This is going to be a long one...it's mostly for me so that I can remember :)
My due date was August 18th, but with her being breech, I was scheduled for a c-section August 12th. However, I had been telling people that I thought she would be early. I had also been having a great deal of false labor--once I had contractions for over 3 hours straight!
The first weekend of August, my brother-in-law came to stay with us. He wanted to come visit before all of the baby craziness. We had been all over Greenville on Saturday--flying kites, shopping, etc. I was exhausted. We joked about the baby coming that night and how nice it would be that Will was at our house, because he could take care of Thomas.
At 3:00 am (Saturday night, but technically Sunday morning August 3rd), I went to the bathroom for one of my normal nightly potty breaks. I noticed something strange while on the toilet--we'll leave it at that ;) Returning to bed, I tried to get back to sleep, but I felt the urge to return to the bathroom. The second bathroom visit confirmed that my water had broken.
I went back to bed and told Jake the same words I had told him 3 years prior, "Hey Jake, I think I'm in labor." We called the doctor. We called family. I sat on the toilet for a long time while I gushed liquid and directed Jake as he packed our bags. Jake woke up a sleepy Will, assuring him that it was not a joke and that I really was in labor. Then we were off. I experienced my first contraction as we pulled up to the hospital.
It took a while, but eventually we were wheeled back to a room. I was soaking wet. They hooked me up to all kinds of machines and ran an IV. We were waiting for the anesthesiologist and the doctor to arrive until about 7:15 am. During this time, I experienced quite a few painful contractions which they said were good for the baby, but which I did not appreciate considering that they were going to be cutting me open anyways. The ultrasound machine confirmed that she was still breech. The doctor finally arrived and explained that they would take me to the operating room without Jake, but that he would be called in as the baby was being born.
They wheeled me into the room and it was cold (physically and emotionally). It was awful. People were running around everywhere and ignoring me as they seemed to speak another language with all of their medical terminology. There were torture tool sets arranged all over the room. Machines cornered me on every side. I hobbled over to the operating table and they helped me climb on. I sat up and began crying as I waited on the anesthesiologist. Some nurses noticed and tried to comfort me, but I felt cold and alone and really afraid.
The anesthesiologist injected me with a nerve block, and then two doctors helped me quickly lay down, so that the nerve block would move down to my legs and not upwards. I waited for it to set in. A nurse kept pinching my legs and various other parts of my body to ensure that the medicine had kicked in. I was worried that it hadn't and she assured me it had--she pressed something cold to my arm and then to my belly. I couldn't tell that it was cold on my belly, so we knew things were on track.
They put up a screen and taped my arms out (spread-eagle). Then they began cutting. I began to worry that Jake would never arrive. I just laid there surrounded by the doctors and nurses as they worked for what felt like quite a while. Finally my husband was ushered in and they pulled the baby out almost immediately. He says it looked like something out of a horror movie when he arrived--kind of gory.
Evelyn was born at 8:09 am and weighed 7 lbs, 9 oz. She was 19 inches long and I couldn't hold her, because they still had me strapped down and were sewing me back up. It was painful not to be able to hold her. After weighing and measuring her, the nurses bundled her up and handed her to her daddy. He held her and made goo-goo eyes at her for what felt like forever before finally bringing her over to me so that I could see her up close.
I was surprised that she looked very little like Thomas. Her nose and eyes and small, round head were all very different. I inspected her ears, because Thomas had had a crinkled up v-shaped spot on one of his ears when he was born. There was no v, but her ears were folded up flat. They took several weeks to completely unfold. She was beautiful. But covered in gross-ness. They told me that the new hospital policy was to wait a few hours before washing babies.
After an eternity of stitching, we were congratulated on our new baby and wheeled to the recovery room. Here I was finally able to hold my baby. I was still extremely numb from the nerve block and felt great. It was wonderful and my scared, alone tears turned to joyful tears. Everyone wanted to come in and see the baby, but they were only allowed back one at a time. We broke the rules and had 2 come in at a time--first the grandmothers, followed by the grandfathers.
And that is how baby Evelyn joined our family.
No comments:
Post a Comment