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May 2017 Moms
emilyalso
member
Frances' Birth Story
emilyalso
member
Disclaimers: 1)This is the SECOND time I have typed this out (my computer froze at the hospital when I did it...). 2) Some of this will be a repeat from my 'announcement' blurb. 3) You wouldn't think there would be much to say about a scheduled C-section, so I'll try to keep it interesting! 
4)tl;dr My C-section happened a day earlier than we had planned, and I had a sweet baby girl - 7lbs 12oz and 20 inches long
I was scheduled for a C-section at noon thirty last Wednesday, and since my first was born 2 days before his due date, I hadn't really considered that it could happen before then. Monday evening, I went to a 'Moms Connect' group at our Church - I hadn't been much during the year, but I really wanted to make it to the last one before summer. (Our Church is about 45 minutes from home - in the opposite direction from the hospital.) It was a small group of women (7?) and we were mostly just chatting and snacking (<--- that will be a problem later) and I got up to go tt and felt a little gush. I assumed I had peed myself or had a quarter of a cup of discharge waiting for me (NBD), but on my walk to the bathroom it KEPT COMING! When I sat down on the toilet, it was SO MUCH LIQUID!!!!! My jeans looked like a toddler who had peed their pants, and I tried to make a make-shift pad out of the scratchy bathroom paper towels. I waddled back into the room with a panicked expression and one of the ladies said, 'You aren't in labor, are you???' WELP, as a matter of fact...
I started to get in touch with everyone - my parents who needed to come watch DS, my husband (in the shower, unavailable), my best friend, the OB (who will call back within 20 minutes) - and to arrange transportation to the hospital. A sweet woman (and grandmother of 9) ended up driving me to the hospital and my parents picked up my car on their way to our house. We got to the hospital, checked in, DH arrived, and we got settled in a room to be all checked out. Since I had had dinner and those SNACKS at the Church, and since my labor was not progressing quickly (2cm, no noticeable contractions), they decided the surgery would be the next morning at 5am. DH changed into pjs and promptly fell asleep on the sofa bed. I was FAR TOO KEYED UP to sleep, so I entertained myself on the internet.
Around 2 I started to have an uncomfortable contraction every now and then, but I wasn't worried about it - (mentally) the surgery is coming up, it's no big deal, they aren't that often, they don't even hurt that bad... But I did mention it to my nurse. She said the options (to be picked by my Dr) were 1) go ahead with the epidural and possibly move up the surgery or 2) get a morphine butt shot (with a needle the size of a drinking straw), so I decided to 'tough it out.' They did begin to get stronger though, so I downloaded an app to track them. Turns out, it was about every 3-4 minutes I would have a pretty painful one, so I called the nurse back in (maybe 3:15). She assessed the situation, put in a call to the Dr, and it was decided that we would go ahead with the epidural and do the surgery when that was in place. I had to first receive 37 bags of fluid (maybe 2 in reality). The problem was... in my attempts to be the-perfect-patient-who-never-complains, another girl got in front of me in line for the anesthesiologist. It was a LONG wait with those contractions coming!!!! (I KNOW labor pain is a part of it, and we all expect it... except that when you are a scheduled C, you sort of expect to skip it! The pain comes later for us chop job mamas!) It was easily an hour before I got the epidural.
If you have anxiety about an upcoming epidural, you might want to skip on to the next paragraph... The nurses had told me that I had the best Doc that night - if they had a baby, they would want him to do their epi - and he seemed quite nice as he prepped me for everything. I remember last time that the WORST part was the numbing shot (they said it would be like a bee sting, but it was like 1,000 electric hornet stings) and it was pretty bad again. It got to the part where he would put in the epidural, and I was trying to hold still like I was supposed to and I thought everything was going fine. Then the conversation around me got weird. The nurses looked scared. The Doc was saying things like 'no, that wasn't a seizure...' 'it didn't last long, that's one way you can tell the difference...' 'we can continue with what we're doing instead of having to switch to a resuscitation...' Apparently I had passed out while he was putting it in!!!!! I had to ask my husband - Did you know something was wrong? (Scared face: YES) How? (You fell over!) I asked a nurse the same thing and she said, 'You just kind of slumped and we called your name and you didn't answer.' WHO KNEW?! After that, I think it was smooth sailing and a pretty quick trip to the OR.
Things moved pretty quickly once we got to the OR, and Kris was brought in to sit next to me. I didn't feel a lot of tugging like they said I might, but I kept feeling like someone was leaning on my thighs (I had a mental picture of someone propped there on their elbows just watching the show!) They pulled her out, and told everyone to keep quiet until DH could look and tell me the sex. When he peered around and said GIRL, I couldn't. believe. it. With every fiber of my being, I thought I was carrying a boy!!! He went over while they cleaned her up a little and then they moseyed on to the recovery area while I got put back together. During this time, I was an emotional wreck. I was just on the table, with my arms out, crying my eyes out. I was so excited for our new little baby, but I was really, really missing the one I left at home. I was upset that I didn't tell him goodbye, and I was so sad that he would wake up and I wouldn't be there.
