So everyone got an earful of my prodromal labor plight, on pretty much a daily basis for a week. And we all figured labor was just around the corner, and indeed, it was! This past Tuesday night, the contractions started to get much more intense, and very regular. By Wednesday evening, they'd actually become excruciatingly painful, and I mean in the sense that my instincts told me something wasn't right about them---They were bringing me to my knees, causing vision spots and making breathing painful (and sometimes impossible)all at once. I never had the pushing urge, but I had all I could do not to start screaming in pain, so DH called my mom at work and told her what was going on.
She in turn called one of her friends, who was our designated ride to the hospital anyway. Problem with that friend is, she's so wrapped up in her own little world that she sometimes has a tendancy to put emergencies on the back-burner if it's not revolving around her. We waited almost 2 hours and were getting ready to call for an ambulance when she FINALLY showed up (she'd picked my mom up from work, too) and hauled ass over to the hospital.
After I was admitted, they did the basic exam with the heart rates and such, and one of the nurses palpating me got a funny look on her face after feeling around my scar and called in the surgeon, who in turn did an internal and checked my previous c-section scar (I was fully dilated btw) both externally and internally, looked horrified and ran an ultrasound on the scar real quick. In a nutshell, my scar was tearing apart a little at a time with each contraction and I was beginning to rupture. He offered me a VBAC in the OR if I really wanted to try for it, but after considering the risks with fully rupturing, I consented to a c-section anyway, in tears of disappointment, regardless....The surgery was pretty pleasent, at least it seemed that way as doped up as I was, and the team was pretty lighthearted and easygoing, especially the anesthesiologist, he was a dream with the bedside manner! This team was the total opposite of the one from my first emergency c-section (they treated me and DH like garbage, and so did the rest of the hospital staff---THIS TIME, we went to a different area hospital with a MUCH better reputation)
When they pulled the baby out, I noticed I wasn't rocking all over the table this time, it was very gentle in contrast. At that point, we still didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, but we heard one of the folks say something about mec aspiration, and they suctioned and bathed baby real quick, and another surgical nurse said to us, "It's a girl! And she's got a full head of hair!" DH would have run laps around the OR if they'd have let him, he'd wanted a girl so bad I almost though he was delusional---I was actually positive we were having a boy, lol, so we have a dresser full of boy clothes....The lesson learned is that even though paternal family history plays a role, just because the boys outnumber the girls 4 or 5 to 1, it doesn't mean the chances aren't there for girls
I was sorely proven wrong.
They took her to the nursery real quick for the baby basics and DH happily trotted behind grinning ear to ear like a cheshire cat
I was listening to the surgeon quietly talking to his nurses while they were finishing up, and he kept saying stuff along the lines of, "Who did this to her? This is horrible work..." and "I can't leave this much ill-healed scar tissue in here, she'll only have this problem again if I do." That guy was so adamant about getting me as close as good as new as he could, he spent a good extra 30 minutes minimum (I lost track of the time after a while) removing excess scar tissue and scar tissue that adheared bad, etc etc. I always had an underlying feeling that the previous a-hole surgeon did a crappy job, but my surgery report from that was technically good, all I had to go off of if I'd complained was a jagged, achey scar at the time...The nice thing about this surgeon was that he came and checked up on me 3 times before I was discharged---something the other one never even did once. This guy even apologized for me not having my VBAC----Come to find out the guy's an emergency surgeon and only does emergency Cs. Imagine that, a c-section surgeon with ethics!
Oh, and in the OR while they were cleaning her up, they noted she was 43 weeks, one nurse said, "She's just a week past due, no big deal." Nobody seemed to bat an eyelash at me being past due at all!
They moved me to a recovery room for a while, and DH came back with her, and my mom and her friend came practically running in cooing and squealing and the whole nine yards, and both of their jaws hit the floor when they saw how much hair she had
They moved me into a room with a roomie---Apparently there was a "baby boom" in the past few days and women were coming in in droves and maxed out the ward's beds and they had to open up the overflow ward. I stayed in bed and hooked up to an IV for 24 hours, and my incision was covered with a pressure bandage and a pressure wrap for the lower torso, but those also came off after 24 hours (last time, they forgot about it for 2 DAYS before anyone remembered to take it off) I was given every anti-itch medication they had to try to control the uncontrollable itching side effect from one of the surgery drugs, and nothing so much as dented that damn itch, I was going bonkers scratching everywhere all the time. Thank god it went away after a day.
