Tobias Robert James Stewart....we are so thankful for YOU!

Greetings! I have to make this short and eventually I will share Toby's more detailed birth story. It's a long one and very very different than Promise's birth story.

For those of you who have been commenting on facebook and via e-mail, your encouragements have been priceless and we are so grateful for your prayers. :)

Now here's the quick version:

I finally went into labor Saturday night late and 15 hours later, at 4:42 pm, Sunday, July 11th, our son, Tobias Robert James Stewart was born in our empty bathtub weighing in a 9 lbs .4 oz., 51 cm long. :) (Told you it was a short version....but it REALLY is a LONG story)

He came out not breathing and could not be stimulated to breathe adequately despite resuscitation efforts at home. We were literally storming the gates of Heaven in tongues of prayer while trying to resuscitate him, but he just refused to cry or breathe. After 35 minutes of stimulation through PPV and oxygen, though his heart was beating strong, we transported to Brokenshire hospital here in Davao. Tim and my assistant midwife, Erin, took him while my primary midwife, Bea, and friend, An-An stayed to make sure I was stable. Three hours after birth, I headed to the hospital to feed Toby and find out his status. Promise was great the whole time and stayed with An-An while I went to the hospital. Toby was given oxygen and finally began to take breaths on his own. He was taken for blood work and a series of quite invasive testing.

After him not sleeping for 36 hours and screaming in pain, we found that he had a fairly serious infection and required immediate treatment. He then turned jaundice and within 2 days of birth, could no longer breastfeed. I immediately started pumping and fed him through a syringe and bottle. With the help of our midwife and nurse, Bea, the doctor allowed us to take him home to further his antibiotic treatment. (I have to tell you how amazing she is when I post the birth story). We came home Tuesday, hopeful that he would improve keeping a very watchful eye on him. Since tuesday, he has made remarkable progress...and he is beautiful.

Despite the extremely rough few days we've had, Toby is recovering well. He is not out of the woods, yet, but he has made drastic improvements in the last 12 hours. We are now giving him antibiotic IM injections 3x/day until the 19th as opposed to the IV catheter injections we were giving the last 4 days. I am not too thrilled with having to cause him such pain daily, but I know it will be a short season making the rest of his life a healthy one. :) Bea has been so encouraging and is teaching me how to care for him during this process of healing.

Tim, Promise and I are coping. I don't know how else to say it. She is struggling. She misses being an only child and having our complete attention...she is currently wearing Toby's bib, tried to put on his clothes, and stole his pacifier walking around the house with it in her mouth refusing to let it out of her sights. She bit me today, too. We have such grace for this, though, because Tim and I are both feeling the same way. :)

We sure love our Tobias Robert James and his sweet disposition constantly melts our hearts.
We are making daily visits to the morning sunlight to help with the jaundice.
My nerve pain in my hips has not subsided since birth, but I am sure God will cover that, too, in His time. We have been well cared for and looked after by the Mercy midwives and friends here. They have sent us prayers, meals and have looked after Promise while Tim and I were in the hospital with Toby. We are very blessed.

We will post more pics soon, most of them are already on facebook, so if you are curious, you can check them out there. But here is one taken just a few hours after birth. :)

Be blessed and thank you for your continued prayers.

Bethany