What a journey!!

I hope you all will bear with me as I am a very unexperienced blogger. So, it might take me a few days to figure all of this out...but I will do my best. Here goes...I hope this finds all of you well, and I want to apologize to all for not keeping in touch well over the past couple of weeks. Needless to say, we have been on one big roller coaster ride! It all began a few weeks ago when we finally bought a house in Chesterfield Township, Michigan after looking at over 200 homes in the past 2 months. The day we closed, Adam's mom, Betty, flew out and spent four days painting practicaly every room in the house. She would start painting every day early and not close up shop until almost 2 o'clock in the morning. This was so special and such a gift of self!

My mom, Mama Cathy, arrived while Betty was here for her 6 week visit. The bad part about all of this was that the two mothers had to sleep on blow up mattresses when they arrived because the truck from Kansas wasn't here yet. But, the Mayflower truck showed up two days after Labor Day...and the work began. For future reference, I definitely would not recommend moving to another state and unloading at 39 weeks pregnant. We were very blessed, however, to have Mama Cathy here to help take the load off..literally. We worked 10-12 hour days on the house to get everything unpacked and in its place. My due date was rapidly approaching so we were definitely in a time crunch. At one point, my mom went out to pick up something to eat for dinner and told us that she was going to jump off of a bridge while she was out. To say that we were exhausted is an understatement.

By the end of the week, my ankles were the size of my head and my blood pressure was rising. Adam called them my cankles and said that I definitely didn't look like I was ready for swimsuit season.

We went to the OB/GYN last Wednesday, 9/10/08, and found out that my blood pressure was elevated and my liver enzymes has gone up as well. This meant the I had preeclampsia, and the doctor sent me directly to the hospital to be induced.

Because of the high risk, they started me on Magnesium to prevent seizures and then started Pitocin to get things started. My true contractions didn't start until about 9:00am on 9/11/08.

Great Grandma Blankenship arrived from Missouri at about 1 pm, two hours before Brooks was born. Brooks Edwin Blankenship was born at 3:12pm. He weighed 6 lbs 5 oz and was 19 inches long.

Daddy was a great coach through the labor and tried to keep me smiling.

When he was delivered, he still had a ton of amniotic fluid in his lungs and was breathing too fast. So, after letting us see him for a couple of minutes, they took him off to the transition nursery and told us that if his breathing did not improve in the next 4 hours, he would be admitted to the NICU. They let Adam go up to the nursery and see him. And, of course, he had strict instructions from mommy to take many pictures to bring back to me.

After 4 hours, his breathing was still too fast so he was admitted to the NICU. At that time, I found out that I would not be able to see him until 24 hours had passed because I had to stay on Magnesium with all of monitors attached for that time period. That was incredibly difficult! But, the next morning the NICU nurses did end up wheeling him down in his little incubator and I got to meet our son! Of course, Daddy took this first opportunity to put a Cardinals hat on his little head with the mindset that you can't ever start them off too early!

Anyways, the next few days were extremely hard. Grandpa Hall (Shrampa) arrived from Kansas on Saturday to meet his grandson for the first time. That night, Brooks was more alert than he had been the last couple of days and he sure stared wide-eyed at Grandpa.

His fast breathing continued and on Sunday they decided to do a Cardiology consult because he had a few episodes during deep sleep when his heart rate was too slow. The pediatric cardiologist came and they did a sonogram of his heart that she described as "beautiful". Her opinion when all was said and done was that his heart looked perfect and there were no reason for concerns. We were ecstatic at that point and things started improving. I got to start breastfeeding him on Sunday, and from that moment on he improved daily. By Monday evening, his increased respiratory rate had completely resolved. So, we began the process of getting him ready to bring home and were told that he would be discharged after he completed his last antibiotic dose on Wednesday morning (a chest x-ray from day 1 had come back that there was a possible pneumonia so they were treating him with a five day course of antibiotics). However, Tuesday evening he had an episode of some tremors that the nurse was very concerned about. She got on her phone to the doctor right away...five minutes later the swarm of doctors came in...five minutes after that they were taking him from me to do a spinal tap to rule out meningitis...and five minutes after that he was getting a CT scan of his head. Our hopes of going home in the morning were shot, and they decided to continue his antibiotics for a few more days until the results from his spinal fluid came back. They also did an EEG to make sure that he wasn't showing any true seizure activity. When it was all said and done, ALL of his tests came back completely normal and we were able to set his new discharge date for Friday, 9/19/08.

Great Grandpa Blankenship arrived from Missouri on Thursday, 9/18/08. It was so special to see Grandpa meet Brooks for the first time. His eyes filled with tears over the beautiful little baby boy that is a spitting image of Adam.

I can't tell you how fast my heart was beating as we walked out of the hospital with him in my arms. It was such an exciting, life changing, beautiful moment I will never forget.

Grammy and Grandpa drove mommy and Brooks home, and when we pulled up to the house Great Grandma and Great Grandpa were out in the driveway waiting for us. They had tied up balloons and put our "Brooks" banner on the garage door that Great Aunt Cindy had made for my baby shower.

He has been home for almost two days and he is doing wonderful. He is breastfeeding very well, and he actually gained 3 ounces in just one day from Friday to Saturday (we had to take him to the Pediatrician last night to have him looked at per our discharge orders). We are so blessed to have so many family members here to share in these first moments.

Brooks is an amazing baby who only cries when he is hungry or has a dirty diaper. His days and nights are a little turned around so mommy hasn't gotten much sleep. But, it's so exciting to have him here that I haven't really gotten tired yet. The only caveat to this was when we gave him his first sponge bath. It is a slight understatement to say that he didn't like it.

His brothers Tiger and Shocker have been wonderful with Brooks. We have held the boys up close to the baby to get them acquainted, and they seem to understand that they can't get too close to him. They got kicked out of mom and dad's bed as soon as Brooks came home and have been sleeping with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa ever since.

All in all, we are overwhelmed with joy and wonderment at the birth of our son. We could not be more excited to begin this chapter in our lives, and we feel so blessed to have you all in our lives to celebrate with. I will do my best to keep this blog updated daily with up to date photos and stories about our lives as new parents. Again, thank you to all of you who have loved and supported us through this very difficult year. We look forward to each and every moment that is to come, and we will keep you all in our thoughts and prayers while we are apart.

God Bless you all!!!