Our Great Expectations: A continuation of Delaney

I guess it will always be a continuation of her...but oh well, give me a break, I was up late last night...

I guess I should start with the story of Monday, Sept 20? If you don't remember what happened with Aaron you can read a bit about it here: Aaron's story. To put it mildly, it wasn't a stellar experience. We came to the decision to have a scheduled cesarean and the date they gave us was Sept 20. I was to call at 5:00 Monday morning to be assigned a time to arrive at the hospital and, to our surprise and good fortune, we were first! We were to be there at 7:30 to get checked in and set up and all that jazz. When we got there I saw a friend of mine, Laura, from my Thursday morning bible study and I was hoping she was going to tell me that she was going to be my nurse, but she is expecting and had a day of wooziness, first one. She didn't think she'd make it through the surgery...bummer! So she set me up with someone else and we got things rolling. Laura came in from time to time to check on us which I was grateful for. Things went fine but the IV is what gets to me and that's when I about passed out, I was for sure a sign of things to come. I was NOT excited! But after I recovered from that, I was totally fine. And then EVERYONE was asking what the baby's name was going to be, and we honestly didn't have one! We hadn't decided yet. About 30 minutes before the OR we officially decided. I think they thought we were crayz...come on, we cannot be the only ones that haven't decided on a name until the last minute!
I ended up walking into the OR and sat on the table, they gave me a spinal block (different from an epidural), and from then on I couldn't feel a thing. Again, SO incredibly different from my experience with Aaron. I actually asked the nurse anesthetist if I was supposed to not feel my toes because last time I could move them. He asked, "you can't this time?" No. "Isn't it great?" he asked... :)

People came in, they started their thing, I had the chief resident of OB and a second year to do the surgery (you can't go wrong with the chief!), two nurse anesthetists, I don't know how many nurses and then the NICU attending. I was completely conscious and coherent, it was amazing, I could hear everything, I could see everything, I couldn't feel a thing (except for them pulling and pushing me around), it was awesome.

She started crying right away (I was so relieved it was a "she"!!), they showed her to Chuck, things were moving along quickly. It was a little emotional because it was such a different experience and I was so glad it was going as well as it was. I got to see her pretty quickly which was nice.

We got back into the L&D room, the anesthetists gave me some more anesthesia they've just started doing that would help with the pain over the next couple days (not sure it actually helped but whatever), FINALLY got some ice chips and had some downtime. I was so incredibly parched, I almost had to tie my hands behind my back in the morning while at home because I was so thirsty and it's so second nature to go to the cabinet and grab a cup and go get ice water, that I was afraid I was going to do that unconsciously.

Then they took us to the recovery wing. We got our own room because I was a c-section which is always nicer than sharing. I couldn't feel my toes enough to be comfortable standing until about 2:30pm, which was a bit longer than I thought it was going to be. But, boy, when it was time to get up and such, whew, tough tough tough! But I must have done about 6 or 7 laps around the wing that day, plus sitting and standing from the toilet which I was terrified of. The pain was the absolute worst doing that last time...oh my goodness, I can still feel it...yikes! But this time it wasn't too bad. Plus I had a nurse that really made me feel at ease when she took care of me rather than making me feel totally self-conscious.

Things were pretty smooth sailing. There's really not a whole lot to the story this time, which is nice. All I have to tell people is "it went SO well this time!!!" I don't have to feel terrible that I didn't remember anything, or that I told Chuck no when he asked if I wanted to hold Aaron, or anything else bad! We had some great visitors Monday afternoon and evening, a couple more on Tuesday and we were out of there as fast as we could get out on Wednesday. Two and half days compared to four hole days last time! Chuck was amazed at how much better I was doing compared to last time. IF there is a next time (I HIGHLY doubt there will be), I will be at ease choosing another cesarean. I was very nervous about all the subsequent pain before last Monday.