Born on Friday November 20 at 7:59 am. I keep meaning to get this typed out but he is such an avid nursling and I really do need both hands to nurse, lol, so finding time to do this has been tricky. The general run-down is:
11/19: Thursday night: I had myself so worked up I literally did not sleep that night. I was a nervous wreck and still not at peace with having a cesarean. It was all I could do to lay in bed and let my mom get her sleep. I reminded myself that laying down is still resting, and resting is still better than not resting for my baby's sake and my own.
11/20: 4:15 am: I am bounding out of bed like a kid on Christmas morning. All at once I am thrilled - complete 180 in my outlook, lol. Gotta love hormonal shifts and mood swings...or maybe I spent the night processing on some level, either way, I am overwhelmed with joy knowing I will meet my baby in a few short hours. It no longer matters to me 'how', only 'when', and 'when' is sooner than ever! I am dressed, the van is packed and I am anxiously pacing the living room, praying harder than ever that everything goes well - and my poor mother is trying to not look as weary as she actually is and to mimic my suddenly perky new attitude.
5:15 am I kiss my sleeping kids goodbye, tho I actually wake my 15 year old up to quickly review instructions with her and my brother. As we back out of the driveway, I suddenly decide I need to bring my birth plan to the hospital even tho my OB was so heavily against so much of it. Waddle painstakingly back into the house to retrieve it and then we are on our way.
5:30 am we check in at the Women's Center in the hospital. I'm attached to continuous fetal monitoring and settled into a not-so-cozy bed where suddenly my lack of sleep and the steady ticking of my baby's heart on the monitor hits me like a ton of bricks. I doze off as my mom nervously chats with every single person she sees.
6:30 am while meeting with the nurses and anesthesiologists (OB has not yet arrived at the hospital) I pull out my birth plan and let them all read it through. To my surprise they all seemed on-board with most of it! Pray that OB doesn't ruin this for me.
7:00 am I am taken to the OR which seems to be much smaller and more intimate than what I remember from 5 years ago. I had this amazing anesthesiologist named Paul, very nurturing man. I was immediately grateful for his presence - he seemed to sense my fear and really became almost protective and reassuring all at once, unfortunately he was only assisting, the other guy I was not so fond of. Of course the OR was freezing. I understood then why my OB wouldn't put my wet baby on my chest and cover us in blankets. It was seriously very cold. The other anesthesiologist had some trouble getting my spinal in, OMG I just remember being curled over and feeling this sharpness stabbing and pushing into my spine repeatedly. Holy OUCH. This never happened to me before with any of my prior sections. Finally he gave up and had to move up to the next vertebral space. They warned me I might feel like I am unable to breathe, that I would still be breathing, but not be able to sense it which can induce panic. Guess what? It happened. SCARIEST FREAKIN' MOMENT OF MY LIFE. I really felt like I could NOT breathe. I'm laying there, gasping for air frantically shaking my head back and forth trying to find air and then the nausea comes. I'm dry-heaving and gasping and truly I think, at that moment, this is the end for me. Everything I was so afraid of was happening all at once. Other guy seems unconcerned. Tells me I'm fine. And then Paul comes back in the room, steps between me and other guy, calms me down, explains what is happening and how he can help - apparently my BP dropped rapidly, some IV meds were given to bring it back up and within seconds I felt FINE.
7:15 am, OB shows up. She seems to be in a much better mood than our last conversation. Of course she is coming off a week-long vacation
.
7:30 am, My mom comes in and everything gets under way. Surgery is started and MY ARMS ARE NOT THE LEAST BIT STRAPPED DOWN!! They left my arms free!! OB had shot that idea down if you recall. They also did not cath me until after my spinal was placed. Both in accordance with my birth plan ::grin::. Little victories.
