Dylan Tanner Johnson

Who is surprised to see pictures of our kid already who was due November 30th??? Who is even more surprised that he weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces?

The story: We knew that our midget had something called an omphalocele and would require surgery that same day. The doctors also said a c-section would be necessary, so we made changes to all our doctors and transferred everything so that I could deliver at St. Joseph's which is right next door to CHOC where they would have to do the surgery. It was a high risk pregnancy and I was monitored very closely. In fact, on Thursday Blake came with me to the fetal monitoring for a non-stress test. Aaron had left for Dallas Monday with plans to fly home Saturday night. Friday morning at about 12:30 (like 2 hours after going to bed) I woke up with some contractions. At first I thought I would just try to go back to bed because um, we are still in October. But then the contractions continued and were pretty strong. What to do...well, I call Aaron hoping that this is the first night in his life that he kept his cell phone turned on...nope..it is turned off. I call my parents and tell my dad that I am having contractions, so they come over a few minutes later while I was able to pack a couple of things for the trip to the hospital. We get to OB admitting at 2:52am and I am having serious contractions. We check in and while waiting, my water breaks and I feel him coming, but I need a c-section. There was no time for an epideral, so they knock me out and after getting the NICU staff, etc there, midget is born at 3:07am. Fast huh? I don't get to see midget because I am knocked out and midget has to be sent immediately over to CHOC, so Grandpa follows midget to CHOC while I recover. Friday I spent in my room trying to recover, but I won't stop bleeding and it gets kind of serious, so no visit to see midget yet. My dad sent Aaron a text with a picture of midget along with the stats and says congrats. Aaron got that text when he woke up and thought it was a joke. He tries to get a flight out of Dallas back home, but nothing is available until Saturday morning. Interestingly enough, the time that Aaron made it to the hospital was the time that I was finally released to go see the midget...about 33 hours after he was born.

During that time, my folks (who have been watching Blake), come by with Blake so we get our first new family picture. Blake was completely confused. I couldn't pick him up, which was a little hard because I missed the guy and he was trying to wrap his brain around being a big brother.

My first time getting to hold him. He has a strong personality and LOVES to eat. He had his surgery at 3pm ish on Friday and did fantastic. He hated the breathing tube, so they took that out about 1 hour after the surgery, but were planning on taking it out 6 - 12 hours after surgery. And he did fine. They thought it would be at least a week before he could take my milk, but nope...he started that today and needs some formula as well because he loves his food.

Here is the proud daddy. We sure think he is a cutie. He has blonde hair like Blake did, but not as light and not as much.

Here he is today, with his face not as swollen. He has already gained weight. While we know that there are more tests that need to be run to see if he is really okay and will see how many doctors visits we will have with this guy during his childhood, we are sure grateful for him and love him.