Introducing. . .

Cade Thomas Morris!


Born: Sunday August 21, 2011, 6 days early, at 4:32 a.m.
Weighed in at 8 pounds 11 ounces, measured 21 inches long--he's a big little guy!

Cade had pneumothorax when he was born. This is a small hole in the lung that lets air out of the lung into the chest cavity. He was having a hard time breathing right. He was taken to the NICU about 5 minutes after being born. The doctors thought that the pneumothorax would resolve itself so he was kept in a dark room and the nurses kept him calm. He was given an IV and a feeding tube so that he didn't have to be disturbed for the first 3 days. He also had an issue with his stomach and threw up food for a day or so.
I was able to spend a lot of time with him in the NICU and the nurses let me take care of him. Each day we could do more with him including nursing, feeding him bottles and just holding him. I went home from the hospital on Tuesday evening and Cade was able to come home on Friday. I used Tuesday through Thursday as my "practice mom" days. I asked the nurses lots of questions and they were really patient with me as I learned how to kind of take care of him. Then I went home at night and slept!
Cade LOVES his pacifier!

Cade and Dad in the NICU





















Now he has been home for 3 days and we are doing all right. Our two goals are to keep Cade alive and not go insane. So far we are passing! Each day he is doing better--taking longer naps and eating better. Really he is a little piggie and eats a ton! I'm still not too sure about this whole mom thing and I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing. I think it will take a little while, but I'll get there soon.
Here's my boys! I love how small and curled up Cade is in this picture. He ended up sleeping there for about an hour and a half.




















So how did it come about?
I started having contractions Saturday morning at 5 am. They got closer and closer and we decided to go to the hospital which is about 30 minutes away. As we drove,they slowed down. Instead of going to the hospital, we ended up at our stake center where Kirk played in a volleyball tournament and I watched. We went to Wendy's for lunch and then back to the stake center. The contractions were still coming the whole time and I didn't want to go all the way home. Finally about 1 p.m. we went to the hospital as they got stronger. I was only dialated to a 1.5 so they monitored me for a couple of hours and after no progress sent me home. Once we got home, Kirk was really tired and took a nap. The contractions got stronger and stonger and by 7 p.m. I couldn't walk through them and we headed back to the hospital. I was dialated to about a 3.5 and got the epidural right away. Then we waited. We brought the laptop and watched a movie and some baseball on tv. I ended up needing some petosin to keep things moving, but Cade came out at 4:32 a.m.--almost 24 hours of labor! Really though, it was only super painful for a few hours when I was at home up until I got the epidural.