7:59 am, little Brenan Oliver is born. There was no dropping of the drape, nor mirror - so I lost the chance to see him enter the world, but this does not truly crush me for long because a split second later he is under the warmer which has a camera attached to it and I am watching my gooey wet perfect baby on a huge flat screen tv mounted to the left above me!! I got to see everything about him and everything they did to him crystal-clear and larger-than-life in real-time!! That. Was. Awesome. They did weigh/measure him right then, but they were quick about it and just as soon as they had him dry and wrapped they handed him to my mom who handed him to me and we held him together - it was beautiful and I couldn't stop crying.
He weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces and was 20 inches long.
They clamped his cord, but left it longer than my other kids' were, and didn't stain it - just left it alone - which for some reason makes me really happy, lol, maybe because it is a little piece of nature they left natural, kwim? At any rate, I took pictures of it in it's various stages of drying I was so happy about it
. And they never took him from me! There was no "mandatory" time he had to spend in the nursery for observation like they've always done in the past. He never once left my side for over the first 24 hours. They asked and I consented to lab draws for bili and metabolic, etc. which he went to the nursery for but only for a few minutes - otherwise he never left my arms. And they ASKED before they did ANYTHING with him. Even when they came in to check his vitals - they asked my permission. No one touched him without asking me first! I was deeply impressed. I wonder if it would have been the same if I hadn't had the birth plan. Whether the hospital changed it's policies or if they were just being mindful of my wishes.
The down-side is that post-op they gave me Duramorph in my IV, which I've never had before. Apparently they felt it was the greatest method of pain control because it came very highly recommended. Unfortunately I did not tolerate it well at all. I itched from my scalp to the soles of my feet and had terrible dizziness and vomiting for the first several hours. After a few rounds of compazine and zofran I was myself again, but yeah, no fun. As a testament to what motherhood can force you to do, I was diligent in my hands-on care and nursed Brenan straight through the worst of it so no one got any ideas about him needing to go to the nursery, lol.
Anyway, we've been home since Monday and are both doing very well. He is absolutely beautiful and feels so SO unbelievably good to hold - OMG! He is like Heaven on earth. I'll figure out how to attach pics later, but for now - he's asking for his mama milk again, lol.
Thanks for reading, hope it made sense.
11/19: Thursday night: I had myself so worked up I literally did not sleep that night. I was a nervous wreck and still not at peace with having a cesarean. It was all I could do to lay in bed and let my mom get her sleep. I reminded myself that laying down is still resting, and resting is still better than not resting for my baby's sake and my own.
11/20: 4:15 am: I am bounding out of bed like a kid on Christmas morning. All at once I am thrilled - complete 180 in my outlook, lol. Gotta love hormonal shifts and mood swings...or maybe I spent the night processing on some level, either way, I am overwhelmed with joy knowing I will meet my baby in a few short hours. It no longer matters to me 'how', only 'when', and 'when' is sooner than ever! I am dressed, the van is packed and I am anxiously pacing the living room, praying harder than ever that everything goes well - and my poor mother is trying to not look as weary as she actually is and to mimic my suddenly perky new attitude.
5:15 am I kiss my sleeping kids goodbye, tho I actually wake my 15 year old up to quickly review instructions with her and my brother. As we back out of the driveway, I suddenly decide I need to bring my birth plan to the hospital even tho my OB was so heavily against so much of it. Waddle painstakingly back into the house to retrieve it and then we are on our way.
5:30 am we check in at the Women's Center in the hospital. I'm attached to continuous fetal monitoring and settled into a not-so-cozy bed where suddenly my lack of sleep and the steady ticking of my baby's heart on the monitor hits me like a ton of bricks. I doze off as my mom nervously chats with every single person she sees.
6:30 am while meeting with the nurses and anesthesiologists (OB has not yet arrived at the hospital) I pull out my birth plan and let them all read it through. To my surprise they all seemed on-board with most of it! Pray that OB doesn't ruin this for me.
