We were scheduled for our c-section at noon so we had a leisurely morning with the girls and G-Ma, reading several books, doing final bits of laundry, and triple-checking the packed bags.
We left the house in plenty of time to arrive at the hospital, but we immediately ran into 2 separate accidents, causing traffic to stop. We called the hospital in a bit of a panic letting them know we'd be late, and we finally arrived at 10:40. They got us checked in right away and P hooked up to the monitors and an IV. Some other lady had the audacity to need an emergency c-section at our scheduled time, so we were moved to 1:30. Meanwhile, P's starving and K got himself a little hospital lunch.
While waiting, we sent some pictures of us in the hospital to G-Ma who was back home with the girls. Zadie has been a bit reluctant and reserved about the whole change, but Lia pulled two chairs together and made herself a hospital bed, declaring she was in the hospital with Mama. She then hopped on her bike and announced, "bye bye! I go see Mama at the hospital."
Dr. Ricks came in, made a few jokes, the anesthesiologist gave us a play by play of the plan, and P then waltzed her way back to the OR. Everything seemed much calmer than with the twins--fewer people in the OR, slower pace, no uncontrollable shivering for P, and just generally a lighter mood. They did the spinal and the epidural--which is NOT the most fun experience. There's something wrong about a person asking if your legs are tingling, if you feel a warm sensation coming across you, and if the pinching they are doing is sharp pain or just pressure. It's pretty important you get the answers right.
Anyway, the smell of burning flesh then got started, K decided looking over the blue sheet at P's guts was not a good plan, and P was relieved to find that she had answered the anesthesia questions correctly as all she felt was lots of tugging, pulling, and moving of her insides.
Shortly, they discovered Gwendolyn and made several comments about her size, including her crazy, long eyelashes. In fact, they noted the length of the eyelashes before she was even pulled out, so P was a bit concerned to hear all of these details before hearing any crying. Nonetheless, they yanked her out, used the little blue bulb to suck our her mouth and plopped her up on P's chest briefly before wrapping everything up--which seemed to take forever. K took lots of pictures and snuggled his newest nugget as she was measured and weighed.
We got into the recovery room at 2:20 Up until this point, we had liked our endearing nurse, Katie, who looked to be all of 15 years old. She was a Baylor grad, and she took her job seriously. Well, she quickly became our least favorite person as she'd come in and poke P's stomach (more specifically, her uterus) every 15 minutes. If her stomach didn't already hurt from being sliced open and yanked around during the hour-long surgery, this poking was sure to do the trick.
We made it through recovery, Gwendolym latched right on and nursed like a champ, and her big sisters arrived at the hospital. The nurses moved P down to a post-partum room, and we both laughed when they told us Pam would be our nurse because we remembered a Pam as one of our nurses when we had the girls. She was the one to remove P's IV two years ago, and in doing so, splattered blood all over the room and started cursing. Sure enough, in walked the same Pam we had remembered. We only had her for a bit over and an hour, but you gotta love the old memories.
The big girls got to meet their new baby sister and sit with Mama. They were a bit shocked that baby Gwendolyn is a real thing and no longer just a bump in Mama's belly. They gave her the lion and the book that they had chosen, and did a pretty good job of sitting still in the room.
No comments:
Post a Comment