And ACTION! :)

He's here! Gavin Lee Stejskal was born at 9:51 a.m. on Friday March 18th. Weighing in at 6lbs 8ozs and 18 inches long. He is six weeks premature and in the neonatal unit, but doing GREAT! :) He hasn't had to be on oxygen at all and he's been able to regulate his own body temperature from the start. So once his feeding is on track he'll be able to come home!
So here's what happened..... I was sent home from the hospital at 5:30 Wednesday night, still having contractions. Thursday I felt sick all day and was still having contractions so I told Riley we needed to make sure the hospital bag was all ready to go because "I had a feeling" something was going to happen on Friday. 3:50 Friday morning my water broke which sent us on a crazy 6 hour ride.... First, we had to go to the local hospital (my least favorite place EVER) where they transported me by ambulance to Mayo.... a very long and scary ride. Once at Mayo they hooked me up to all the monitors and in came the FIRST anesthesiologist (yes, first, as in it took more than one.... :(). So this guys starts to do my epidural, which they give you a numbing shot for so it's not supposed to hurt.....well it HURT. I tried telling him this and was told "oh that's normal, it's fine" meanwhile the other Dr. in the room is saying I think you should probably do that again. But nope, he left it. So an hour later only one side of me is numb and I can still feel every contraction. *sigh* Enter SECOND anesthesiologist.... she tries to help and pulls the spinal catheter up a bit and has me wait a half hour and still nothing so then she has to re-do my epidural but to give me immediate reliefe she also gives me a spinal which finally numbed both sides. And just in time to, at this point it's after 8am and i've felt every blessed contraction. At about 9:30 one Dr. came in to check on me and said I was dialted to 7. Then about 10 minutes later another Dr. came in and said "OH BOY" (which in case you're wondering isn't a good sign)... SO, at 9:42 they wheeled me into the operating room, just to be on the safe side having had a previous c-section, and Gavin was born at 9:51 a.m.!! And that my friends is our whirlwind 6 hour ride! My epidural never really did take true effect but thankfully the spinal shot helped enough to get me through the last hour and a half. Once they checked Gavin over I got to hold him for a couple of minutes before he was taken to the neonatal unit.
Saturday was a good day for Gavin, he actually nursed twice, which the nurses couldn't believe and kept most of his food down. He didn't like his feeding tube though and pulled it out and they had to replace it. Now today he didn't want to nurse because he was to tired, but he's still doing great! His jaundice levels are really low and he's been able to be moved out of his incubator and into a regular bassinet. They've also allowed me to do K care 3 times today (skin to skin snuggling for an hour each time).
The hardest part of all of this is trying to explain to Lucas why mommy can't be home and not being able to hold Gavin anytime I want. So tonight i'm staying in Gavin's room in the neonatal unit and then tomorrow night after his afternoon feeding i'm going to force myself to go home so I can spend some time with Lucas. Then it'll be back to the hospital early Tuesday morning for the duration of Gavin's stay.
Thank you for all the love, well wishes, prayers, gifts and visitors! We love you all!