We were scheduled for a C-section Tuesday morning at 7am (41 weeks), and had to be at the hospital by 5:30am (barf). So Monday night we dropped Charlie off with my parents and went to Chili's for dinner (in honors of Emily & Casey - they love Chili's way more than you thought someone could). We had a good time just talking and getting out our pre-baby jitters. I cried a few times because I was just so full of anxiety: We were going to have TWO kids?! So I was emotional, and I was also feeling super pregnant; I swear I could feel the baby pounding to get out with every step I took. Not that I minded... I had been hoping every day for the past week that I would just suddenly go into labor. Feeling her head so low made me hopeful that even the night before my C-section I could still maybe go into labor. I basically was trying to accept the C-section while still crossing my fingers.
My C-section with Charlie was followed by a painful and slow recovery. It took me 8 weeks to walk without pain, the baby blues hit me HARD, and I got an infection in my uterus. I was really nervous about a second C-section and what that would mean for the next 8 weeks of my life, keeping up with Charlie on top of everything else. I wanted a VBAC so badly because I was sure my body would take more kindly to that.
After our fabulous jaunt to Chili's, we got home and went through my checklist: make sure we were packed for the hospital, put the car seat in the car, clean up the house. I swept and mopped the whole downstairs quite violently, still hoping to find something to put me into labor. When we finally went to bed, it was insanely hard to sleep. I did fall asleep eventually, but was woken up around 3:30am with: Surprise! Contractions! I was like: What? Ow! They felt just like the Braxton Hicks I had been having every day since 28 weeks, but with waves of bad period cramps. I got pretty excited, but at the same time, my mind was racing:
What does this mean? Are they going to get more intense? After I finally accept that I'm just going to have another C-section, I'm thrown this curve ball?! Will I be in labor enough that I can have a VBAC after all? How long will this take? What will I do when I go in for my C-section? What will they say? Will I have to be in labor for like 3 days? This is the most awkward timing...
I waited anxiously, excitedly timing the contractions. They were between 7 and 10 minutes apart and lasted about a minute each. After each one, I would wonder, Will I have another one? Is this actually real? I didn't experience any labor pains at all with Charlie, so this was all new. When Kelly's alarm finally went off at 4:30, I told him what was up, and we went over all the questions running through my brain. We landed on: Let's just go in and see what they say.
(Off to the hospital!)
We got to the hospital at 5:30am with the contractions still hovering between 7 and 10 minutes apart. I got checked in, found my room, put on the gown, and waited. We told my nurse about my contractions right away and she checked my cervix. Kelly and I decided that even if she just said 1cm dilated, we would be in business! But lo and behold I was still 0 cm dilated and 0% effaced. Story of my pregnancies. I was still hopeful at this point that I could have a VBAC, so I asked her to check me again in an hour or 2 and see if the contractions were helping me progress at all. I was SURE the next time she checked me my body would be doing something. Come on, body!
Kelly and I waited together in the room as the sun rose. It wasn't as light-hearted as our wait for Charlie. We didn't play card games or film each other - instead I breathed through contractions and voiced all of my doubts and confusions about what to do. About an hour and a half later the nurse came to check me again: 0 cm dilated & 0% effaced. "Closed and firm," she said.
My doctor came in at that point and we told him about my contractions, my newly found hope for a VBAC, and our conflicting emotions. He told me, "Well, you're not in labor. You're contracting, but there is no cervical change. If you don't have the C-section today, we would just send you home and you would come back when they're stronger. But you are already 41 weeks..."
The nurse chimed in that in her opinion & based on all of her experience, it didn't look like good chances for a VBAC. She didn't think I would progress very well & told me that my cervix wasn't "favorable." I was tongue-tied and brain-tied. I honestly didn't know what to think or decide. I kept looking to Kelly for an answer, and he was surprisingly good at putting my emotions and thoughts into words. He eventually asked the nurse and doctor to step outside so we could talk privately. I was conflicted and upset, but Kelly was calm and rational and helped talk me through things.
The anesthesiologist then came in to talk to us. First, I told him about how morphine makes me sick - how during my last C-section, I got so sick I couldn't hold Charlie at all that first day, and how the anti-nausea medication they gave me knocked me out for a good 12 hours. I really did not want to go through that again, so I told him I didn't want it in my spinal or IV. That was both a crazy choice and a great choice.
