A Different Kind of Christmas Post

Merry Christmas!

I love Christmas ❤️

In honor of CHRISTMAS I'm going to tell my sweet girls birth story

Last night I was reminded that a new baby holds so much joy. Hope. Love.

A baby reminds me that thousands of years ago my savior was born in Bethlehem.

He had a mommy and a daddy that kissed all over his face. Smelled his sweet breathe. 

Held him close.

That precious baby was going to grow and be the Lord over us all. Oh my heart.

So, I was scheduled for cesarean at exactly 38 weeks pregnant.

I was scared. Scared of pain. Scared of something going wrong.

Scared of the impact on my baby boy being away from me for several days.

But, as much as I was grateful for my baby girl, I was DONE being pregnant. So done.

This pregnancy was so hard, harder than Ethan's.

My emotions, my body were kaput.

Four years + my age + life= one tired/hormonal/physically exhausted momma

The night before we were to be at the hospital I ate my snack before midnight, took my insulin.

We had to be at the hospital at 7 (they told me 6 at first, yuck)

Around 3am I woke up in a cold sweat. My sugar was 40.... For those who don't know about these lovely numbers... It should be resting at 70+. I start seeing spots at 39.

Not. Good.

So we call the Dr at this point because I can't have anything  8 hours before the surgery.

We wake the Dr up, she tells me to eat. We bring my sugar up. And we are then rescheduled.

We all three get up, I put Ethan in his big brother shirt. He was so excited. He couldn't wait to get to the hospital.

We grabbed his backpack of toys, snacks, and busy stuff. We headed out.

At this point I'm calm (I took my anxiety meds)

We get there. My parents and brother are already waiting. Hugs where given. I cried, because it was the last time I was going to see Ethan for a while. He was no longer going to be my only baby, and that made me worry about him. Plus OTHER people would be looking after him. Even though I trust our families, no body can take of him like me, his mommy.

I give E one more big hug and off we go to check in.

They take us right back to the recovery area (big open space with curtains separating places) where they tell me I'll be brought right back to after surgery. I'm given a hospital gown.

Well I really needed to pee, so I go to the bathroom and start to undress. I pee. Stand up go to put my hospital gown on and drop half of the gown in the toilet, in the pee. 

Soo, I have to stick my head out barely and ask for another gown.

After no more gown incidents I get into my bed and then prep start.

IV placed.

Baby monitor on

(baby girl never liked those so every few seconds they would lose her heartbeat, I ended having to lay in a very uncomfortable position for too long and my hip and butt were numb) 

Shaving is done. 

(Ladies, if you haven't had a C-section just to warn you, they shave your down there hair out where everyone can see. With an electric razor or regular. I've had both... Yay me)

Questions galore. 

(Where your spouse is asked to walk down the hall and back so they can ask and see if your are in an abusive situation and if it's okay that they hear everything)

There were so many questions!!

The hospital I was at is a teaching hospital. So I had a veteran, a newbie, and a student. So everything was thoroughly explained, and done twice.

We waited a VERY long time before we went back to surgery.

Once we headed back, Josh had to stay behind and get scrubs on, and then wait.

So far so good...

UNTIL... The spinal block. My stomach still reacts when I think about it. It was horrible. they try to do a spinal block for almost an hour with no luck. They were having trouble finding a space in between where they could insert the medicine and my spinal fluid. But instead they were hitting bone and nerves. It was extremely painful.

After almost an hour of being in pain bending over and getting more hot, nervous, and in pain oh, did I mention I was in a lot of pain?

I was pretty much freaking out. I consider myself a strong person, and I don't freak out much. But at that moment I was freaking out. I almost passed out, and I told them so. I asked them why it was taking so long, and if they could just stop!

At one point I had five different people trying to call me down fan me, hold cold rags on my neck, cold rags on my forehead. my nurse was holding the Doppler on my stomach to check esters heart rate and at the same time holding a puke bucket, he was probably the best nurse. He kept me as, as he could, and kept encouraging me that I could do this.

It came to the point where the anesthesiologist came around and said he was going to let me calm down and take a break, and he gave me my options. I could either try an epidural, or I could be put under general anesthesia.

I looked at my nurse with wide eyes and I'm sure with fear in my face and asked him what he thought I should do. His words:

"Well if you go under general anesthesia you will you go to sleep without a cut in your abdomen and you'll wake up with a cut in your abdomen, we will not be able to get ahead of the pain. However if you get an epidural we could get ahead of the pain, but they will have to stick your back again. So the choice is up to you, but I would at least try the epidural. If you think you can handle it. Your not handling the pain well at this point"

So I was sitting there on this tiny skinny operation table, and I had a choice to make. so I made the choice to try and epidural, and I pointed my finger at the anesthesiologist and I told him that he had one try to get it and if he didn't they're putting me under. 

Looking back now I realize that I was giving him an ultimatum like it was him in the one that was in pain and it was actually me. Because if he had to have done a general anesthesia it would not have been pleasant for me when I woke up.

He did the epidural. And it hurt! But it was done.

They laid me down, finally. At this point it had been over an hour since they had taken me back. Because everyone had been focused on Esther and I, no one told Josh we were okay.

He had been waiting this whole time.

He finally at some point started looking around to find someone. Anyone. Our family was freaking out as well.

He seen someone that kind of looked familiar. He asked if I was okay, and he told I'm was, they were having some issues but I was okay.

As I'm laying there they gave me more medicine to numb me, started at my legs and would poke me with a needle to see if I could feel it.

At some point between being poked Josh came in. I was so thankful to see him. I must have looked as scared as I felt, he immediately picked up on it.

I was crying.

They were poking me some more.

Finally. I was numb from near my chest cavity to my feet.

Catheter goes in. ( That conversation 🤦)

Nurse: can you feel that? 

Me: sort of

Nurse: can you describe it?

Me: feels like someone is messing with something down there?

Bahahaha

Yep. That happened.

So they begin the procedure. Which took forever because of scar tissue.

Ethan's csection was so quick.

Esther's was an eternity.

At some point I started shaking so bad my shoulders were coming off the table.

Not good when your being sliced open

They brought me a warm blanket to see if that helped.

It did a little.

I kept asking if everything was okay, I was afraid of something being wrong with Esther

They assured me she was fine.

Then they started guessing weight.

Then two nurses were pushing down hard on me. One was actually half way sitting on me and the other pressing down. 

It was so uncomfortable. So so uncomfortable.

I looked at Josh and told him I'm never doing this again. 

Then... It happened. At 12:17 my little girl was born.

She was healthy. She was crying. I could not wait to get my hands on her.

It took a little bit for them to sew me up.

Josh was the first to hold her.

I was so relieved she was here and she was okay.

When we're done closing me up, they moved to a bed. They told Josh baby needed to be with Mommy.

When Josh gave her to me my heart exploded. She felt prefect in my arms.

Here we are, almost three months later and we are so in-love with our girl. I'm so blessed with my two miracles.