Let’s see if I can sit down and write out the story of how Venice came into the world. It was Tuesday, November 22 and the day I had predicted all along that she would arrive. The last days of pregnancy were rough. I was accepting a lot of help, very cranky. Mix it up with a need to clean everything, obsess about the kids lunches and such for school, and tying up loose ends. And impatience. Baby was crazy moving, you could see her from the outside and my hips would randomly separate. Nothing was comfy- sitting, standing, sleeping, I had a cold and was pretty miserable.
So my mom came to watch the kids and I headed off to my 10 am appointment. The ultrasound technician found her head down, quiet, not moving much, good heartbeat. We were at “failing” the biophysical pretty quickly so I figured I’d head over to the non-stress test and she’d start jumping. Instead they sent me to the hospital. I called Mom and Jorge saying no rush yet, it was probably just going to be a false alarm like last week. Nope! Dr. L was at Triage and saying “we’re going to deliver her today.” They hooked me up to monitors and initially they were going to wait a few hours to let my breakfast settle. So Jorge headed home to grab the bags, Mom pulled the kids together and the plan was for Lilia to pick them up at 4:30.
Well there was a change and Dr. L had to attend a complex cesarean, so Dr. C was called in. He said the baby had only passed the biophysical by a bit and was pretty quiet on the monitors so if we could get Jorge there in the next hour, I would be first before a bunch of scheduled procedures. Craziness!
Jorge made it in time and they had me prepped and iv’d for surgery. Of course they blew a few veins and things had to sign a second set of consent forms for the change in doctor. The anesthesiologist was good but it took him 3 times to get the spinal in and it was painful. They switched nurses to a second nurse that helped me pose a bit better. It’s hard to bend forward when your belly is in the way! Once that was in things were better. Except for the cold that allowed me only to face one direction and I was so stuffy I was having a hard time hearing. I felt the strong pressure on my chest of not being able to breathe but it was short-lived thank-goodness! No nausea during the procedure but I was nervous. It felt like a very long time before they got the baby out.
She arrived at 2:30 and Jorge got to go to the nursery with her. The rest of the surgery was slow and apparently I had a good amount of scar tissue. They used glue on the top layer, so that was good. The immediate recovery was rough, I felt unsettled and shaky and weird, but by the time I got to my room I was feeling better. Jorge had taken photos and showed me on the ipad during recovery so that helped and we picked a photo to share on Facebook as our announcement. It helped distract and pass the time.
We had a lot of visitors pretty quickly and I must have been out of it because I don’t remember the first moments in the room with the baby, something I had been worried about all along! The kids got to be with us and Sylvie took awhile to warm up. Logan was cute and excited and held her. My dad got to come in right away but didn’t meet the baby til the next day. He met up with my mom and took over the dog and she came in to hold the baby right away.
She was pretty sleepy but a good baby. Didn’t love her bassinet, but did let us put her in it some of the time. Nursed quite a bit and then would sleep for too long. It was hard to wake her up to eat! She had a test for jaundice and an echocardiogram for a hole in her heart. Both came up okay, but it took awhile to get released on the third day (Thanksgiving) waiting for the results.
All in all, a good birth experience. The things I worried about went as well as I could have hoped. And Jorge was really a great help in the room.
