and give me a spinal injection and try to manually move him and use the vacuum to get him out. After 4 attempts this didn't work and we were left with no other option but to have a Cesarean section. Calum Xavier Verghese entered the world at 5:51 a.m. on Friday April 24, 2009-the same day as my Grandpa Britton's birthday which is really touching as my Grandpa recently battled a brain tumour and was given only weeks to live before having a life saving surgery and chemo to extend his life.

We spent Friday and Saturday night in the hospital since I had had a C-section and were sent home at about 5 p.m. on Sunday. Here in the U.K. after you have your baby a midwife comes to your home for regular visits to check on you and baby so on Monday afternoon we had our first visit and the midwife immediately sent us back to the hospital for a blood test as Calum was looking very jaundice. At the hospital the test confirmed the bilirubin levels in his blood were quite high and he was put under the lights immediately to help reduce the bilirubin levels in his blood and get rid of the jaundice. I was heartbroken, seeing my baby back in the hospital, hearing him scream and cry getting his blood taken and knowing I would have to spend the night not being able to hold him as he had to be under these lights. Around 1.30 a.m. that night a doctor burst into my room and said that his bilirubin levels had gone up so high that he might need a blood transfusion and she whisked him out of my room and straight into the Special Baby Care Unit where they were going to monitor him more closely, put him on an IV and put him under more lights. Again, I was devastated and this time really scared.

After 2 more nights in the hospital and lots of fluids, Calum was FINALLY discharged yesterday afternoon and we got to spend our second night at home, a week after he came into the world. This week has been an absolute roller coaster of highs and lows and I feel as if I've already learned so much about what it means to be a Mom. Calum is an absolute doll, his first day or two he was really groggy from the operation drugs and then with the jaundice he was so tired he spent most of his time sleeping. The past day or two he's really come out of his shell and as one of the special care midwives put it, he's a pickle. We think he looks a lot like Mark but there is a bit of me coming out in him too. He's just a little angel and I can't begin to express how much I love this little person in my life.

Here are a few pics, now that we're home and he's looking better I will make sure to post more this week. We're back to the hospital this afternoon for another blood test to see where his levels are now as they had slightly increased again before we left the hospital so fingers crossed he's gone back down and all is okay. x

On our way home the first time....

Just a few hours old...

Looking more like himself last night swaddled up on our 2nd night home