Lead Me

It's my pleasure to introduce to y'all the MOST handsome little boy that I have ever set my eyes on ~

Mr. Andrew G. Norton!

Here he is just minutes after being born on August 28th at 8:15am. He is 7lbs 6oz and 19.5 inches. He had a rough entrance into this world. When the doctors realized I had pre-eclampsia during my appointment on Friday, I was sent up to L&D immediately to be induced (I had too much protein in my urine and not enough platelets). Right away, they set me up with an IV for the Pitocin and Magnesium Sulfate, which was used to prevent me from going in to seizures. They warned me from the beginning that the Magnesium would slow him down and he may not cry as soon as he comes out. Well, after a long and hard birth that I will disclose in a little more detail later, we realized that it was a little worse than that.

When he came out, he was severely distressed because all of his systems were depressed and he knew it! They set him on my belly long enough for Trey to cut the cord and pulled him away trying to clean him up. Not to long after that they rushed him out of there and I was told that he was being transferred to another hospitals NICU unit. Trey went with them to make sure he was being taken well care of. It was/is the hardest thing I've ever gone through.

I sat in the hospital recouping until Sunday night and was finally released around 8:30. We came him and to say it was upsetting to come home without a baby in my belly and no little Andrew to put in his cradle is a severe understatement. As hard as it is, we are keeping up the positive thoughts and really leaning on our faith right now.

He's doing better day by day. The machines are doing just about everything for him at this point, but we're trying very slowly to take him off of things one by one. Today they took his fully catheter out and last I heard, he is doing very well. He was soaking through a diaper with the catheter in, so they felt pretty good about that. They started to take him off of Dopamine which is helping to regulate his BP. They took the level down a bit and Andrew was borderline where they wanted him, so they've stopped that for now. Little by little.. step by step. He's not being sedated anymore either so that's great!

Right now, we're not sure when he is going to be able to come home, but we know that he is in very good hands. The pouring out of love and prayers we have received from people everywhere has been overwhelming. It's breath-taking. We got to go in this morning and touch him for the first time.. it was a moment we'll never forget. Here are some pictures:


While we were waiting in the nurses office Friday morning to find out what was going on she had the song Lead Me on the radio. I remember tearing up and telling Trey how much I loved that song and wanted to have him listen to it when we got home. It was the last thing I heard before going up and being induced, so when I remembered that this afternoon, we listened to it together and just cried and cried. We're going to need a lot of leading from God in the next few months... years I'm sure!