Birth story

If there is one thing that I would have changed I would have gone to bed earlier than I did Thanksgiving night. Our guests had left after dessert so the rest of us just hung out watching Modern Family reruns. At one point I went to the bathroom and thought that I was maybe leaking amniotic fluid because my underwear was wet (it didn't seem to be the normal discharge)...but decided that I would wait a little bit see if it continued or not (spoiler alert- it did not). Finally around 11:30 I decided to head to bed after having some Turkey Day leftovers. It still wasn't hitting me that I would meet my son or daughter the next day. Right before I got into bed I'm fairly certain that I had a REAL contraction as it lasted about five minutes and was painful.  

It took a while for me to fall asleep and when I finally did, I had the weirdest dream that I gave birth vaginally to a Butterball turkey.  The hospital was like a library with other people trying to check out books while I walked around with the turkey, trying to figure out how to get it into my uterus to turn it into a child.  I was very aware that I only had so much time to attach blood vessels.  After a while of trying to get someone behind the circulation desk and not getting anyone's attention, I started to realize that this is not how it works and WTF why did I not have a child at the end of these past 9 months??  What can I say- it was quite an odd dream!

After waking up, CP and I took showers, said goodbye to the humans and dogs in our house and headed off for the hospital to be there by 9am. We were a little annoyed after checking Facebook and seeing that CP's sister posted something that tagged the two of us and proclaimed that she was very excited we were having the baby today.  We weren't putting anything on Facebook until the baby had been delivered....it's just like both of our sisters to steal the thunder from us!

On the drive over, the mood was still very relaxed. After parking the car and heading to Labor & Delivery, I was led into a room where I changed into the L&D tube top and gown. The baby's heart rate looked great on the monitor and it went up whenever she squirmed.  I think getting into the room, having the anesthesiologist come to talk to me about what would happen/the potential risks of a spinal tap, and then having my doctor and her resident come into the room to talk about what would happen/potential complications, etc completely got to me. My legs started shaking uncontrollably and my blood pressure was all over the place. CP even seemed to be a little anxious, especially once they told him to suit up in the OR scrubs.  

I was wheeled into the OR and immediately scared everyone in the room by stepping over my IV line while on the stairs leading up to the bed instead of waiting for them to fix it for me. The anesthesiologist resident gave me the spinal tap which consisted of a smaller needle to dull the pain, then the bigger needle full of the serious medication. Neither one was that painful, although I was worried that my legs shaking uncontrollably would cause him to miss and puncture something else!  Part of the way through the procedure he was called and told about lunch that day- I was thinking to myself...ummm he's a little busy not paralyzing me!!!

The medicine started working pretty quickly as I lay down on the narrow bed as doctors prepared around me. Not being able to feel from my chest down was odd. I could feel the doctor's touch as he checked my legs, thighs, and stomach but had no pain from the pinching.  As soon as everyone was ready, I started to feel a little odd from the medicine so they quickly gave me anti- nausea medicine which made me feel better. CP was brought into the room and the doctors got started.  I had no idea what was going on behind the curtain, but the nice anesthesiologist kept a conversation going which was a nice distraction. Every once in a while he would lean over the curtain and tell me where they were in the procedure. 

Pretty soon I heard " okay you are going to feel pressure" and really that was the worst part of the surgery (but still not that bad). Basically they had to press down right below my breasts which made it hard to breathe when they were trying to pull Izzy out.

Izzy immediately started with a gargled scream as soon as she hit the cold air and my doctor said "it's a girl!" I immediately started to cry in relief and happiness. CP said he got a little misty eyed as well. They brought her over to the table to clean her up a bit, weigh her, get the gunk out of her throat, etc all while we watched. Her apagar scores were 8 then 9. She was a perfect shade of pink with a ridinkulous head of dark brown, almost black hair.

After only a few minutes Izzy was in CP's arms and right next to me. The rest of the procedure is a bit of a blur as I was watching my new daughter, first off amazed that she was a girl (75% of people guessed boy because I was all belly) and secondly, shaking like a leaf. Anesthesia tends to do it to me but my arms couldn't stop shaking and my teeth couldn't stop chattering. CP held onto Izzy with one arm, taking pictures while also holding onto my arm. The nice anesthesiologist also took a few family pictures as well.

My OB found one of the fibroids- it is located behind the uterus and isn't too big right now.  We will have to keep an eye on it as it is located in a crappy area to remove it and just hope that it doesn't get too big.  The rest of the procedure seemed to take forever compared to how quickly Izzy came out, but finally I was stitched up and ready to head to the recovery area.