Thursday they wanted me to take a shower, and of course, ever-so-eager me figures if I can stroll around my bed, I could probably handle a shower at that point. Well, no, that didn't work. As soon as I turned the warm water on, I got dizzy, lightheaded, tunnel vision, COLD, sweaty as sin, etc etc and just BARELY made it to the chair next to the call button. I had 4 nurses come running in, and let's just say at that point, I let go of any sense of modesty I had left---Nothing like being buck naked with a lochia flow and having 4 people trying to keep you covered and help you out of the bathroom to your bed, what an ego killer We came to the conclusion that since I was going to be discharged Friday, I'd try again Friday sometime after I'd had plenty of rest and some extra food (they think my BP and blood sugar nosedived at the same time)
Over the course of the night, they wanted to do the PKU on her, and said if I wanted to I could use it as an excuse to get a little sleep, and if I wanted more sleep than that, they could watch her at the nurses station. I let them watch her for 5 hours overnight, but never got a wink of sleep, I kept going to the door and eyeballing the nurses station Funny how I was so desperate for a little extra rest time, but didn't want it without my kid in the room
Friday, I did manage to get a shower in, but it was in the afternoon after a new roomie came in with the whole friggin' family (a Hispanic family) At one point, there was at LEAST 15 people crammed in her side of the room, which is also the side of the room the BATHROOM is on. We got fed up with the increasing noise and left the baby at the nurses station a few times so she could nap---They kept waking her up and didn't seem to care. At some point, one of the nurses said something to them and the crowd dwindled after a while.....I got my shower in after only having to hobble my way past 7 or 8 visitors in front of the bathroom door
: I made it worth my time, I spent almost 45 minutes in there relishing in the perfect water pressure---After a few days on my back in bed most of the day, that felt soooooo good on the muscles!
My mom and her friend came and picked us up that night---3 hours late. Those nurses have the patience of saints, I swear they do. It wasn't my mom's fault they were late, her friend just HAD to make a detour and go baby shopping. Not that I don't appreciate it, but it could have effin' waited til this weekend, not when we were supposed to be getting picked up.
I liked the stay there, the nurses, although varied and some were students training, they were great people. I honestly couldn't have been treated better, it was amazing.
So, to sum it up, here's the run down:
Angela Quinn ******
Born by emergency repeat c-section shortly before 10pm on December 5, 2007
6 pounds 8 ounces
19 and 1/2 inches long
Gestational age was 43 weeks
And here's some pictures! The first one was right after she was brough to the post-surgery recovery room, the second was about an hour later in the actual hospital room.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela1.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela2.jpg
Wrapped up in the blanket I crocheted for her over a month ago, after we named her.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela3.jpg
Daddy's little princess napping on daddy's chest this morning.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela4.jpg
Snoozing in her temporary bassinet til we find something for the longrun.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela5.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela6.jpg
She in turn called one of her friends, who was our designated ride to the hospital anyway. Problem with that friend is, she's so wrapped up in her own little world that she sometimes has a tendancy to put emergencies on the back-burner if it's not revolving around her. We waited almost 2 hours and were getting ready to call for an ambulance when she FINALLY showed up (she'd picked my mom up from work, too) and hauled ass over to the hospital.
After I was admitted, they did the basic exam with the heart rates and such, and one of the nurses palpating me got a funny look on her face after feeling around my scar and called in the surgeon, who in turn did an internal and checked my previous c-section scar (I was fully dilated btw) both externally and internally, looked horrified and ran an ultrasound on the scar real quick. In a nutshell, my scar was tearing apart a little at a time with each contraction and I was beginning to rupture. He offered me a VBAC in the OR if I really wanted to try for it, but after considering the risks with fully rupturing, I consented to a c-section anyway, in tears of disappointment, regardless....The surgery was pretty pleasent, at least it seemed that way as doped up as I was, and the team was pretty lighthearted and easygoing, especially the anesthesiologist, he was a dream with the bedside manner! This team was the total opposite of the one from my first emergency c-section (they treated me and DH like garbage, and so did the rest of the hospital staff---THIS TIME, we went to a different area hospital with a MUCH better reputation)
When they pulled the baby out, I noticed I wasn't rocking all over the table this time, it was very gentle in contrast. At that point, we still didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, but we heard one of the folks say something about mec aspiration, and they suctioned and bathed baby real quick, and another surgical nurse said to us, "It's a girl! And she's got a full head of hair!" DH would have run laps around the OR if they'd have let him, he'd wanted a girl so bad I almost though he was delusional---I was actually positive we were having a boy, lol, so we have a dresser full of boy clothes....The lesson learned is that even though paternal family history plays a role, just because the boys outnumber the girls 4 or 5 to 1, it doesn't mean the chances aren't there for girls
I was sorely proven wrong.They took her to the nursery real quick for the baby basics and DH happily trotted behind grinning ear to ear like a cheshire cat
I was listening to the surgeon quietly talking to his nurses while they were finishing up, and he kept saying stuff along the lines of, "Who did this to her? This is horrible work..." and "I can't leave this much ill-healed scar tissue in here, she'll only have this problem again if I do." That guy was so adamant about getting me as close as good as new as he could, he spent a good extra 30 minutes minimum (I lost track of the time after a while) removing excess scar tissue and scar tissue that adheared bad, etc etc. I always had an underlying feeling that the previous a-hole surgeon did a crappy job, but my surgery report from that was technically good, all I had to go off of if I'd complained was a jagged, achey scar at the time...The nice thing about this surgeon was that he came and checked up on me 3 times before I was discharged---something the other one never even did once. This guy even apologized for me not having my VBAC----Come to find out the guy's an emergency surgeon and only does emergency Cs. Imagine that, a c-section surgeon with ethics!Oh, and in the OR while they were cleaning her up, they noted she was 43 weeks, one nurse said, "She's just a week past due, no big deal." Nobody seemed to bat an eyelash at me being past due at all!
