Anderson Sidney Arrives

On Wednesday, January 27th, we welcomed our son, Anderson Sidney Wright, into the world at 5:52 a.m. We simply liked his first name and chose his middle name in memory of my paternal grandfather, Sidney Skowronek. He weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and measured 20.5 inches. Following three prior visits to the hospital to monitor my blood pressure (beginning at 36 weeks), we chose to be induced on the 26th at 38 weeks.

We started the day with a Cinnamon Crunch bagel at Panera and arrived at Vanderbilt University Hospital around 9 a.m. The staff was ready for us, including our fabulous nurse, Mary, and gave us a sweet suite (Room #5) that came complete with a cot and a great view. They started me on Pitocin at 11:15 a.m. and as Mary came in to check on me, stealthily increasing the Pitocin level, she said that her goal was to make me cry. That took quite a while, and to my credit I didn't cry until the very end, but I received an epidural around 7:45 p.m. Many thanks to our friend, Joe, who is an anesthesiology resident and made sure that I was well cared for. Sara Beth, another fabulous nurse, took over at 7:00 p.m. and saw us through to the end.

The epidural gave me time to rest and take in the wonderful tunes that Jonathan lined up for the event - who said that he wouldn't really be able to play "delivery room DJ?" We did have a bit of a scare later in the night - after just dozing off, the entire team rushed in and quickly rolled me to my side. Apparently Anderson's vitals had fallen sharply. But the quickly recovered and all was okay. As we rested and waited for the magic 10 cm, my parents (who arrived in town the Thursday before) and Jonathan's mom (who drove in from Louisville earlier that day) waited patiently around the corner. None of us considered what they would do if my labor continued through the night, but they chose to camp out in the waiting room and "break the rules" of 1. Do not turn out the lights and 2. Do not sleep here overnight. These rules were clearly not meant for grandparents.

The hard work began around 3:30 a.m. Jonathan and I were quite surprised to learn that this part of the process involved the two of us and Sara Beth - not the team of people that we've seen on TV. So, Jonathan had a front row seat for Anderson's birth. He and Sara Beth were incredible coaches and Dr. Boudreaux and the rest of the team arrived for the last 10 minutes. Three more pushes and Jonathan announced that we had a "beautiful baby boy."

After introducing him to his grandparents and making a few calls, we noticed that he hadn't really cried and he had a cute little whimper. Turns out that the whimper was indicative of a potential breathing problem. So, after arriving in the nursery and scaring his new daddy with chocking up some amneotic fluid, Anderson was transferred to the NICU for observation where he stayed for about 24 hours. He finally arrived in our room on Thursday afternoon and we didn't let him out of our sight.
A snowstorm was on its way on Friday, so the staff was eager to send us home. I was discharged, but Anderson had jaundice and had to stay for a couple more days under the "sun lamps." Fortunately, the good staff at Vanderbilt allowed us to stay in our room so that we didn't have to navigate the snowy streets back and forth while he tanned.

So, this afternoon nurse Betty Witherspoon (does her last name ring a bell?) discharged our little guy and Jonathan carefully navigated the snowy, icy streets to bring us home. And baby makes three...