Henry Christopher Clayton

While I have a minute, I thought I would write about Henry's birth. I had been getting pretty uncomfortable and on Saturday the 4th, I decided that maybe I should just go to the hospital to get checked out (I did the same thing with Jade). The girls went to a friend's house and Brian and I headed over to the hospital around noon. They checked me out and decided that I was in active labor (dilated to a 4), so I was admitted and prepped for delivery. My doctor wasn't on call that day, so the physician was Henry Ramirez. We had to laugh at the fact that his name was Henry. He thought we had chosen a very good name for our baby. By 4:15 pm, I was dilated to an 8, so Dr. Ramirez broke my water. Henry Christopher Clayton was born at 4:51 pm. He was 6 pounds 9 ounces and 18.5" long. Henry was grunting pretty bad, so they took him off to the nursery to check him out. They determined that he had respiratory distress since he was technically born a little bit premature (he was 36 weeks and 6 days), but they didn't have the facilities at our hospital to care for him.

The pediatrician decided that it would be best for him to be transferred to the children's hospital in Oklahoma City (which is 1.5 hours away...ugh). So, they discharged me, and Brian and I waited anxiously for the helicopter crew to arrive and work with Henry. It took awhile, but they eventually had him all hooked up and ready to transport (I'm not looking forward to getting the bill for his helicopter ride). Brian and I drove up to the hospital and arrived at about 1 am (it was a very long night).



After making sure he was okay, we found a motel for the night. The next day we were able to secure a room at the Ronald McDonald house, so we drove back down to Ardmore to pick up Greta and Jade and then we drove back up to the city. I was very grateful to have a free place for all of us to stay, but some of the rules were really annoying and hard to follow (needing to be in the same room with the girls all the time, no kids allowed in the kitchen, no food in the bedrooms...) We both lost a lot of patience and got very frustrated at times, but we managed to survive. Henry spent 8 days in the hospital. He started out with an IV, oxygen, and a feeding tube. He also had to do a little UV treatment for his jaundice.


Brian and I took turns visiting him while the other person tried to keep the girls in line. During the week, he was weaned off all of his tubes except for feeding.


In order to be sent home, he had to finish a specified amount of milk from a bottle for a 24 hour period. This is the main thing that frustrated Brian and what kept Henry in the hospital for a couple of extra days. After one week, he finally decided that he was hungry enough to finish those bottles and on the 12th, he was discharged and we were able to take him home!


I'm soooo glad to be back home. It was one of the longest weeks of my life! We're grateful that Henry is doing well- although he's being kind of stubborn about breast feeding because all he had in the NICU were bottles and tubes. I'm hoping that he'll get the hang of it soon. He's a sweet little guy and we're excited to have him in our family!