[mostly] organic.: I had a baby.

Here she is. :)

Which is why it seems like I have disappeared. I haven't. Just been focused on her. That, and I was in the hospital for nearly a week. So I'll start from the beginning. On a side note, I should probably be sleeping now, but I'm taking this opportunity to update my blog because Husband is napping with Sofia and it's a good time to do it. :)

I last posted a week ago Thursday. The next day I had an appointment with my midwife, during which it was discovered that my blood pressure was dangerously high. I think it was 148/100. At any rate, rather than send me home, she decided it'd be best to induce me since my due date was coming up soon anyway. I'll do my best to summarize, in chronological order. Pretty sure I can remember everything. But if some details are off, it's not like you'll know since you weren't there. :)

Friday, July 22

12:00pm: Checked into hospital
3:00pm: Membranes stripped, was dilated to 3cm, and pitocin started

Saturday, July 23

12:00am: Asked for pain medication for the contractions
12:15am: Midwife checked my cervix and there was no change at all.
12:16am: I cried.
12:20am: Pitocin stopped. Nap commenced.
7:00am: Prostaglandin given to help ripen my cervix and encourage dilation
11:00am: Cervix checked, was dilated to 4.5cm, pitocin started again.
11:00pm: Midwife broke my water
11:10pm: Painful contractions started so I tried sitting in the jacuzzi tub to relax.
11:20pm: The hot water wasn't helping so I asked for the epidural.
11:30pm: Got the epidural

Sunday, July 24

5:00am: The epidural failed so they upped the medication dosage.
7:00am: Still hurting, the epidural was useless. Felt like I had to poop and was crying with each contraction. They checked me again and I was complete, so they said I could start pushing.
I pushed for 4 hours. She wouldn't come out. I thought I was going to die.
Sometime between 11am and noon: Talked with the doctor on call and decided to have a cesarean because nobody knew why she wasn't coming out and I couldn't take it anymore. They prepped me for surgery. I continued screaming because it hurt so badly. Then for some stupid reason my PARENTS walked into the delivery room even though it had been discussed many times prior that they were not to do that. I yelled at them. They left. I don't remember what I said. I think my dad saw my vagina. I remember a nurse shaving me in an inappropriate area. I don't know if he saw that take place. I don't care.

I saw husband putting on scrubs. The anesthesiologist put some different medication in my epidural catheter to numb me. Oh and yes, the nurse shaved me. I knew I should have just gotten waxed beforehand. At least I had gotten a pedicure and shaved my legs the day before. I don't know if anyone noticed. I did get compliments on my toes though. They took me to the OR. I saw a sign that said "c-section" on the door. How interesting that they had a special room just for that. There were like 20-something people in there and they all looked the same. They strapped me to a table. They strapped my arms and legs down and hung up a blue sheet so I couldn't see what they were doing to me. The anesthesiologist stood by my head and asked me a bunch of questions about some things. They were poking me in different areas on my belly asking me if I could feel it. Each time I said yes, they'd give me some more medication in my IV. One of the nurses had a bandanna on. There were a ton of lights above me. It reminded me of those movies when people get abducted by aliens and have procedures done on them. Only these people at least talked to me and were nice to me. I felt them slice me open. I felt them move my muscles to the side and I felt them suctioning stuff. I could hear it, too. I felt them cauterize things and I could hear it. I couldn't smell anything though. Husband sat by my head. He talked to me and told me I was doing a good job. I didn't think I was really doing anything other than laying there in a drug-induced semi-coma. The only reason I was doing fine was because of all the narcotics they gave me. I think if I had been more alert, I would have been hysterical. I realize that c-sections are routine and done quite often, but I wasn't prepared for this and didn't plan on it, and it was really scary.

12:19pm:

I heard the baby cry and I saw them lift her up.

She was all wiggly. I saw them take her over to the side to clean her up and I told Husband to go and be with her. I didn't get to see what they did. He said he got to cut the cord, and that made me happy. He brought her over to see me. She had a HUGE cone head. I didn't understand why since she wasn't delivered vaginally. Seriously, biggest cone head ever. Apparently, it was indicative of how hard I tried to get her out. The problem was that she was face-up and my pelvic area was too small for her to fit. She wasn't a big baby either. She was 7 pounds, 6 ounces. I'll never be able to have a natural birth because of the way my bone structure is. If I ever do this again, it's going to have to be another c-section. When Husband brought her over, she was crying. She stopped crying when I started talking to her. It made me feel good. But I was still so out of it from all the pain medicine that I didn't get to really enjoy the moment the way most people would. I don't remember a whole lot. I just remember her cone head and her really big, dark eyes. I also remember her sticking her tongue in and out of her mouth because she was hungry. I felt bad that I couldn't nurse her right away.

I felt them staple me up and then I was taken back to our room. They bathed her in the room and put her on my chest and let me feed her. She took to it just fine. So if anyone says having a c-section will prevent you from nursing and bonding with your baby, they are totally wrong.

I stayed in the hospital until Wednesday. I could have stayed until Thursday but I didn't want to. I got tired of being alone. Husband works during the day and couldn't stay with me overnight because of having to care of our pets at home and having to be to work early, so I only saw him for a couple of hours each evening. There are a lot of other reasons why I wanted to go home too, but mainly just because I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I'm still sore from the surgery. I have all these restrictions for the next two weeks - no cooking, cleaning, driving, or lifting anything heavier than my baby. I have a follow-up with the doctor on August 9th to see how my incision is healing and stuff, and then I have a 6-week follow-up with my midwife sometime later in August. I don't know when I will be able to go back to work - I think it will be the 2nd week of September, which is only one week after my original return-to-work date. Not sure though.

Here are some pictures from the hospital. I'll be posting an update on life at home so far with baby, either today or tomorrow. :)

The birthing suite I was in before my surgery was super nice.