After that was decided, he said, "I hear you guys are having a hard time deciding what to do..." He offered his 2 cents as an objective third party. He was so nice & personable & seemed to understand my feelings so much more clearly than the doctor or the nurse. The last thing he said was something along the lines of: "It comes down to the OB out there in the hall, the expert who knows the most about this and deals with this every day, thinks with all the facts presented that you should have a C-section. There comes a point when you need to rely on the professionals to help make the decision..." It was surprisingly more eloquent than that and felt so calming and clarifying to hear him talk it through with us.
When the doctor came back into the room, I said, "Cut this baby out of me!" All the doctors looked really relieved.
The anesthesiologist came over, put his hand on my shoulder reassuringly, and said, "You made the right choice." He made me feel so seen and understood the whole time.
And by this time, my contractions had all but stopped. It was as if my body was saying, "Oh, thank God. I'm gonna stop trying over here, seems like you got this..."
The next thing we knew, Kelly was suiting up in a marshmallow suit and we were walking to the OR!
So, the funny thing about C-sections is that they all go basically the same way. So as I'm sitting down to type this story, I can't help but think, is this just going to be the same story as when I had Charlie? I mean, kind of. But kind of not.
I walked into the OR with the memory of having Charlie in my head. The memory I have in my head of having Charlie is: "It all happened so fast. I don't even remember seeing the room...and suddenly they were pushing on my stomach and he was there!" So when I walked into the OR, time seemed to slow down. I noticed all the lights, all the doctors, all the nurses, all the equipment.
They had me climb up onto the narrow table and curl up for the spinal. It wasn't too bad, but I get very vocal when I'm nervous and uncomfortable (many of you already know this about me. Maybe you've been around when I've been so hungry or hot or annoyed that I yell strange things. It happens). This detail about me made for a very loud next couple of minutes. As the anesthesiologist was pushing things into my back, I was yelling, "That feels weird! Ok, that feels weird! It feels really weird, but that's okay! That's okay, do what you gotta do. Oh gosh! That feels weird! That's ok! You're doing great."
They had me lay back on the table and started positioning me for the big moment. Again my memory was failing me. I remembered being immediately numb and the curtain already being up by this point last time, but neither of those things were true. And again came my uncomfortable, anxious yelling. I was informing the doctor of every little thing I felt. "I can still feel my legs. I can still wiggle my toes." And without that blue curtain, I could see my whole self exposed in this big, circular rearview mirror on the wall. I said, "I can see myself in that mirror! Are you going to put up that blue curtain?" They assured me that I wouldn't be able to see anything once they put up the curtain and that they would make sure I was completely numb before starting. "Okay..." I responded, unsure and ready to yell even more if anything else bothered me.
The curtain went up and Kelly told me they were pinching me with sharp tweezers. I thought that was a joke, but he was serious. It actually made me feel a lot better and calmer because I felt zero things. Totally numb, just like they promised. The next few minutes felt like forever. I was expecting it to happen all at once like the Charlie memory I was holding onto, but the minutes dragged on. I kept looking at Kelly. His eyes looked impossibly blue next to his blue hairnet in the brightest room I'd ever been in.
7:42am
And then they were holding up our baby girl over the blue curtain. I looked up at her, but didn't get a great look, because she dripped her juicy gore on my face. ON MY FACE! The anesthesiologist quickly grabbed a towel, saying, "I'll get that," and wiped it off. I was a little bit held in disbelief for a moment, because who's ever heard of that happening?! But soon the tears were coming because we had a baby girl! They took her over to the warming tray, where they wipe the babies off and check on things. I told Kelly to get over there! Go see our baby girl!
I started feeling weird at this point, but I knew it wasn't morphine because I didn't get any of that - a fact I would be wildly aware of the rest of the day. I think it was just the adrenaline fading and my body feeling the fatigue and shock of being cut open.
I could see glimpses of the babe in between nurses. They were rubbing her with blankets and towels. She looked purple, and the nurses were talking about it. I heard them say, "Purple's not bad...pink is better..." She was crying and they seemed to suction a lot out of her nose and mouth.
I asked Kelly, "What's her name?"
