"Baby Day"

So back to my story. "Baby Day" as it was so named by my OB started at 6:20am. I sprung my 7th leak (must be my lucky number) and the docs thought that it was no good to wait any longer and I was simply a "ticking time bomb". So around 8 am they started to prep me for surgery and move me out of my room that had been my home for 5 weeks.

At 9 am I was wheeled to the c-section operating room. No one prepares you for that experience. I watch my fair share of medical shows and all the ORs seem to be intimate, dim and somewhat non-threatening. That is false! The room was huge, with crazy fluorescent lights and tons of masked people running around like crazy people.

I had an anesthesiologist, nurse anesthetist, OB nurse, a resident, my OB, the NICU nurse practitioner and nurse all huddled around me. The room was frigid and I was scared. Then they tell me I have to calm down for my spinal - haha yea right. I managed to keep my sobs to a minimum while they hunched me over and numbed me up. Jeff was not able to be in the room until they were about to make the incision so I'm there with all these eyeballs and no comforting faces.

So I'm  numbed, they lay me down, put up the curtain - which is literally right under your chin...awkward. They bring Jeff in then in his hazmat suit and set him down next to my outstretched (and bound) arms. They start poking me with a pin to see if I can feel anything. I can't...yet.

In the meantime, my anesthesiologist comes back in the room (he was whisked away previously by a page) and says "Let's get you your spinal." - Oopsy there is a problem. All the sudden he starts yelling at my nurse anesthetist right behind my head. I'm strapped down, freezing cold, can't feel half of my body and these two wonderful humans start a cat fight. Now I'm wondering who screwed up and will I feel my feet again! I ask what's up - as I begin to bawl terribly out of fear - and they reply that everything is peachy. Right, like I don't have ears.

So they make the incision, I was like this is a piece of cake. Well then they got their hands all up in there and that's when me and my nurse anesthetist became friends. I felt A LOT! The poor guy had to listen to me yelp over and over, but the nice man gave me quite a bit of drugs to top me off. God bless him!

Then I hear my doctor trying to coax my little bundle out of my body, with "C'mon Chase..." not feeling very good about that. Finally, we hear crying. At 9:46am on May 8 my baby boy was born! He came out with a full head of hair and peeing all over himself. They whisked him away to the bin where they started working on him. My poor little guy (we would find out later) was born with a partially collapsed lung, a PFO and another P acronym that I can't remember. They had to start him on oxygen immediately. I never got to hold my baby when he came into the world.

So off to the NICU goes Chase and they still have to stitch me up. I could have really done without that, but on top of not knowing what was going on with my kid, I was a mess. I still had an hour in the recovery room ahead of me before I could see my sweet baby.

Surgery goes well, and the recovery room is my least favorite place. They come in and press down (hard) on your abdomen several times to make sure your uterus is shrinking back. Well mine was saying get the hell away from me at that point. But at least the baby boy was holding his own!