The Birth Story- Part II

I spent the week and weekend trying to keep busy, but it was hard. I worked for the first week finishing up some stuff but started my leave that Friday, it was nice to be done with work for awhile. I read books, listened to music, started a cross stitch and Michael would come to visit every day. It was hard being away from home for that long when I knew home was only two miles away, I missed my puppies, too. My days went like this pretty much every day:

8am-wake up
9am-order breakfast
930am-get hooked up for a stress test, blood pressure check, take bp medication
11am-shower and blood sugar check
1pm-order lunch
3pm- get hooked up for a stress test, blood sugar check
6pm-order dinner
8pm-blood sugar check, Michael visits
9pm-get hooked up for a stress test, blood pressure medication
10pm-take Ambien, best stuff ever!!
3am-get hooked up for stress test

I really like the majority of the nurses, one in particular-Chris, was really cool. She would come in to my room just to talk and hang out for a minute. It was really nice since all the other times the only reason I would see a nurse was for a stress test, blood sugar or medication. I was a pretty easy patient so they left me alone the majority of the time. Sometimes 4 or 5 hours would pass before someone would come in my room again. Had I known how long they'd be gone I probably would have escaped for a few hours. By the end of the week and into the weekend I was getting REALLY bored, to the point where I just watched tv all day instead of doing anything productive, like keeping up with this blog. :) I was talking to one of the nurses one night about the puppies and she mentioned that they allowed dogs in the hospital as long as they got permission. So she brought me the form, I filled it out and that night Michael brought Petree to visit. It was so nice to see him, I wished they all could have come. Chris came back from her days off on Sunday and said that she was going to try to move me to a different, bigger room. The room they had me in was a pre-delivery room and she was going to try to move me to an actual labor and delivery room since it would probably be the next week when I'd have the baby. That afternoon I did move rooms and it was awesome, the room was at least 3 times bigger than my old one and it had a bathtub and a view of trees and a pond. Like I said, she was awesome.

That Sunday was also Michael and I's one year anniversary. I told him he was in charge of it since I couldn't do much from the hospital. He brought me flowers and picked up Outback for dinner. Definitely not the anniversary that I had planned prior to being in the hospital but it was still really nice and my room even had a small table and chairs so I was able to get out of bed and eat a real dinner. I didn't even think to take any pictures of our anniversary, oops. Oh well, we have pictures of us together on delivery day so that will have to do.

Monday came and Chris was my nurse again, she said she had requested to be my nurse for her shift, otherwise I think I saw a different nurse for every shift the entire time I was there. She was hoping that Dr. Murphy would try the version (turning the baby) that day so that she could be there to watch but he decided to do it on Tuesday instead. So Monday followed my usual schedule of waiting, waiting, waiting. Tuesday was the day of the version, I had a new IV placed and the ultrasound techs came in with their machine to monitor things. I decided against getting an epidural for the version, I'd already had a huge needle in my stomach, I didn't want one in my back, too. There was a slightly higher chance of success for the version with an epidural but I like to think I'm tough and can handle the pain. Dr. Murphy came in and we talked for a minute, he told me just to try to relax and remember to keep breathing. The ultrasound tech showed him where the head and feet were and we got started. Wow, it wasn't anything like I expected. He basically pushed his thumbs into my stomach on either side of the baby and tried moving it. It was a really weird feeling, mostly uncomfortable. I could feel the baby being moved around. At one point I thought he had gotten it because I felt a huge movement and it felt like it had flipped but he said he had gotten the baby turned about half way but then it decided to flip back to where it had been. It really didn't want to move it's fat head. He tried to turn it twice but neither time worked. He joked that if his thumbs recovered he'd be able to do surgery. I was surprised at how fast it went, it was done in probably less than 10 minutes. At that point it was clear that I'd have a cesarean. It was the 17th and Dr. Murphy really wanted me to get to 38 weeks which would have been the 19th so he said he'd go check the surgery schedule and let me know. Michael had come for the version so afterwards he went to Subway to get us lunch. I hadn't been able to eat or drink since midnight the night before so I was starving. When he got back we asked the nurse if Dr. Murphy had scheduled the surgery yet and she said "Oh, Thursday was all scheduled so I scheduled you for tomorrow at 10am." I was really glad that it was the next day, otherwise waiting a whole nother day would have lasted forever! So it was official, we were going to have a baby on May 18th! I sent out texts and messages to all our family and my sister joked that I should start getting my own dates. Michael and I got married on my brother-in-laws birthday and now our baby would be born on Colleen, my sisters birthday. I asked the nurse how long I would have to stay after the surgery (I was really ready to be home) and she said that it was typically a 3 day stay after a cesarean. Michael was still there and he got a slightly panicked look on his face and said "But the baby stays here too, right?" The nurse laughed and said 'yes, the baby stays as long as the mom stays'. Michael looked pretty relieved and said "Ok, good, I was envisioning myself home alone with 6 dogs and a new baby". At that point I assured him I wouldn't have let him take the baby home by himself anyways. :) The weather was beautiful that day so I remember staring outside a lot at the trees which finally had leaves and just thinking that at this time the next day there would be a baby in my arms, it was hard to imagine but I was so ready. I was bummed about having a cesarean but knew there wasn't a way around it so we'd make the best of it. I was really glad for the Ambien that night, I knew I wouldn't have been able to sleep otherwise and knew that it would probably be my last entire night of sleep for awhile. Michael told me the next morning that he couldn't sleep, that it was like being a kid on Christmas Eve, he was so excited. Next up, delivery day!