Randland Baby Blog: Home with Luke

Babies who are late often provide one benefit; the ride to the hospital becomes a planned event with a set date and time to check in and start helping things along. For Joohee and I our outlook calendars said “Drive to Hospital” at 5:30pm Saturday February 9^th. It almost felt like heading to a hotel for the weekend. We even had lots of movies and portable speakers for the computer in some delusional belief that we would be munching on room service and watching videos. On the drive over we realized Joohee had never stayed at a hospital, ridden in an ambulance, had an IV or broken a bone. This led to the obvious comparison to Lee who has been admitted to the hospital multiple times with various breaks, bleeding and bodily damage that has generally set his parents worrying a few too many times. “Who would Luke take after” was our final thought as we unloaded the car and headed in. Little did we know he would get an early start on making us worry.

Events went smoothly with an easy check in and no major complications. No time for movies but a dinner and a last night of solid sleep was accomplished. By the next morning some concerning signs had started to present themselves and while no alarm bells were going off everything stepped up a bit. Fast forward 12 hours through much of the drama and we were about 10 minutes from plan B with a dropping baby heart rate and a room full of two doctors, 4 nurses and a two person neonatal team standing by. Luke finally arrives at 8:10pm on Sunday in ok shape but with enough breathing and infection concerns that off he goes to newborn ICU. That night we get to see him and he is doing much better and the general consensus is he will stay for 48 hours to finish the test and then come on home.

Everything was tracking well through Monday and then Tuesday morning we were awakened by the news that Luke’s heart rate had fallen too low and they had to wake him up and get him moving to bring it back up. Nothing too concerning they assured us as his breathing kept up and he didn’t change colors (the Dr.’s words not ours) so it was probably just his body sorting out life outside mom. However, this meant they wanted to hold him through Thursday for more observations.

OK – this is getting nuts. Two days old and he has already had us on the emotional roller coaster. We swear we are never teaching this kid how to ski or ride a bike. He is staying at home reading and learning to play piano. OK – maybe we are overacting a bit. Wednesday came around and he was doing great. The Dr.’s said all was fine and we were free to take him home. All our anxiety fell away as we started packing up and signing papers to take him home. (We will never understand why we have to sign a form giving the hospital permission to give us our baby).

Wednesday night and we find ourselves in our own home with Luke. What a wonderful and magical event!

And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

Luke 2:40