It's 3:30 am and I need to get all these thoughts down before I forget it all.
Lets start with the fun news- Baby Tyler is here and we are a family of four!
It has been a whirlwind day but I wouldn't have changed it for the world.
Everything started with our failed version just over a week ago. He refused to flip so we scheduled a routine c section for Tuesday May 6th.
On the 5th, I took a half day at work and spent the afternoon running around doing all the last minute errands and chores. The hospital called to go over the whole procedure, give me the details on when it would actually happen and answer any of my questions. The poor nurse was on the phone with me for 45 minutes!
We were told to be at Tobey between 5:30 and 5:45, no later than 6, because I would be scheduled for 7:45.
My mom (who is the most amazing mom in the world) was at our house at 5 am (did I mention she has a 45 minute drive from her house to ours) to take over Emmalee duty. We knew we'd be gone before she woke up and mom was more than willing to do the morning routine bring her to preschool for us.
We left the house at 5:16, panic started to set in and I got very nervous. I've never had surgery beyond my wisdom teeth, I've never broken a bone, I was spoiled with my 3 hour, natural vaginal birth with Emmalee... I'm just a big baby.
After stopping to get Dave food (he didn't have to fast after midnight), we arrived at the ER to be admitted. The lady checking us in was going over my information and commented that her sons had gone to Old Colony but were my age so I wouldn't know them. Ends up David did!
A new nurse came down to bring us to the maternity ward. When we got to maternity, they brought us to one of the labor rooms, asked me to
get prepped in the Jonny, etc and she apologized because they had just had two deliveries! We had hurried just to wait! :(
In my stupid, first time way, I sent Dave to ask if I had to be naked under the Jonny, I couldn't remember!
After that, there was a series of nurses. One took blood pressure and my temperature, one hooked me up to monitors, one stuck my IV in, one asked me a million questions about my family history... It was constant. The guy who did my bloodwork was awesome and really was the first person to make me laugh/set me at ease. My nurses were wonderful but he seemed like he could tell I was petrified and was a bit more in tune with me.
The doctor (same as delivered Emmalee) came in and we did a final check to make sure he was still breech. He of course was. We talked about the Bruins and then he apologized saying it would be a bit since they had just had two deliveries but to sit tight.
The anesthesiologist came in to discuss what he would do and when he walked in my room with a bandanna with a HUGE Bruins Stanley Cup logo from 2011 on it, I felt better. We talked about my fear of the spinal, and anesthesia in general since I don't always react well to it. We talked about the differences between dental anesthesia and a spinal and then said the best thing. "I don't suck at my job but we won't do anything until you feel comfortable and you know the spinal is working". I felt better after that.
Then we just had to wait. I figured it would be a long time with the other baby deliveries but 15 minutes later the nurses were asking me to stand and walk to the cesarean operating room. David had to stay in the room and get in his scrubs while they got me spinal set up. That was my closest moment of panic, I didn't want to be alone.
I walked into the c section room and it was exactly like the tv shows make it look. Windows on every wall, a single table in the middle of the room, trays upon trays of scissors, and that huge overhead "surgery light". The nurses helped me climb up to the table and straddle my legs over it then instructed me how to bend forward so the anesthesiologist could do the spinal. He was so wonderful, telling me what each feeling would be before it happened and before I knew it (tear free too!) he was telling me to get my legs up on the table before I couldn't feel them anymore. I only had one leg up and it had started to kick in. I couldn't move my left leg without the nurses help. As I laid back I went "wow, that was so much better than I expected" and he
goes " Told you I don't suck at my job!"
The doctors came in and I kept asking my anesthesiologist where was David and when could he come in. He kept reassuring me that we needed to make sure the spinal had worked first and then Dave could be with me.
A minute later he asked if I had any pain or discomfort in my abdomen and I said no, so he responded by telling me they had 4 pairs of tweezers pulling my stomach and asked if I was okay to move forward. I was amazed at how little I could feel so I said yes and the anesthesiologist goes "good, you can have your husband now too!"
Dave came in, sat next to my head and watched the whole surgery. The doctor made the first cut at 7:48 and other than some pulling and tugging feelings, I barely noticed it. The anesthesiologist was on the other side of my head and says "I see feet. And there are two legs. And a belly, and an arm, and the other..." giving me the play by play. Getting Tylers head out was like squeezing a toothpaste tube, the doctor just laid across my stomach with his weight until he came out! At 8 am (on the dot), they announced we had a little boy!
I didn't hear crying so I started to panic until the anesthesiologist told me he just hadn't been "jumpstarted" yet. A second later I heard the cries. The nurse brought him around the curtain to say hello and whisked him to a warming tray to be cleaned. Within minutes he was in my arms, doing skin to skin.
The first thing I noticed were his blue eyes, just like his dad and the nose I saw almost 3 years earlier. Within a few minutes, he had found his thumb so the nurse said I could try nursing since he was already sucking. He latched right on!! I barely even noticed I was still being stitched up since I was so wrapped up in him nursing. At one point he was coughing up blood and I was so nervous, but they explained he just hadn't forces the fluid out of his lungs yet but he was and it was a good thing!
It took about a half hour to sew me back up and then they lifted me from the table to my bed and wheeled me into the room I had started in. They checked all my signs again, cleaned up my belly, brought Dave some breakfast, and after an hour, it was time to weigh him. Tyler was 8lbs 6 oz and 20" long. Not long after, they wheeled us into our post partum room where we've stay for the rest of our time here.
My mom and aunt were the first to get here. Emma was sad Mimi was leaving her at school but I was happy to have her with me. They left after a while. Mom was heading to Plymouth to get my sisters and then she would be back. We spent the afternoon with Nannie, Mom, Kristian and Abigial while Dave went to get Emmalee from school.
We had bought a baby doll for Emmalee to have (from baby Tyler) and she loved that she got a "hurprise". We got some really amazing pictures of the two of them reacting to each other for the first time but Emma was genuinely concerned about my IVs and kept climbing up on the bed go be near me.
Mom and the girls took Emmalee to dinner so we could relax a bit and Nannie left soon after. They got back and David and Emma went home for the night around 7 leaving me and Tyler.
He cluster nursed from 930-11 and fell asleep. Woke up at 1, nursed for 20 minutes. And now its 5 am he's still laying them super comfy!
He's so wonderful and content and I'm just so lucky he's mine.
