brandon reid

it's been quite an eventful holiday season!

brandon reid must not have liked my last blog post...so he evicted himself on his own terms! i won't go into the gory details, but my labor lasted most of christmas eve, and at 10:07 p.m. he made his entrance into the world. we thought everything was okay. he is definitely a feisty little man like his mother and sister. screaming at the top of his lungs. we noticed as they were cleaning him up that he started making some awful grunting noises. the nurses wrapped him up and took him right away to the nursery. i had a sinking feeling about what was going on, and probably what was going to happen. it was like deja vu from when i had jared. little did we know how similar their beginnings of life would be the same.

this is one of the first (non-gory) pictures of brandon reid. he weighed in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces and was 20 inches long. he does have hair, but it's hard to tell what color it is right now with all that "stuff" on him. he has the LONGEST little toes. he seriously could play piano with them! he's a sweet combination of his brother and sister. hopefully though...he'll have more of his brother's temperament. don't get me wrong, lauren is a sweet little mama, but she's feisty and i just don't know if i can take another one. isn't there a limit on one per family???

at 4:45 a.m. on christmas morning, i finally got to see my little christmas present. it was so hard to see him under the oxyhood. his hair kind of looks like it could have a little curl in it!

this is one of the first pictures i have with him. it's just my hand and his, but something about holding your baby's little hand for the first time just melts my heart.

for most of christmas morning, brandon seemed to be doing okay on the oxyhood, but then he started retracting more and more so dr. friedman put him on the cpap. he stayed on that through the morning of the 26th, but the doctor got concerned that he would need more care than he could give at our hospital so he decided to transfer him to texas children's hospital.

as a new mom, you think about all the "firsts" your baby is going to have. the last one you probably would ever think to be having would be your "baby's first ambulance ride." logically you know you shouldn't even be worrying about that. but you go into having a baby with all these dreams and expectations, and when they don't happen...it's heartbreaking and overwhelming. and then you think about how selfish you're being when you know that your baby is struggling for every breath that he takes.

thankfully the kangaroo care staff understood how i was feeling and they were so helpful in me documenting the little man's first ride in a vehicle! they even let me ride with him while daddy and grammy followed in the car.

upon arrival in the level III nursery, the doctors and nurses started working on brandon. they intubated him within a few minutes. having to look at your 36 hour old baby on a ventilator, while you stand there helpless was almost more than i could take. the staff was so sweet and kind to me. one nurse hugged me for about 10 minutes until i could calm down. the doctors put in an order for cervanta, and told us we should start seeing some changes in the next 4-6 hours. and so we prayed. and prayed. and prayed.

this is brandon's "room" at texas children's. i moved all the chairs out of the way for this picture, but they have made it comfortable for james and i to be at his bedside.

we sat vigil at brandon's bedside pretty much all day. we were able to get me a room at the ronald mcdonald house where i could get a good night's sleep and stay close to the little guy. i stayed up with brandon until 11 p.m. on the 26th and then i settled in for a good night's sleep.

i woke up at 5 a.m. and got cleaned up for the day. i went in before the shift change and brandon's nurse said he was starting to breathe over the ventilator so there was a pretty good chance that he'd be extubated soon. i could hardly contain my excitement. sorry to those of you that i woke up when i called so early to shout out the good news! the doctor came and extubated him mid-morning. she tried to put him on a cannula, but he couldn't keep his stats up. so he was placed back on the cpap. she said that she hoped he'd only be on it for another day or two and then they'd try the cannula again.

and for the FIRST time...i got to hold my little baby boy. it wasn't for very long, but it was enough to settle my heart and to give me hope that i could get through this ordeal without a major meltdown.

daddy arrived around lunchtime. he had been at home with jared and lauren. even though james' mom and aunt have been so kind to be watching the kids (since christmas eve morning), he still needed to go home and check on things. i'm sure he doesn't want to leave brandon's side either, but he sacrifices so i can stay with him. i love that man. james and i went and had lunch together. it was nice to sit down and visit with each other, even if it was at mcdonald's! we decided that i needed to get some rest at home (not to mention that i hadn't seen jared and lauren since christmas morning). we went back and spent a little more time with brandon, including the two of us trying to change his diaper. you'd think that after two kids, it wouldn't be such a big deal...i didn't time it...but it seemed like it was about 10 minutes from start to finish! gave a good chuckle to brandon's nurse! not to brandon though, although it was sweet to hear him cry. that was the first time since he was born.

after being so rudely disrupted from a peaceful nap, the nurse gave him his lunch and he settled down. we gave him his pacifier and several little kisses and said goodbye.

if it weren't for jared and lauren at home, i would have fallen apart leaving him there. there were a few times on the way home that i started to cry, but i held it together pretty well. don't ask how dinner went though. i'm sure you can imagine what happened when i told the hostess that we were a party of four when really we should have been a party of five. i did manage to get through dinner, and after we got home we played games with the kids and i passed out on the floor in the front room.

it's now 3:30 a.m. and i am counting the hours until i head back to the hospital. the doctors said today is the big day where we should start seeing some big changes in brandon's progress. the nurse said they are going to try to move him to a crib since he is maintaining his own temperature. and the really neat thing is that once he's in a crib and some of his lines are out, we can give him a bath and i can dress him up.

THANK YOU all for your thoughts and prayers (and for reading this long post)! james and i feel the love and encouragement, and we know that all of the prayers are being heard. for those of you that have asked what we need...just prayers. lots and lots of prayers.