That night, I stayed up until midnight –
getting ready, and guzzling water. I woke up the next morning at 4:00 am (we
had to be at the hospital by 5:00 am for my 7:00 am surgery) and again bathed with
the icky soap and headed to the hospital.
When we arrived at the hospital, we found
out that a woman with twins had gone into labor and was also going to need a
c-section… she was going to be put before me and we were going to have to wait
until 9 am to have our baby. I was SO sad… and VERY thirsty! They went ahead and
led me back to my room to start the IV.
I should mention here that my two biggest
fears about having a c-section had nothing to do with the actual surgery – they
were getting the IV and getting a cathedar. I’d never had either of those
before and had always heard nightmares. And now I’ll take a minute and sing the
praises of the hospital nurse. Those two things could not have gone more
smoothly. And they had me take an alka-seltzer before the surgery. Again,
something I’ve never had, but I was so thirsty that the little Dixie cup of water
they handed me couldn’t have been more refreshing!
Well, I ended up getting to go ahead with
the surgery at 7am as planned, so they went ahead and wheeled me back. The
spinal was also not the most fun part, especially because they had to do mine
twice (I have scoliosis and the original time didn’t take!)
The surgery itself was really short –
within minutes, they had pulled my baby girl out and were starting to stitch me
up. I don’t remember a whole lot about it, other than that my husband was holding my
hand, and I could fell a LOT of pressure when they were pulling her out. My husband kept wanting to stand up and take pictures of it, and I kept telling him that
if he did, and he passed out, I would never forgive him! He actually ended up
taking a few pictures of it on his cell phone, and while they are gross and
disturbing, I’m actually kind of glad he did!
My most precious memory of that morning
was when they pulled her out. For those of you who know me – I am not a crier.
I didn’t cry in Bambi, I didn’t cry in the Notebook, and I don’t really cry
much at home. Well, hearing my beautiful baby girl for the first time, and
having my husband bring her over and let me kiss her on the forehead was probably one
of the sweetest moments I have ever experienced. And I was weepy!
Since I didn’t get to have the birth
experience I had always hoped for, nursing became a critical focus of mine. I
wanted to make sure that I had plenty of skin-to-skin time with my baby and
wanted to be with her immediately!
I was so blessed that I was able to do
that – after they closed me up, I went into recovery for a little while, and
then was able to spend some sweet time with my baby girl.
The rest of the morning was a complete
blur. I was in-and-out of sleep from the medicine they gave me, and don’t
remember much at all. My father-in-law was there and between he and my mom, we have
more pictures than anyone could ever need!
A few funny things that happened that
morning were:
- My husband got to meet the husband of the woman who was having the twins. They had decided
on such unique names for their children that he couldn’t remember how to spell
them and had to look it up in his cell phone!
- My husband
decided to take a picture of one of the twins and send it to his cousin,
pretending it was our baby (the twins were black babies). His cousin didn’t
realize the joke and forwarded the picture on to the family!
-
When
we got to the room, my mom was looking out the window to see what kind of view
we had. She saw that there were some trees and a black bench. Apparently, I
said “I’ve ALWAYS wanted a room with a black bench”… yeah, that was the meds
talking!
-
Another
time, my mom said that she was talking to my dad and my father-in-law about
something, and in a completely unrelated fit, I yelled out “her name is E--- G--- – E--- G---!” Um, yeah, no idea what that was about!
Our first family photo!
