~ Our Story ~: BABY OLIVE

Our baby girl is finally here!! It took me awhile to post - I have been busy enjoying my family, and very tired. But the birth went pretty well this time.

I started out with the original due date as April 15th. My doctors told me they could only take the baby out up to a week early. So we were planning on scheduling a repeat c-section for April 8th. But the baby kept measuring big on the ultrasounds (which is one reason - along with the repeat gestational diabetes - that I decided against a VBAC). So the doctors changed my due date to April 6th. Unfortunately, they forgot to tell me that until I had already worked everything out at work for my maternity leave with the date of April 8th (one negative of having a group of doctors as compared to only one). But no matter. Anyway, so we decided to switch insurance from BCBS to HAP starting April 1st (it would save us quite a bit of money in the long run), which meant the earliest we could schedule the surgery was April 1st. But the beginning of the month is always very busy for Kellen at work, so we chose the earliest day before the due date that we could, which turned out to be April 4th - my older sister's birthday :)

A couple months before the due date I was having contractions like crazy (Braxton Hicks) - every time I stood up, bent over, turned over in bed, picked something up, started walking, etc. I even had 2 different scares when they started getting regular and closer together. I was getting nervous that the baby would come early. But then the last 2 weeks before, they stopped coming so frequently, so we ended up making it to the 4th afterall.

The Morning Of

Kellen's mom was also nice enough to come out to watch Shade for us while I was in the hospital, and she also brought one of his cousins for Shade to play with. That gave Kellen the freedom of visiting with me or spending the night without having to worry about Shade. And good thing too - cause Shade ended up getting sick the night before. We had gone to Red Robin for dinner. Shade didn't seem interested in the pizza or cocolate milk or fruit. We thought it was weird but hoped it was just him being stubborn. So we stopped by Kroger on the way home to get some groceries. Both kids had fallen asleep so I stayed with them in the car. Then Shade woke up and started puking - unfortunately it not only went all over his clothes, but inside the bag of yummy leftovers too. So Kellen picked up some wetwipes and helped clean him off in the parking lot - it was cold and Shade was shivering and not feeling well, but he looked at Kellen and said very sincerely "I love you daddy."

So we were scheduled to do the surgery at 11:30. This made me really nervous because I was still on zofran (for nausea and vomiting) because I would still throw up, especially if I hadn't eaten in 3-4 hours. And of course, as with any surgery, they want you to not eat or drink anything after midnight (even if you were scheduled to have the surgery at 8:00 in the morning - its all the same to them). So I had Kellen give me a blessing the night before that I could make it through without getting sick (with Shade, I was puking the entire 26 hours of labor). And I also cheated a little bit. You really only need to have an empty stomach for 8 hours for surgical purposes (although if it was an emergency situation, they wouldn't care if you had just eaten dinner). I drank milk a couple times during the night (the only thing that relieved my heartburn). Then I took a zofran when I first woke up, got showered and dressed, grabbed my bag that I had packed the night before, and we were off.

Interestingly enough, I felt better that morning than I had my entire pregnancy. I didn't get sick once (I actually felt decent the 2 days before and got my whole apartment cleaned)! I got changed, hooked up to a monitor, and had two 18 guage IVs put in where they dripped 2 liters of IV fluids in one hour, then added 2 more liters that dripped more slowly. I got really cold, and then of course I had to pee. But they wanted me to have a full bladder to put a catheter in, so they didn't let me go to the bathroom - which was not fun since the baby was still very much pushing on my bladder.

Then the nurse came in and gave Kellen a surgical jumpsuit to wear in the OR and wheeled me down. That is when the anesthetist sat me up on the side of the gurney and gave me a spinal block. It burned a little bit, but then I couldn't feel the lower half of my body and couldn't move my legs - for another 6 hours after the surgery even. Then they put the catheter in, hooked me up to some monitors, prepped my belly with iodine, let it dry, let Kellen in with his camera, and got started.

I think I am just a little too aware of how this surgery goes now, even though you can't feel pain, you can feel all the tugging, hear all the clipping, and smell all the cauterizing. So I was very aware of what was going on most of the time. It was actually pretty disturbing to me. Although I managed to stay completely calm the entire time. The doctor had done an ultrasound right before the surgery and surprise surprise - the baby was lying transverse in my belly. Since I had insulin dependent gestational diabetes, I had two non-stress tests per week to keep a close eye on the baby's health. These tests included an ultrasound every time. And this baby was in a different position every time they did an ultrasound. In fact, two days before the surgery was my last non-stress test and she was head down. Then over the next couple of days I felt her moving a lot, and quite painfully so. I guess her being transverse (and over 9 pounds) explains that. Anyway, because she was transverse, they made the incision extra long so they could turn her around and pull her out. She ended up coming out feet first, started crying right away, and basically didn't stop until she was wrapped up in blankets.

AND THE STATS: Olive Marilyn Wilson. 9 lbs 10.6 oz. 21 inches long. Born 4/04/13 11:55am.

They then let Kellen cut the cord shorter (he wasn't allowed to go behind the blue sheet of course), and he took a ton of pictures. I think partly because we have a nicer camera this time around, and partly because Kellen has gotten into photography since we bought it.

The recovery went as well as could be expected. There were a couple of residents in the surgery, and while one of them was sewing my up, another resident said to him "that looks really good. You really could do plastic surgery..." That was nice to hear. As for pain, I really couldn't feel much for 6 hours or so after the surgery. Then they offered toradol and morphine for pain. I got the morphine only twice - I did not like the feeling of it. I stuck mostly with the toradol until they switched me to oral pills (ibuprofen and tylenol #3). The tylenol didn't work very well for me, so I mostly stuck to the ibuprofen, which you can only take every 6 hours. But guess what? That controlled my pain fine during the last 2 days I was in the hospital! It was amazing. It mostly only hurt when I first stood up, and then if I walked around too much. Other than that, my pain was controllable. So different from last time!

And now for a ton of pictures.

AT THE HOSPITAL