Birth Story Part III: Thursday and then some.

Thursday

1:00am I was at 6cm

3:00am 7cm and the nurses suggested I take nubane, which is a narcotic to help me sleep. In retrospect this was the move that I regretted the most because I thought it would lessen the pain but it didn't, just made me conk out between contractions and hallucinate a bit. Like, I saw Kyle's grandpa who passed away a couple years ago, and a bunch of people sitting in chairs all around my room. Kyle says this is the best decision that was made because he was finally able to get some sleep.

6:30am - I was at 8cm but things were slowing down, and by the next time the OB checked in at 7:30, I was still at an 8.

9:00am - We decided to do an epidural. The thought is that sometimes it can relax your body enough to let you go the rest of the way naturally. It didn't hurt at all (at this point my concept of pain's world had been totally rocked) and was actually really awesome...except for the part where my blood pressure dropped to 50/30 and they had to give me epinephrine and oxygen. I slept for real for the first time in 4 days. Unfortunately no dilation was going on. There was discussion that the baby was behaving like a boy by the monitors so the next few hours were spent coming up with boy names just in case.

Kyle and I spent a good amount of time praying and talking with my doula about the possibility of a C-section and what that would entail so that by the time the doc showed up and said we should do this thing (at 12:30pm), we were all on board. My doula said that she guessed that Adeline would be laying face up when they cut me open. Kyle left to call family while they got me all situated with a catheter and prepped where they'd be cutting and the next time I saw him he was all in a space suit and shower cap. The time between them deciding to do the C-section and Addy being born was almost exactly an hour.

I was all proud of myself, because after laughing at with my sister about the moments after her C-section, I was determined to be lucid and remember everything that happened. 

Enter: Morphine. Sigh.

I remember everything about her birth. It is incredibly weird to be awake while you're being cut open and operated on. In the hospital they talk about "time outs" where everyone stops and takes a minute to make sure that the procedure they're doing is indeed the one that needs to be done. You know, so the surgeons don't cut off the wrong appendage. They talk about them all the time at work and when it was my turn for my time out, I kept thinking, "hey! I get my own time out! neat!" 

The worst part of the whole ordeal was the smell - they cauterize stuff all up in there, so, yeah. Smelling your own burning flesh and all? Worst part. I remember when they got to my uterus and the doctor said, "uterine!" like, "eureka! here we are!" and everyone in the room repeated it back to him. Kyle was sitting at my head and I remember he kept trying to talk to me and I just kept staring at him blankly because my mind was occupied with all the tugging that was going on in my lower half. 

My doc said that sure enough when they opened me up, Adeline was looking up at him like "Hey here I am! Let's get out of here!" and he even nicked her on her forehead with his scalpel by accident. When they pulled her out at 1:39pm she was purple and screaming and they said, "It's a little girl!" and the first thought in my head was "duh of course it is, we have a name for a girl!" and then Kyle and I both cried for about the millionth time that day. After that the anesthesiologist gave me something that knocked me out while they sewed me up. I remember being wheeled back into the labor room, where my doula brought Adeline over to me to get some breastfeeding and bonding going immediately. Here's where things start to get hazy. I remember seeing my family and being all, "you're HERE!" and then being wheeled into a recovery room while the nurse said, "I like you so I'm going to take care of you and give you the big room." She totally hooked us up.

The rest of that day and the next is a complete haze. I remember getting the itchies from the morphine which originally started out as a scratchy nose and then spread all over so they had to give me something to make it stop. I also remember Kyle eating. A lot. Someone brought him a Chipotle burrito, which he devoured, and then my sister wanted to know if he wanted a sandwich a couple hours later and he was all "DO I!?" I do remember that there were a ton of visitors Thursday and Friday, all of whom I have since apologized to for being less than lucid :) 

 the first food I'd had and not chucked in 5 days. I have never been so pumped about chicken broth.
 

We ended up in the hospital until Sunday. The recovery was really, really difficult. I wasn't allowed out of bed for the first 24 hours, and then when I did get up out of bed (with the help of a nurse and Kyle) I almost passed out twice, which was accompanied by auditory issues - it sounded like someone put noise canceling headphones on me and I yelled at people in the room to keep talking because I felt like I was losing my hearing. And then there's the whole abdominal surgery thing. Getting in and out of bed took an act of congress, but each time was easier. What sucked was having to plan every bathroom break like, 20 minutes before I thought I would need to go. But again, every single day was way better than the day before.

Breastfeeding proved to be a whole lot easier than I expected. I mean, it was difficult because I was instructed to get her to latch on for 20 minutes on each side every 2 hours to establish a good milk supply and make sure everything was working properly. That was especially rough the first few days while in the hospital - that 2 hours didn't start when she was done but when she started...so factor 40 minutes plus fiddling to make sure everyone's doing what they should be, a possible bathroom break and moving slow as molasses to boot and there's maybe an hour in there to get sleep before you do it all over again. At A's 2 week visit though, she had not only regained her birthweight but gained 1.5 pounds on top of that, so I guess we're doing okay :)

The nursing and lactation consultants at my hospital were absolute angels, and if I had to go through what I did to get to know them, then that's okay. There was even a nurse who wanted to become a music therapist and grilled me on how to do it. I also have a nagging feeling that I had to go through all that to be grateful for the professionals who are trained to deal with the truly necessary intervention situations, that my pride needed to be knocked down a notch. I went through the birth that God had written out for me, and a month later I can totally see why and see His hands all over every single step. The other cool thing was that the OB played trumpet in the Aggie band, so of course we all bonded over that :)

The other big things I learned?

I am much more of a fighter than I thought I was.

My husband is a rock star. Seriously. He is amazing in ways I didn't even know before this whole thing. Amazing. I went into this thinking I knew everything about him and was humbled to discover this whole other incredible side of him. Let's say amazing one more time, because he really is.

My body can do really amazing things and I've spent a long time underestimating and under-appreciating it.

I had to learn how to use my voice and stand up for myself once and for all.

When we got home I wandered around like a zombie, pretty sure I had a mild form of PTSD. I *very slowly* yanked the covers off the bed and washed the linens that were by the tub, trying to scrub down my memory of what had happened on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I cried a lot. 

We basically camped out in the living room for a week. I couldn't lay down comfortably or get in and out of bed, so we stacked up a bunch of pillows on the couch and I would just kind of slump over them sideways. Kyle slept on the chaise section of the sofa, and Addy slept on my right.

and sometimes we just slept like this.