He said, "I think it's Lily." I love that Kelly knew. I knew for Charlie; he knew for Lily.
They eventually hoisted me onto a hospital bed to wheel me away, but they let me hold Lily first. I felt so happy & a little excited to be able to hold her and feel conscious enough to remember it. (By this point with Charlie, I was so sick and out of it). I looked at her and loved her.
The next couple of hours were spent texting Kelly, asking for updates, and waiting for the numbness to subside so I could go upstairs and join them.
At first I was so glad I didn't have any morphine because I felt so conscious & aware; however, as the spinal wore off, I started to feel a lot of pain and I couldn't stop shaking. I honestly don't remember nurses coming in to push on my stomach with Charlie, but this time around...Every time they came to do it, I regretted not getting the morphine. I would cry and physically try to push their hands away involuntarily. After weakly fighting them each time, I would apologize for pushing them away. They gave me some ibuprofen, but I was still in a lot of pain and felt pretty useless in my room by myself. When were the harder drugs coming?!
Kelly and I texted back and forth until our phones were almost dead. We kept thinking Just a few more minutes until the baby can come back downstairs... Kelly sent pictures & said, "Her oxygen drops when she cries so that's the hang up. She needs to be able to cry without it dropping so much." He also said, "I can't wait until we're together." I was so glad I was conscious enough to swoon at that.
Around noon, Kelly texted me that they noticed a murmur in her heart and they had done an x-ray on her chest and lungs. With her oxygen dipping like it was, they were looking all over for the cause. I guess she was having these episodes where she would cry, her oxygen would dip, and she would turn blue.
By 1:30, I could finally wiggle my toes and was ready to go see my baby. Two nurses helped me stand. As soon as I put weight on my legs, I started shaking and crying. "I want to sit back down, I want to sit back down," I cried. We tried it a second time and I made it into the wheelchair. I was in a lot of pain, but I was so happy to be with Lily and Kelly again. Soon after I got up there, they decided to do an echocardiogram on Lily to check out the murmur. It took about an hour, so we only stayed for a bit, then went downstairs for some rest until it was over. I got back into my hospital bed, shaking, doubting the no morphine choice.
Charlie was intrigued by his new baby sister. He kept looking at her very cautiously and walking nervously around her room. He asked, "Does her want to wake up?" She was covered in wires at this point, so I imagine that was a little odd or scary to him. He did not want to take a picture with her.
The other two holes are called VSD's. They are not supposed to be there, but the doctors and nurses sounded pretty confident that they were small enough that as her heart grew, the holes would become insignificant. One of our nurses drew us a picture that really helped us understand. For the next five days, we would refer to this drawing quite frequently. The doctor told us they were pretty sure that this is what was causing her episodes where she would turn blue while crying - the tension in her chest would cause the blood to shunt away from her lungs, leaving her with less oxygen.
Lily had a second echo done 2 days later. The echo showed that the PDA had closed, but the PFO and VSD's were still open and shunting blood. They weren't that worried though since she hadn't had as many episodes where she would turn blue. I think she went all day Thursday with her oxygen levels looking fine. We thought she was going to be in the clear and would be able to go home soon, but that night she had 2 episodes where she turned blue; these, however, were when she was fast asleep - which would mean that they were probably not caused by her heart anymore. The pediatrician determined those episodes were probably caused by reflux. It was just like one thing after another with this girl!
The funny thing though is that I never felt panicked. The whole hospital stay with Charlie, I felt panicked. The nurses made me think that every tiny thing with Charlie was cause for alarm. This time around, everyone just seemed so calm. Maybe because I was calmer and more confident? Maybe we just had all the good nurses with Lily? Either way, every time that they told us something new about Lily I just listened & nodded & thought to myself, she'll be fine. And she really was. She was just covered in wires for a few days.
They put her on Zantac & continued to watch her oxygen levels. We ended up having to stay until Sunday. The hospital let me stay until Saturday, and then I spent one (horribly exhausting) night up in Lily's room with her while Kelly went home to be with Charlie. It wasn't until Sunday morning that they deemed she had finally gone a full 24 hours with no significant episodes.
Huzzah.
We finally got to take her home.
And finally holding a baby not connected to wires - oh, that felt good.
Welcome to the family, Lily Jane Thomson. <3
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