She has arrived!

It has been a whirlwind last couple of weeks. As I'm sure most of you have heard, the now infamous Josie Carter Jones was born on July 8, 2009 (7/8/9 is easy for Dad to remember, thanks Josie). Since our hospital records everything in metric increments, we heard several different converted stats for her. But the final measurements for the record books are 7 lb. 4 oz., 21" long, 13.5" head circumference. Not too shabby.

The circumstances of her delivery were not ideal, but the ultimate outcome was a complete blessing. Nat was doing very well, her labor was progressing as it should be, when all of a sudden Josie’s heart rate went way down. After repositioning Nat, the heart rate came back close to normal. But the same thing happened two more times, and our OB made the call to do an emergency C-section. Natalie was awake for this and I was in the room as well. When they got Josie out she did not look well. An abruption had taken place where the placenta detached prematurely and filled the amniotic sac with blood and other gunk which she aspirated. Josie was immediately in the care of neonatal nurses who began bagging her to stimulate respiration. They quickly had to insert a breathing tube, which helped her breathe and allowed them to suction out some of the gunk that was in her lungs. She was then taken to the NICU for further care.

Josie went through a number of tests which all yielded positive results, and after two or three hours she had the breathing tube removed and replaced with a CPAP, which is a less intrusive breathing aid that looks like Bill Lambere’s face guard with a chicken beak on the front. She was in pretty stable condition by this point. They had gotten a lot of the fluid out of her lungs and her vitals were pretty good.

Josie stayed in the NICU for three days and showed drastic improvement hour by hour. She eventually had all breathing aids removed, and once Natalie was able to feed her she had her IVs taken out. To our great delight, Josie was released from the NICU hours after Natalie was released from the Mother/Baby ward, and we were able to take her home right on schedule. I credit the superb care and skill of the Memorial Central Hospital staff with the fact that Josie is here today and her amazing recovery. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to these professionals.

Now that we have Josie home, Nat and I are cutting our parenting teeth. Fortunately, Josie has been taking it easy on us. She really only cries when we change her (which bodes well for future modesty I hope) and when she needs some feeding. She's been letting Mom and Dad get some much needed rest, albeit at three hour increments.

We've had a few visitors come to see Josie. Of course Papa and Nana Carter have been over a number of times. We also had the Graffs and the Millers over to celebrate dual birthdays for Josie and I. Yesterday, Julie, Pilar, and Lauren came bearing gifts for the newest member of the fratter family. And thankfully, our neighbor Brandi brought over some homemade lasagna.

We've received a ton of emails and calls wishing us well, so thank you everyone for all the kind words. Given the circumstances of how the delivery went down, we've been totally behind in getting out photos and updates. Our apologies, as we have been frantically trying to get accustomed to our new lives together.

Now I'm sure a burning question in everyone's mind is "How is Sully doing?" Honestly, he's adjusting pretty well. He is a little reluctant to get to know Josie that well at this point, giving her only an occasional sniff. But he is overall a lot calmer than he's ever been. He even is handling thunderstorms a lot better, which is a very unexpected benefit of the new family dynamic.

I will try to do a better job of updating the blog/calling/emailing etc., but for now here is a crop of pictures that will hopefully satisfy your appetite for everything Josie for a little while.













"My mom did a great job on my mani."