I'm a GRANDMOTHER!
I'm a grandmother a couple months earlier than we all expected.
Sian developed preeclampsia and was hospitalized for a couple days because her blood pressure started shooting up so high. When medication and magnesium sulfate didn't bring it down, the doctors decided to take the baby via C-section.
I was a little too late to the hospital to see Sian before she went into surgery. I had spent most of the previous day at the hospital, but the doctors and nurses were so certain that Sian would be able to keep the baby inside for a few more days that I didn't stay overnight at their apartment. I really like sleeping in my own bed, and their apartment didn't have air conditioning and was 95 degrees F. Tell me how you can sleep while you're sweating out your weight in fluid.
(Husband has since rigged up a frame in which he set a window air conditioner, which was difficult because he couldn't put any nails or screws into the sill and because he had to work around a tall metal slider rail in the second-story window. But he did it. It took him 12 hours of building, traveling, and fixing, but he got it done, and now the kids have some air conditioning. I'm not sure how they survived that apartment up to this point!)
Nathan called me early the next morning, and I could tell he was tense, even though he always keeps himself calm and measured. I hopped right into the car and started driving, but he called again to ask where I was when I was still 20 minutes out and stuck in traffic, and this time I could tell he was about to explode with anxiety.
By the time I got to the hospital, Sian had already been wheeled into the surgery, and I was told to wait in Sian's room. About 15 minutes later, she was wheeled back in on her bed, and I spent a while helping her come to grips with the fact that she was no longer pregnant and that she is a mom and has delivered her first child. She also had the shakes, which is totally normal after childbirth, so the nurse and I got her all wrapped up in warm blankets and I stroked her head and told her how proud of her I was. Nathan went with the baby to the NICU to make sure everything was okay there before coming back to make sure his wife was recovering.
The good news is that both mom and baby are going well. While Sian's blood pressure continued to spike dangerously high even after the delivery, it has since started to come down. It's still really high for her, but they're thinking of discharging her tomorrow because it seems to be on a downward trend.
My new grandson, Tyler, is so tiny. He was only three pounds and 15 inches long, propped up in his little box in the NICU. When I saw him, he had a breathing tube down his throat, along with a bunch of other feeds and wires stuck to his wee little torso, arms, and legs. But for such a peanut of a kid, he's got some seriously long fingers and toes! I told Sian and Nathan that they need to get him piano lessons as soon as he can sit up on his own. You can't let fingers like that go to waste!
The breathing tube has since been removed, and Tyler is breathing fine on his own. His nurse is feeding him breastmilk through his feeding tube (Sian has been extracting), so he's getting excellent nutrition. While he has developed a bit of jaundice and is on antibiotics for inflammation or infection, neither of these things is abnormal for a preemie. He'll probably be home in about eight weeks.
What's absolutely lovely is that he wiggles and responds when he hears Sian's or Nathan's voices. He knows his parents.
I reassured Sian that in 15 years, Tyler will be eating her out of house and home and will probably be taller than his dad. No one will be able to tell he was so eager to be born that he came a couple months early. For now, she's very lucky to have such an attentive, caring husband. He adores her, and he's obviously fallen in love with his tiny little son. Plus, she has parents, siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins, grandparents, and a great-grandmother who are all praying for her and Tyler.
I'm a grandma! It's a pretty sweet feeling.
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