7:00 am I am taken to the OR which seems to be much smaller and more intimate than what I remember from 5 years ago. I had this amazing anesthesiologist named Paul, very nurturing man. I was immediately grateful for his presence - he seemed to sense my fear and really became almost protective and reassuring all at once, unfortunately he was only assisting, the other guy I was not so fond of. Of course the OR was freezing. I understood then why my OB wouldn't put my wet baby on my chest and cover us in blankets. It was seriously very cold. The other anesthesiologist had some trouble getting my spinal in, OMG I just remember being curled over and feeling this sharpness stabbing and pushing into my spine repeatedly. Holy OUCH. This never happened to me before with any of my prior sections. Finally he gave up and had to move up to the next vertebral space. They warned me I might feel like I am unable to breathe, that I would still be breathing, but not be able to sense it which can induce panic. Guess what? It happened. SCARIEST FREAKIN' MOMENT OF MY LIFE. I really felt like I could NOT breathe. I'm laying there, gasping for air frantically shaking my head back and forth trying to find air and then the nausea comes. I'm dry-heaving and gasping and truly I think, at that moment, this is the end for me. Everything I was so afraid of was happening all at once. Other guy seems unconcerned. Tells me I'm fine. And then Paul comes back in the room, steps between me and other guy, calms me down, explains what is happening and how he can help - apparently my BP dropped rapidly, some IV meds were given to bring it back up and within seconds I felt FINE.
7:15 am, OB shows up. She seems to be in a much better mood than our last conversation. Of course she is coming off a week-long vacation
.7:30 am, My mom comes in and everything gets under way. Surgery is started and MY ARMS ARE NOT THE LEAST BIT STRAPPED DOWN!! They left my arms free!! OB had shot that idea down if you recall. They also did not cath me until after my spinal was placed. Both in accordance with my birth plan ::grin::. Little victories.
7:59 am, little Brenan Oliver is born. There was no dropping of the drape, nor mirror - so I lost the chance to see him enter the world, but this does not truly crush me for long because a split second later he is under the warmer which has a camera attached to it and I am watching my gooey wet perfect baby on a huge flat screen tv mounted to the left above me!! I got to see everything about him and everything they did to him crystal-clear and larger-than-life in real-time!! That. Was. Awesome. They did weigh/measure him right then, but they were quick about it and just as soon as they had him dry and wrapped they handed him to my mom who handed him to me and we held him together - it was beautiful and I couldn't stop crying.
He weighed 8 pounds 8 ounces and was 20 inches long.
They clamped his cord, but left it longer than my other kids' were, and didn't stain it - just left it alone - which for some reason makes me really happy, lol, maybe because it is a little piece of nature they left natural, kwim? At any rate, I took pictures of it in it's various stages of drying I was so happy about it
. And they never took him from me! There was no "mandatory" time he had to spend in the nursery for observation like they've always done in the past. He never once left my side for over the first 24 hours. They asked and I consented to lab draws for bili and metabolic, etc. which he went to the nursery for but only for a few minutes - otherwise he never left my arms. And they ASKED before they did ANYTHING with him. Even when they came in to check his vitals - they asked my permission. No one touched him without asking me first! I was deeply impressed. I wonder if it would have been the same if I hadn't had the birth plan. Whether the hospital changed it's policies or if they were just being mindful of my wishes.The down-side is that post-op they gave me Duramorph in my IV, which I've never had before. Apparently they felt it was the greatest method of pain control because it came very highly recommended. Unfortunately I did not tolerate it well at all. I itched from my scalp to the soles of my feet and had terrible dizziness and vomiting for the first several hours. After a few rounds of compazine and zofran I was myself again, but yeah, no fun. As a testament to what motherhood can force you to do, I was diligent in my hands-on care and nursed Brenan straight through the worst of it so no one got any ideas about him needing to go to the nursery, lol.
Anyway, we've been home since Monday and are both doing very well. He is absolutely beautiful and feels so SO unbelievably good to hold - OMG! He is like Heaven on earth. I'll figure out how to attach pics later, but for now - he's asking for his mama milk again, lol.
Thanks for reading, hope it made sense.
