Code Black.

I HAVE to blog at least once before leaving the hospital, but there is so much that has happened and so much I'd like to share with you that I think it will be coming out in the next few posts, so as not to overwhelm you with my scattered thoughts at the moment. I will attempt to keep this short and sweet, but I don't want to miss recording any of the juicy details either, so here goes....

The last few days have been incredibly exciting, to say the least. Our Little Man has come out of his shell in the last 24 hours and has been "talking" to us more and opening his eyes a lot more and looking at us and following the sound of my voice. I like to think that he already knows that I'm his mommy and Jeff's his dad. He may be crying with someone else, but Jeff has this incredible way of comforting him quickly and calming him down. I was so worried when he was first born because I kind of expected to hear this loud wailing coming from our child and I didn't hear anything. I kept making Jeff go over and make sure he was still breathing although the nurses and doctors kept swearing that he was doing fine, I seemed to not believe them. Well, I'm not worried anymore.... he definitely can wail when he's hungry or cold... or without his hat. He loves his hat. He has this incredibly cute way of holding onto the side of it (like he's a rapper or something) and pulling down on it... he's such a boy already!!

Jeff has become a Master Swaddler. I really think I"m going to make him some sort of certificate or something for this, because he really has mastered the art of making sure Brady's arms are all tightly packed into his little "bean pod" as I like to call it. I of course really couldn't get up and around for the first day or two to swaddle him, so Jeff was all alone in this feat, but now I am pretty good at it as well (although I do catch Jeff re-doing my swaddles every now and then when he thinks I'm not looking.)

We found out on Wednesday afternoon that Brady had a case of Jaundice and it was slightly more severe than we had thought it was originally, so they put him under strict orders to be under the lights at ALL times except for every three hours for 30 minutes he could come into our room to feed. What a horrible thing to do to a new mom and dad!! But thankfully, we survived all of that and after an extra day (yesterday) of keeping him under the lights, he seems to be doing much better and isn't nearly as tired and is feeling so much better.

There were a few surprises over the past couple of days... my brother came in from Aspen late on Monday night and is flying out today. Apparently everyone knew about this except for Jeff and I. (and it's REALLY hard to pull a surprise on me because I am the queen of snooping...) I really had no idea and it made this week even more special that Crazy Uncle Cam (he named himself that) was home for all the excitement.

So what's with the title, you might ask? Well.... you know those severe storms and high winds that came through on Wednesday night/ Thursday morning? They made us "take shelter" from the storm. That's right... 40 women who have just given birth in some way and their husbands, crammed into a medical supply "closet"in the center of the hospital... and the power was out! Thankfully, it happened to be a time when we were feeding Brady so he was in the room with us when they came over the loud speaker and said "Attention Everyone.... CODE BLACK.... I repeat... CODE BLACK." Jeff went into the hallway and asked the nurse what that meant because of course in Grey's Anatomy that meant that a bomb was inside of someones chest ready to go off at any moment and the hospital had to be completely evacuated. (And we all know that everything is true in that show.) Our sweet nurse looked at Jeff and said, "It just means to be on alert for severe weather but you can stay in your rooms... " Immediately after relaying this message to me, our nurse came back into our room and said, "Um... we're going to need you all to move to the center of the hallway."

So there we were, in the medical supply closet with half the women in wheelchairs, two who had JUST had their babies hours before and were in the whole hospital bed, and the power is off... only the emergency lights were on. (Have I already mentioned that?) Of course I am so grateful to have Brady there with me, as some women were freaking out because their babies are in the nursery... which is not really 'close' to our unit and of course the babies had all "taken shelter" with their nurses in the nursery!! After about 20 minutes of not really knowing what's going on, we got to go back to our rooms... but the power was still off. This meant NO A/C!! Not until 11:00 AM Thursday morning did the air come back on. This also meant no ice machine and no ice cold water, unless we got it out of the tap!!! Ugh!!

But we survived this too... and now we're onto our next 'battle'... going home. I'm so excited to take Brady home and I really feel that we're ready, but it's a weird feeling too... knowing that we're going to be there... all by ourselves... all the time. I can't wait for all of the "Firsts" that are to come in the next few days and I already feel like he's grown so much. I can't wait for him to 'meet the world'... and our Georgia. IF you think about it today, please pray that their first meeting goes well. It may seem like such a small thing but I really think it will make all the difference in the word!!!

Being a mom is the most incredible feeling in the world... and I'm sure Jeff can say the same thing about being a dad. It is the toughest thing I've ever done (and it's only been four days) but it's also the most rewarding (and it's only been four days)! I can't wait to share more stories... and I'm so sorry to go on... I promised to keep it short but I didn't... and there's so much more I could share!! I've added some of my favorite pics too at the bottom for your "enjoyment". I'll try to be 'faithful' in updating this since it's my only way of journaling right now and it's fun to share what's going on with others!

Much love to all of you who are reading this! Happy Friday!