On the morning of her birth we woke at 4 AM in preparation to be at the hospital by 5 AM, the cesarean section scheduled for 7 AM. As Scott and I scurried about getting ready to leave we communicated wordlessly, just passed frightened/excited looks. I had personally resolved to keep myself focused on simple and immediate tasks. Find shoes, put on shoes, grab overnight bag, locate jacket, wear jacket, so on. I slept maybe 4 hours the night before and being tired helped dial down my nerves.
Oh, and incidentally, I haven’t slept more than 4 consecutive hours since.
We checked in at Hotel Baby and made our way down elongated hospital hallways towards the security camera monitored, baby-stealin-proof doors of the “Maternal Child Unit” where we were buzzed in and greeted by our nurse. Now I promised my self I would remember this nurse’s name, being that she was so great to me and so terrific at her job, but alas it’s been three weeks and I’ve already lost it. She had brown hair and kind eyes…..I think. Over the course of two hours she got me into my hospital gown, provided Scott his surgical scrubs, hooked me up to an IV, various machinery, appropriate drugs, and a catheter which SUCKED. All the while I’m beginning to notice that the Braxton Hicks I’d been feeling on and off for the past few weeks were suddenly way more ON than they were ever off. They were actual, honest to God contractions. It seems the baby would have come that day whether we’d scheduled her to happen or not. And I was, at long last, experiencing true labor …. which, by the way, SUCKED.
By a quarter to 7 AM I was reconsidering my whole “c-sections are a breeze” approach of the previous 9 months when in walks Mr. Friendly the anesthesiologist. The fellow who would be sticking needles into my spinal cord this morning. The fellow who was surprisingly NOT so friendly. He was a middle aged man of Asian decent who interrogated me like a suspected felon and came at me in such an overtly gruff manner that every one in the room shot me the wide eyed “Is this guy for real?” look.
Needless to say his demeanor was NOT a confidence builder towards his ability to NOT paralyze me for life.
7 AM – Showtime (Beep! Beep!)
At 7, without delay, I was led to the O.R.
Scott was to wait outside this room while they prepped me for surgery and administered the spinal block. My first impression of the O.R. table was that it looked very much like a prone cross, with two long, skinny panels protruding from each side to hold my outstretched arms. Suddenly I’m having kooky thoughts about sacrificial lambs.
My nurse had me sit up on the OR table and lean forward so Mr. Friendly could work his friendly needle magic in the small of my back. My legs were stretched out before me and shaking badly. I told my brain to tell my legs to knock it off or we might indeed never walk again and a moment later the shaking stopped. And I’ll say this for Mr. Friendly, what he lacked in personality he completely made up for in skill. I barely felt the needles and it was over before it seemed to have ever begun.
With the lower half of my body slowly losing feeling, and temporarily ignoring any further orders from my brain, they laid me out…. on the cross. In this most holy of positions they hooked something up to my right arm, I know not what, and left my left hand free to hold that of husband’s, whenever he was let in.
Assorted people in blue scrubs began to file in. My nurse noted that my blood pressure had really shot up. “You must be nervous” she said. But the best was the heart monitor. I could hear my heart rate loud and clear, a steady “boop-boop-boop” from the monitor. As activity around me increased and I began to have a panicky thought or two I could hear my heart rate go from “boop-boop-boop” to an urgent “BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!” and then I was embarrassed. As though everyone in the room could actually HEAR my coo-coo thoughts, and I’d calm myself back down to a “boop-boop” status as soon as possible.
It’s here that I realized Mr. Friendly was standing behind my shower capped and oxygen masked head (boop-boop-boop) where I could not see him but could occasionally hear him (boop-boop-boop) at the head of this seeming crucifixion (beep-beep-beep-beep) like some sort of ancient high priest (Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!) presiding over the sacrifice (BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!) My doctor strolled in ever so nonchalantly (boop-boop-boop-boop), as docs are wont to do. He said hello to me (boop-boop-boop) and greeted the others (boop-boop-boop). They all disappear behind a curtain of blue that rises from my neck upward (boop-boop) and while I’m staring at nothing but ceiling it sure sounds as if they’re getting started (beep-beep-beep) and yes, it sure as hell sounds as if they’ve gotten started (beep!beep!beep!BEEP!) and I wonder, almost aloud, “Where the EF is my husband!”