They moved me to a recovery room for a while, and DH came back with her, and my mom and her friend came practically running in cooing and squealing and the whole nine yards, and both of their jaws hit the floor when they saw how much hair she had
They moved me into a room with a roomie---Apparently there was a "baby boom" in the past few days and women were coming in in droves and maxed out the ward's beds and they had to open up the overflow ward. I stayed in bed and hooked up to an IV for 24 hours, and my incision was covered with a pressure bandage and a pressure wrap for the lower torso, but those also came off after 24 hours (last time, they forgot about it for 2 DAYS before anyone remembered to take it off) I was given every anti-itch medication they had to try to control the uncontrollable itching side effect from one of the surgery drugs, and nothing so much as dented that damn itch, I was going bonkers scratching everywhere all the time. Thank god it went away after a day.
Thursday they wanted me to take a shower, and of course, ever-so-eager me figures if I can stroll around my bed, I could probably handle a shower at that point. Well, no, that didn't work. As soon as I turned the warm water on, I got dizzy, lightheaded, tunnel vision, COLD, sweaty as sin, etc etc and just BARELY made it to the chair next to the call button. I had 4 nurses come running in, and let's just say at that point, I let go of any sense of modesty I had left---Nothing like being buck naked with a lochia flow and having 4 people trying to keep you covered and help you out of the bathroom to your bed, what an ego killer
We came to the conclusion that since I was going to be discharged Friday, I'd try again Friday sometime after I'd had plenty of rest and some extra food (they think my BP and blood sugar nosedived at the same time)Over the course of the night, they wanted to do the PKU on her, and said if I wanted to I could use it as an excuse to get a little sleep, and if I wanted more sleep than that, they could watch her at the nurses station. I let them watch her for 5 hours overnight, but never got a wink of sleep, I kept going to the door and eyeballing the nurses station
Funny how I was so desperate for a little extra rest time, but didn't want it without my kid in the room Friday, I did manage to get a shower in, but it was in the afternoon after a new roomie came in with the whole friggin' family (a Hispanic family) At one point, there was at LEAST 15 people crammed in her side of the room, which is also the side of the room the BATHROOM is on. We got fed up with the increasing noise and left the baby at the nurses station a few times so she could nap---They kept waking her up and didn't seem to care. At some point, one of the nurses said something to them and the crowd dwindled after a while.....I got my shower in after only having to hobble my way past 7 or 8 visitors in front of the bathroom door
: I made it worth my time, I spent almost 45 minutes in there relishing in the perfect water pressure---After a few days on my back in bed most of the day, that felt soooooo good on the muscles!My mom and her friend came and picked us up that night---3 hours late. Those nurses have the patience of saints, I swear they do. It wasn't my mom's fault they were late, her friend just HAD to make a detour and go baby shopping. Not that I don't appreciate it, but it could have effin' waited til this weekend, not when we were supposed to be getting picked up.
I liked the stay there, the nurses, although varied and some were students training, they were great people. I honestly couldn't have been treated better, it was amazing.
So, to sum it up, here's the run down:
Angela Quinn ******
Born by emergency repeat c-section shortly before 10pm on December 5, 2007
6 pounds 8 ounces
19 and 1/2 inches long
Gestational age was 43 weeks
And here's some pictures! The first one was right after she was brough to the post-surgery recovery room, the second was about an hour later in the actual hospital room.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela1.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela2.jpg
Wrapped up in the blanket I crocheted for her over a month ago, after we named her.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela3.jpg
Daddy's little princess napping on daddy's chest this morning.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela4.jpg
Snoozing in her temporary bassinet til we find something for the longrun.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela5.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...os/angela6.jpg
I'm sorry you didn't get your VBAC, but at least you know you did all you could.
, Angela! Congratulations, Lizzie!
