The Story

The Day Of:

I was scheduled to be induced Tuesday, September 5th at 7:30 AM. My doctor told me to call in at 6:00 AM to make sure they weren't too busy, and if they said to come in, to go right away. We did, and they were. I was told to call back at 8:00 and see. Same thing at 8:00, still to busy, call back at 10:00. Still busy at 10:00, call back at 12:00. Less busy at 12:00, but the shift manager lady who approves people being brought in for inductions was at lunch. Call back at 2:00. By this point, I'm mad, I'm frustrated, I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore, and I feel like they just keep putting me off. I hadn't been able to sleep since 4:00 AM because of the anticipation. And being my emotional self I'd broken down around 10:00 AM and had been crying off and on ever since. So my husband calls my doctors office, explains the situation, and makes me sound like a psycho-hormonal-pregnant lady (which I was, but it was kind of offensive at the moment). So my doctors nurse calls the hospital (where my doctor happens to be) and then calls us back. They had been really busy that morning and we were first on the list to be brought in as soon as they could. That made me feel a little better. A little. Then I got a call at 12:45 PM, from the hospital saying we could come down at 2:00. So I called my pre-set-up baby sitter, who'd been waiting just like us all day to see if she'd be needed, and arranged to drop googie off. Then I got nervous. Why was I so excited to go in today? Did I really want to go through labor?

At the Hospital, Before Birth:

They get me all set up with the registration forms, put an IV in, get the heart monitor on my belly and it's registering around 130/140. So that's a good thing. Maybe the monitor will be able to monitor her and we'll be fine. No special needs and a normal delivery, yeah! Then my doctor comes in. Says he would really be more comfortable with the head monitor. So he breaks my water (by the way, after feeling that, I was so dumb for thinking my water had broken! Wow, I didn't know there was that much fluid in there!) and attaches the little head electrode. Now her heart beat is just off the charts. The sheet that it is printing out looks more like an earth quake seismograph than a heart beat. So my doctor looks at it and gives us our choices again. He says we can go through with the induction, "drive blind," and hope nothing goes seriously wrong, or do the c-section. I mean what choice did we really have? Risk the life of your unborn child, or deal with recovery for 6 weeks. I mean seriously. Is it even a choice? We did a c-section.

In the Delivery Room:

They gave me a Spinal (like an epidural but it numbs all the way up to your chest) and then strapped my legs to the table and put up a screen so I can't see the hole they cut into my stomach. My husband got to be in the room with us. She was born 6 minutes after they started. It was a really interesting sensation. I could feel them pulling at my stomach, and I could feel them pushing on things, but I couldn't feel any pain (well duh, it'd be a pretty bad hospital if I could). They pulled her out and took her over to the heated bed. She took a while turning pink and was on extra oxygen for awhile, but she had a healthy cry so that was reassuring to me. Once they got her pink, they weighed and measured her. Then they took her to the "special care nursery" (that's what they called it, according to my MIL that's the same as the NICU, but whatever) and ran some tests on her heart, including an EKG. I was finished with surgery and back in my room about 4:45 PM. My husband kept running back and forth from the nursery to my room and around 6:30 PM I got to hold my baby for the first time. All the tests checked out and she's going to be okay.

The Recovery

Well so far it hasn't been that bad. She was born on Tuesday and we didn't come home until Friday. But honestly not that bad. They had me on Morphine for awhile at the hospital, and sent me home with some heavy duty drugs, but by Monday night all I needed was a couple of Tylenol. So here we are. 8 days after major abdominal surgery, and I'm walking around, up and down stairs. Completely taking care of myself and our little baby. So the C-section has overall not been that bad. It took me 3 weeks to recover fully from Googie's "normal" birth, and I'm betting it takes about the same with this one. Maybe longer for the incision to heal, but as far as pain and ability to function, in a couple more weeks I'll be 100%!

My Baby Girl

She is a gorgeous baby just like her sister. Sorry, no pictures, or names, I'm still kind of freaked out about the whole internet stalker thing. And we choose fairly unusual names for our girls. I'm still working on a code name for her, for now, she'll just be baby, or my baby, or the baby . . . etc. But I can tell you she is a little angel. She loves to cuddle and she loves to eat. She's up every two hours around the clock. Googie loves her little sister too. She's always wanting to hold her, and give her kisses. I'm always tired these days. But I have my mom here helping for the rest of this week, so I've been taking advantage of that and squeezing in a couple extra naps. Everyone is doing really well and trying to adjust to all the changes that come with a newborn.

Next weeks topic: Sibling rivalry. Why my oldest loves her new sister, but seems to hate me.