One week ago today James David Clarkson entered this world kicking and screaming!

I was taken into the surgery room and given my spinal and ready for baby to come. It was a normal surgical room with one difference. In the left corner of the room was a smaller room. Not much bigger than a walk in closet. In that room were a couple of people and a hospital room on wheels.

I was more terrified than I had ever been in my life. I have been through some pretty weird things in my life and some of them quite scary but this was more than I could emotionally handle. I cried many tears before walking into that surgical room. I knew as long as my baby was in my belly he was fine. I knew as soon as he came out the real struggle would begin. Would there even be a struggle? Is my baby as sick as Wolfson's says he will be? Would I ever hold him? See him take an actual breath? Hear him cry? Would I ever see his chest move up and down taking breaths? Would my baby be OK?

I remember people talking and buzzing around. It seemed to be taking forever. Then I heard the doctor say "Wow he's a big boy!" Jason popped up in the chair and looked over the sheet but James hadn't been pulled out yet. Then I felt them take him out of me. It was weird really. Almost like he didn't want to leave but was being forced out by suction.

Then I heard it. I heard him cry. I heard that sweet little voice I knew instantly belonged to my baby. If he can scream then his lungs are functioning! Jason popped up again and said "he looks bigger than Georgia was!" And then the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time. A tiny little scrunched up face over the sheet. Only a couple of seconds but there he was. My sweet baby James. Crying! They took him down and got him over to the ICU team to start their part. One of them yelled from the little room "He's turning pink!" Turning pink means oxygenated blood was getting to his body. Something that happens in normal everyday babies. Not always the norm for Hypoplastic Left Heart babies. This was more good news!

Jason followed our son into the room and came back to tell me James was 7 pounds 14 ounces and I smiled. They wanted a big baby and that's almost 8 pounds so I thought I held up my end of the bargain. I looked at Jason and said "7.14?" and he said "No! 9 pounds 14 ounces!" What??? I just delivered an almost 10 pound baby? Holy cow! Jason just laughed and said yeah, 10 pounds! This, by the way, is his idea of a joke. He tried to tell me Georgia was a boy but he didn't realize the doctor had already said she was a girl. This time he got me.

Jason followed the team to the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. They stopped by my head on the way out of the room so I could see him and see that he was calmed and stable. He did have a breathing tube which isn't great but it wasn't horrible either. He was alive. He was breathing. He was pink.

I haven't heard his sweet little voice since. The breathing tube makes it where he can't vocalize but hopefully soon it will be removed and we will be able to hear that sweet voice again.