Lincoln Alan Lee

On Tuesday, January 9th, Karina woke up around 5:30 AM with some pain. She said she was having contractions, but the weird thing about them was that they were every 5 minutes and 5 seconds long. We're not sure if the contractions woke her up but I think that they did because she usually wouldn't wake up at that hour, even to my surf alarms. She hung out for a little while and then woke me up around 6:15 AM saying, "I think I'm having contractions." Since the contractions were so odd in length and interval, we didn't know if we should go to the hospital. Randomly, she also felt some discharge and when she checked what it was, it was diluted blood. We called the nurses after about 10 minutes of waiting and a few hang-ups, Karina finally talked to someone and the nurse said to come in, mainly because of the blood.

I called my dad and he headed over. We got everything packed up, got the kids up and ready for the day, and we were ready exactly when my dad showed up. It was fun driving with Karina going into labor, the rain was strong, and I wouldn't have to worry about work for a couple days. We would have a cozy time in the hospital, having a baby and snuggling up, watching the rain.

When we got to the hospital it was about 8:15 AM and Karina was still smiling with early labor pains, no frowns quite yet. They checked her cervix and she was at a 7 and they said she had ruptured earlier and was leaking amniotic fluid (but the bag was still intact). Last time she was an 8 and she went into heavy pains immediately so this time we tried to make sure they knew we were in a hurry to get the epidural and not repeat the nightmare that happened last time. Luckily Nancy, the same midwife that we had with Clark, was there! So she ultimately got to deliver both Clark and Lincoln. She didn't really remember us. The nurses were all really nice to us, getting excited with us and saying how cute Karina was, how cute the name Lincoln was.

We got into the room where Karina would give birth. The epidural couldn't be done until Karina's blood tests came back, so we got that going and by 9:40 AM she got the epidural. The epidural doctor was really nice and quick. Everything went perfectly with it and from here on out it was all smiles.

At 10:45 AM Nancy came in to check on Karina and right then her water broke. There was meconium in the water when it broke. Because of the meconium, the pediatricians would be in the room during delivery just in case there were complications. By this time Karina was at an 8. We just hung out for a little while, rested, watched a bit of a movie on the iPad, chatted, and took some pictures.

At 12:35 PM Nancy checked on the cervix but the baby's head was already in the birth canal. So at 12:42 she started pushing. He was born at 12:47. It was really quick!

When Lincoln came out, he came out a bit different than the other kids. With the other kids, once the head came out, the rest sorta just flopped out seemingly with no effort. Also the other kids were crying pretty much the instant they came out. Lincoln's head came out and then the midwife helped him get his first shoulder and arm out. He was in that position for a few seconds, which looked really creepy, like a monster was escaping from an underground hole. He also wasn't crying which was the big issue.

After a few seconds, Lincoln was pushed/pulled completely out, but since there was no crying, the midwife cut his cord quickly and handed him over to the 3 pediatricians from the NICU. They had a warming bed where they laid him and started doing all sorts of stuff to him. One of them was rubbing both hands on his sides, one of them was suctioning out liquids from every place she could find (nose and throat), and the other was attaching wires all over the place. The 3 of them were so in sync and busy looking it was pretty incredible to watch the professionalism.

The sensors were showing that Lincoln was not breathing sufficiently to keep his blood-oxygen levels up above their desired threshold. They wanted 85 but he would drop below that and they gave him oxygen over his face. Once he got to around 95 with the aide of the oxygen, they would remove it and wait. He kept dropping below that 85 number so they said they needed to keep working with him in the NICU.

Me and Lincoln headed over to the NICU. They gave him an IV which was giving him glucose for his blood. Then they put him on 2 liters of airflow and 40% oxygen (the normal air you breathe is 21%). Their plan was to pretty much reduce those aides until he was able to breathe fine on his own and keep his blood-oxygen levels up. Over the next few hours they reduced him to 25% and 2 liters, then 21% and 2 liters, then 21% and 1 liter, then they removed all support. In each stage he did really well. The doctor and nurses told me there were a ton of reasons this could have happened, but it seemed like in his case he was just slow to adapt to the new environment. This became more and more clear as more of their tests came back normal. He would cry a little bit but never really what you expect from a hungry newborn. They tested his blood and did an x-ray on his chest. Everything was good so as long as he didn't have a major problem like pneumonia then it was probably just a slow transition.

At 4:00 PM Karina visited Lincoln, she strolled up in a wheelchair. He had just come off all breathing support and they just wanted him to be stable for about an hour before letting him go. So she fed him for the first time, that lasted 30 minutes. Then at 5:00 PM he was released from the NICU and we all headed over to the recovery room.

Lincoln is a little cutie pie. He enjoys crying, eating, sleeping, and most of all, pooping. He's got a ton of brown hair, but the roots seem to be blonde so we think he'll be blonde later. He has beautiful blue eyes (maybe, it's kinda hard to tell the color right now). We love our 4th little angel.

Lincoln and Karina are doing great with breastfeeding. Everything else seems to be normal. Kim is visiting for a week and I'll be getting 3 weeks off of work after that. All is well!