chris yokley

This is going to be a quick update on all things related to the baby.

The baby is doing well. They were finally able to remove the IVs and let him come out of the nursery for the first time today. He is nursing well and everything looks to be on the up and up at this point.

However, some of Isaac’s tests did come back positive and at higher levels than expected. The higher levels are a negative thing, but the good news is the medicine seems to be working and Isaac is getting well faster than expected. Because of the high levels from the test results it is likely Isaac will have to continue to receive antibiotics until Thursday or Friday and will not be released from the hospital until then.

Lisa is doing excellent. Just being able to spend time with the little guy has really calmed her nerves. Physically she is doing amazing. I wish I had a picture to show you guys, but she looks more like she had a baby two years ago rather than two days ago. She’s as beautiful as ever and although I haven’t been able to talk to her much I’m sure she is anxious to hit the stores for some shopping.

Noah is hanging out with his Lula and Papa in Jackson and from what I hear he is having a blast. At this point I think he is having too much fun to even miss us right now. We miss him though and even though he can be a handful it is difficult to be away from him for this long. He has so much personality and being away from him for any length of time really makes us miss him even more.

I don’t have any pictures to share right now, but I promise I have a good excuse. Last night about 10pm I started feeling pretty bad. By 2pm I was in poor shape and had to be relocated to one of the guest rooms at the hospital. This morning I went to the urgent care center where they tested me for a bunch of things which all came back negative. My white cell count came back high though so all they really know is that I have some type of bacterial infection. They gave me a shot in the butt, wrote me a couple of scripts and sent me packing with orders to stay away from Lisa and the baby until I’m feeling better.

So I have been relocated to Bay Minette and other than regular phone updates I am pretty unaware of what is going on at the hospital – which seems like a world away right now. It sucks pretty bad to be so far from them, but I can’t begin to express to you how relieved I am that everything is going as well as it is.

I also want to say thanks to my mom for taking such great care of me last night and today. Your awesome mom.

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. We are so blessed to have such great friends and family to support us during this time. Lisa and I are anxious to get our little family home and together, but we can’t even begin to count all of the ways God has blessed us during this time.

Today has been a bit of a whirlwind.

NOTE: Before I get into this post I want to let you know up front that things are well with both Lisa and the baby.

We are so happy to welcome the newest addition to our family, Isaac Hart Yokley. He arrived at 1:20pm weighing in at 7lb 10oz and 21in long. He is such a blessing and we are so happy he is here.

Along with this joyful experience there have been a few surprises that have caused some fear and worry. During the delivery Isaacs umbilical cord ended up wrapped around his body and neck. We were able to get it all straightened out pretty quickly, but Isaac was slow to get going. After the nurses spent a few minutes working on him he started to perk up and we heard his first small little cries.

Shortly thereafter they laid him on Lisa’s stomach just long enough to snap a couple of pictures and he was quickly taken to the nursery. I kissed Lisa goodbye and followed close behind. As soon as we got there nurses surrounded him and started hooking up machines, getting vital signs and putt a small oxygen tent over him to get his o2 levels up.

Once they got everything setup they started explaining to me what was going on (or at least filling me in on the parts I missed in the heat of everything). I won’t get to deep into it – mostly because I am not a doctor and I couldn’t repeat a lot of it even if I wanted to – but the gist of it was that something stressed the little guy out during delivery and he wasn’t responding quite as well as they would like.

I spent a few minutes with him in the nursery and then the nurse and I headed back to talk to Lisa, who I knew was anxious to find out what was going on. Although the doctors and nurses had assured Lisa and I this was nothing to be overly alarmed about, it is difficult to explain to a new mother – who has only spent a few seconds with her new born baby – that he is hooked up to oxygen and IV’s and will not be able to come back to see her in the room.

I’m sure that any of you who know my wife can understand Lisa was very scared and very anxious. She had so many questions and it was too early for anyone to have any good answers for her. And on top of that she couldn’t see her baby until she was ready to check out of L&D, which was a couple of hours later.

The time passed slowly, but eventually we were ready to move out of L&D. I was sent to take our luggage to our new room and she headed straight to the nursery where I met them a few minutes later.

This was the first time she was able to really see the baby – hooked up to all the machines with an oxygen tent over him. She did feel better though. Just being able to see her baby and touching his little hands and feet was enough to calm her down a lot. We stayed for a little while and headed back to our room.

Friends and family surrounded us all day and reminded us of all the love and blessings in our lives. I was able to take each of the Grand Parents back to meet the baby, but unfortunately Noah hasn’t gotten to meet his new little brother at this point which disappointed us all as we really wanted this to be a bonding time for our little family. He did get a short glimpse of him through the nursery window though.

Later, after all the friends and family had cleared out, Lisa and I headed back the nursery. The baby’s stats were looking good and after we had been back there for about 30 minutes they were finally able to take him off oxygen for the first time and Lisa got to hold her little boy. And she even let me hold him for a minute or two. 

Needless to say this is not how we expected today to go. Coming in to this we thought we knew exactly how everything was going to play out and the only real question we had was if we would be able to talk the doctor into letting us go home tomorrow night or if we were going to have to wait until Saturday.  That is no longer the case and we are not quite out of the woods yet.

There are still some irregularities with the blood work and at this point there are still a lot of questions about what is going on. Isaac will be hooked up to monitors and IV’s until at least Saturday and we have been told that it will be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before he will get to go home. We should know more in the next 36 hours or so, but for now there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

All-in-all this day has been a blessing to us. The doctors feel there is no reason to suspect any long-term problems at this point and they are being very proactive and precautions with the treatments.

Lisa has been amazing. She is doing well and if finally getting some much needed sleep (I hope to be joining here very soon).

All we ask is that you keep us in your prayers. God has been more than amazing to us and all of this is part of his plan. Thank you to all of our friends and family. We love you all.

I experienced my 30th birthday about a month and a half ago.  Here is the video of my wife’s present to me.

I highly recommend it.

I’m in the process of changing things up a little on the blog. I plan to get started with regular posts pretty soon, but bear with me while I work on things.

If you need anything between now and then, feel free to contact me.