The last outing as a family of 4: at Colonial Dorchester State Park
#TeamCarterPartyof5
On Thursday, March 8, 2018, we welcomed our son, Grady David, into the world! He was born at 12:55pm at 6lbs, 14 oz, 20.5 inches long. His name means “Noble, beloved.” We are incredibly thankful to God that he is here and a part of our family. He is healthy for being such a little guy (he may have been younger than ultrasounds and dates predicted, although this was a scheduled c-section at 39 weeks and 3 days.) He has such a unique destiny and calling on his life because his birth story was ridiculous. By ridiculous, I mean there were so many things out of our control that happened around the time of his birth that was trying to steal our joy in anticipation of his arrival.
Firstly, my family was sick for five weeks this winter (all rotating from person to person) that was trying to rob me of energy and sleep, all while waiting for Grady to arrive in my third trimester. I don’t wish this on any mama, ever. The week before his birth, everyone was feeling better and in the hospital, I commented to David, “No one in our family is sick anymore!” *Praise God!*
The night before the big day, we had “one last date” and went out for sushi and hibachi and slept pretty peacefully that night. The day of our c-section, we arrived at the hospital at 5:30am for surgery to start at 7:30am. We waited for around an hour and the poor nurse that was chosen to tell us the news: “I don’t know how this happened…but there is another Jennifer Carter, at your same OB’s office, with your same name that delivered at this same hospital…in January. We thought you were her, so we cancelled your c-section. Good news, we can have you come back at 10am for a 12:00 c-section.” (WHAT?!) We were very gracious about it, or at least David said I was more gracious than he was in the moment and I was thankful it was still arranged on the same day (because of pre-surgery jitters and because the girls were all set with childcare at Granny and Gramps’ house for a few days).
We left, and sat at home watching YouTube videos. I hungrily watched David eat a stack of pancakes. I ate some ice cubes. My OB called to ask, “Are you still pregnant?” (Gotta love that man…) and apologized for the crazy mix-up (but it messed up his schedule too and he promised us we would have our baby TODAY.) We came back at 10am and were taken up for prep. We were blessed to have an amazing team of nurses to chat with for the next two hours. Then my OB and anestisiologist arrived and David donned his Hazmat suit and we were ready to stroll into the OR. I was sitting on top of the OR table to get my spinal administered and the anestisiologist commented that they didn’t have the right needles for the spinal. (O.K.) He goes away for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, the nurse (who has scrubbed up and is sterile and can’t touch anything, including me) is like, “This is so weird…we always have both ORs ready to go at all times…” I’m hugging the pillow they gave me, trying not to keep staring at all the sharp objects on a instrument pan that they will use. It was very surreal. The team comes in and they try to get a spinal going. It took several shots of Lydocaine and several attempts to place it in my back (I was told I was shaking because it was very cold in the OR). Luckily, one of my nurses, Clare, was a saint and was holding me in a bear hug. Once we got me laying down to wait for me to go numb, I just started praying out loud in the OR, claiming that this is a great day for my son to be born. There wouldn’t be any more interruptions and that he was going to be born healthy and perfect and that the team assembled in that room was blessed with gifts and abilities to perform miricles everyday. (Whether that team shares beliefs with me or not, they were all like, “Yeah, Amen!”) 🙂
David came in about 30 minutes after he was instructed to wait outside, so he was concerned something wrong had happened, but they were really ready to press on with surgery, so David was my doula, my birth photographer, my best friend and we both were able to watch the birth of our son, Grady David at 12:55pm. He cried immediately and after he was taken to the warmer, they let me do skin-to-skin time. We were amazed at our little guy! I think he looks just like David, with Miriam’s hair color.
Recovering at the hospital was a rough couple of days for me. Apparently, morphine makes me throw-up a lot and my blood pressure dropped a lot during surgery and they had to keep me under a Bair Hugger warming blanket for three hours to stabilize my temperature, but they did let us go home a day early, as requested. Overall we have no complaints or ill-will toward the hospital staff as they were able to fix their scheduling mistake and by the second night, they left us alone, except to check on Mommy and baby’s vitals. We are very thankful that I’m getting better at moving around at home and that we have three perfectly healthy children. Grady is a great eater and sleeper and he is loved very much by his sisters. They constantly ask if they can hold him, help in changing his diapers and they like to pick out “his cute outfits.”
Thank you to our families, who have taken the girls for sleepovers and outings over the past two weekends and have brought us dinners. Also thank you to our friends who have prayed for us, who have visited and dropped off food and offered to help us. We couldn’t have done it without “our village.” Thank you! We can’t wait for you to meet Grady soon…
Team Carter's Big Adventure 