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
Seconds later they brought in Scott and (sure enough) to hear him tell it afterwards they’d already had their hands inside my sliced abdomen when he was escorted in. The expression on his face told me as much. He took one look at my midsection, quickly averted his gaze and rushed straight to the stool that awaited him at my side, safe behind the blue curtain. He squeezed my hand. I smiled at him behind my oxygen mask. I felt the tug, tug, tugging sensation associated with c-sections and presto chango! Before 30 minutes had passed we heard “CAH!”…..the very first sound made by our baby, followed shortly by furious crying.
No one said a word to us. I did hear someone comment that it was a big baby. Scott reported to me by sneaking peaks past the surgical curtain. “It’s here” (pause) “It’s purple” (pause) “They’re taking it over to a table” (pause) “It’s a girl” (pause) “It’s pink now”. All the while the baby is crying boisterously. Much more so than my Maddy ever had. I couldn’t help but think anything other than how this baby was totally pissed off!
Untold moments went by and she quieted. I repeatedly asked Scott if she was okay until finally they held her next to my face (not yet able to hold her myself whilst still strapped to the cross) and I cooed over her, said hello to her and I kissed her soft little newborn cheek. It was such a touching moment that even Mr. Friendly smiled…….that or I was really high.
They gave her to Scott to take to the nursery and he later told me he’d never been so scared, or held anything as precious, in his entire life.
Tying Up Loose Ends
With Daddy and Baby gone my doctor and my nurse spend the next half hour chatting over me while they clipped my fallopian wings and sewed me up. And while the good doctor is literally tying up my loose reproductive ends I have a small case of the “last minutes” and wonder if I should’ve shut the door forever on having more children.
Good doctor and Even Better Nurse chatted the way your dentist and the hygienist do – like you’re not even there….with your mouth wide open and drooling beneath them. They talk about their kids, their co-workers, their spouses, the last movie they saw, their favorite recipes, etc. But for added flavor my doctor, who’d always been the consummate professional during my every prenatal visit with him, busts out cussing like a trucker. A casual “f*ck this” and many more “f*ck that’s”. I was quite amused! That is until I heard him say “Oh shit”………that one still has me worried.
When they finished with me Good Doctor bid me adieu and Mr Friendly oversaw the hoisting of my whale-sized self from O.R. table to hospital gurney. I was wheeled back to my room where I waited for daddy and baby and felt one hundred times better than I had only one hour earlier. Special thanks to my friends Morphine and Demerol.
Post-Op
It was perhaps a half hour to an hour before I saw Scott bring baby Lily to me. This is an instance where the picture of him handing her to me to hold for the first time tells the whole story.
8lbs. 9 oz.
5 ounces less that her older sister. She was crying again but not as angrily. I Instinctively I knew she was hungry but wasn’t yet prepared to whip out boobies in front of one and all. I held her close to my chest and kissed her. I marveled at how CUTE she was for a newborn, and just how much she looked like her daddy. And I itched.
And itched. And itched and itched and itched.
One side effect of the spinal that I did not recall was this incessant itching. By the second day I had managed to rub off a layer or more of skin from my face. Maybe not the best way to exfoliate.
Hotel Baby
Daddy and me and baby made three for a few days in the hospital. I was put on a liquid diet until allowed some crappy hospital food instead. Daddy ate equally crappy cafeteria fare, slept on cot at my feet and was the better of us at calming the baby in the early morning fussy hours of 2, 3 and 4 AM.
On day two I was up walking the halls. Or rather hobbling down just one short hall. It was required of my recovery.
Visitors came and went, like our moms, our Maddy, our friends. Expected people showed like the on call nurses, doctors, pediatricians, as well as random folks like the lady sent from the state of Arizona who went from room to room looking for crack head parents. Mostly faces that are a blur to me just three weeks later.
On the third day, about noon, I sat in a wheel chair holding a tiny Lily in her Pooh Bear outfit as we were wheeled out of the hospital and into rest of our lives together.
And I was so intensely grateful! If I hadn’t been stapled together in precarious places I might have gotten on my knees that morning and thanked the whole damn universe for this one beautiful baby. For the years of joy she’ll bring me, and every one else who’s lucky enough to ever know her.
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