Our Bundle of Joy!!!!!

Introducing...Isaac Vance Sandgren!! Born on January 23, 2009 at 6:16 am. Weighing in at 5 pounds 6 ounces and measuring 19 inches long, our precious new baby joined our family. It all started on Wednesday the 21st when I went into the hospital to have my amniotic fluid levels checked. Part of the testing was done by ultrasound where they divided my belly into four quadrants. Then they took a picture of each quadrant and measured the amount of fluid in each quadrant and added it together to get the total amount. Two of the quadrants had no fluid at all and the other two added up to be 6. Normal is 10-24. I was at 10.5 while at the hospital during Christmas, and in 4 weeks, it went down to 6. The nurse was a little concerned, I was way concerned, but she said to come back to have it checked again on Friday. Then we noticed with some contractions, the baby's hear beat would drop a little. They kept me there to monitor it a little longer and said everything looked fine and sent me home with the warning that if my levels had not changed or gone up by Friday, they might keep me there and induce me that day. I came home and Vance and I got our bags packed and got everything ready just in case. Thursday night, after finishing getting everything ready, we finally laid down in bed around 1:30am. Around 2:15, the contractions started. Every 2-5 minutes, and they hurt more than normal. I decided to take a bath to see if that would make them stop, but no luck. I went in the room and woke up Vance so we could go to the hospital. This was it!! I called my parents at 3:30 in the morning so we could drop Mason off (He danced in the car to the music all the way to my parents house! He didn't mind getting woken up at 4 in the morning at all! He's such a good boy). When we got to the hospital (around 4:30), they put monitors on me, and immediately noticed the babies heartbeat dropped with almost every contraction. They immediately called my doctor, and he got on the phone with me and prepared me for the strong possibility of a c-section. He arrived at the hospital rather quickly and he gave me the choice to wait it out and see how the baby does since he seemed to be doing better with contractions, or we could stay on the safer side and go forward with the c-section. Thinking only of the safety of my sweet baby, I gave the go-ahead for the c-section. They instantly started preparing me and within 10 minutes, had me sitting on the operating table getting my epidural. I had never been so nervous and scared in my entire life. They had me hooked up to machines so they could hear my heartbeat, and it had to been 40 beats per minute or lower. After they put up the famous blue shield to block my view, they started poking my belly to see if I was numb yet. I could feel almost every poke. The anesthesiologist asked me to look at his finger, and the next thing I knew, I was staring at the blue shield again and I could faintly hear a baby crying in the background as Vance told me he was good and healthy and weighed 5 lbs 6 oz. I guess before I was really awake again, I looked at Vance and said "pictures, pictures, pictures..." I told him before the surgery that all I wanted was pictures of the baby like crazy since I couldn't see anything, but I don't remember saying that to him. They had taken the baby into a room separate from the OR but it was connected by a window. So through my blurry vision, I could look over and barely see little arms and legs sticking up in the air frantically moving around. After they got me back to my room, I had to wait patiently, just hoping that everything was okay with the baby, for Vance and Isaac to come into the room so I could finally meet my new son. I was still very loopy and out of it, so the fact that I hadn't really seen him yet was just fine. I think if I hadn't been put under, I would of had a lot harder time with that. After what seemed like forever, and bugging the poor nurse like crazy asking where he was, in strolled little tiny Isaac with his proud daddy by his side. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. He was so TINY all bundled up in the blanket, and he was NOT happy. He just cried and cried from the moment he came out until the moment he was snuggled against his mommy! We are so incredibly grateful that everything went so smoothly and that our little boy arrived here safe and healthy. We love you baby Isaac!!!