Once I got to recovery, it was all smiles and baby snuggles! They let me hold her pretty quickly, and she was excited to latch. We hung out there for a while, because we ended up getting on top of a shift change before we could be moved to a room. I could already tell when I had to 'crab crawl' from the rolling bed to the bed in my room that things were going better than they did the first time around. (I'll post more about my C recovery in that thread.)
We've been home for almost 48 hours, and things are going great! It's a little tough - logistically and on my heart - not to be able to pick up DS, but I do as much with him as I can. We are headed to the Ped tomorrow morning, and I hope to hear that she is gaining back the weight she lost. My milk came in much more quickly this time, so I am hoping to avoid a lot of weight-worries that I had with my first.
I think that's about it! Thanks for reading, and I am happy to answer any and all questions for mamas going through the same things (especially ones that might end up with an un-planned C... that brings up a whole new set of issues that we didn't always plan for!)
4)tl;dr My C-section happened a day earlier than we had planned, and I had a sweet baby girl - 7lbs 12oz and 20 inches longI was scheduled for a C-section at noon thirty last Wednesday, and since my first was born 2 days before his due date, I hadn't really considered that it could happen before then. Monday evening, I went to a 'Moms Connect' group at our Church - I hadn't been much during the year, but I really wanted to make it to the last one before summer. (Our Church is about 45 minutes from home - in the opposite direction from the hospital.) It was a small group of women (7?) and we were mostly just chatting and snacking (<--- that will be a problem later) and I got up to go tt and felt a little gush. I assumed I had peed myself or had a quarter of a cup of discharge waiting for me (NBD), but on my walk to the bathroom it KEPT COMING! When I sat down on the toilet, it was SO MUCH LIQUID!!!!! My jeans looked like a toddler who had peed their pants, and I tried to make a make-shift pad out of the scratchy bathroom paper towels. I waddled back into the room with a panicked expression and one of the ladies said, 'You aren't in labor, are you???' WELP, as a matter of fact...
I started to get in touch with everyone - my parents who needed to come watch DS, my husband (in the shower, unavailable), my best friend, the OB (who will call back within 20 minutes) - and to arrange transportation to the hospital. A sweet woman (and grandmother of 9) ended up driving me to the hospital and my parents picked up my car on their way to our house. We got to the hospital, checked in, DH arrived, and we got settled in a room to be all checked out. Since I had had dinner and those SNACKS at the Church, and since my labor was not progressing quickly (2cm, no noticeable contractions), they decided the surgery would be the next morning at 5am. DH changed into pjs and promptly fell asleep on the sofa bed. I was FAR TOO KEYED UP to sleep, so I entertained myself on the internet.
Around 2 I started to have an uncomfortable contraction every now and then, but I wasn't worried about it - (mentally) the surgery is coming up, it's no big deal, they aren't that often, they don't even hurt that bad... But I did mention it to my nurse. She said the options (to be picked by my Dr) were 1) go ahead with the epidural and possibly move up the surgery or 2) get a morphine butt shot (with a needle the size of a drinking straw), so I decided to 'tough it out.' They did begin to get stronger though, so I downloaded an app to track them. Turns out, it was about every 3-4 minutes I would have a pretty painful one, so I called the nurse back in (maybe 3:15). She assessed the situation, put in a call to the Dr, and it was decided that we would go ahead with the epidural and do the surgery when that was in place. I had to first receive 37 bags of fluid (maybe 2 in reality). The problem was... in my attempts to be the-perfect-patient-who-never-complains, another girl got in front of me in line for the anesthesiologist. It was a LONG wait with those contractions coming!!!! (I KNOW labor pain is a part of it, and we all expect it... except that when you are a scheduled C, you sort of expect to skip it! The pain comes later for us chop job mamas!) It was easily an hour before I got the epidural.
If you have anxiety about an upcoming epidural, you might want to skip on to the next paragraph... The nurses had told me that I had the best Doc that night - if they had a baby, they would want him to do their epi - and he seemed quite nice as he prepped me for everything. I remember last time that the WORST part was the numbing shot (they said it would be like a bee sting, but it was like 1,000 electric hornet stings) and it was pretty bad again. It got to the part where he would put in the epidural, and I was trying to hold still like I was supposed to and I thought everything was going fine. Then the conversation around me got weird. The nurses looked scared. The Doc was saying things like 'no, that wasn't a seizure...' 'it didn't last long, that's one way you can tell the difference...' 'we can continue with what we're doing instead of having to switch to a resuscitation...' Apparently I had passed out while he was putting it in!!!!! I had to ask my husband - Did you know something was wrong? (Scared face: YES) How? (You fell over!) I asked a nurse the same thing and she said, 'You just kind of slumped and we called your name and you didn't answer.' WHO KNEW?! After that, I think it was smooth sailing and a pretty quick trip to the OR.
Things moved pretty quickly once we got to the OR, and Kris was brought in to sit next to me. I didn't feel a lot of tugging like they said I might, but I kept feeling like someone was leaning on my thighs (I had a mental picture of someone propped there on their elbows just watching the show!) They pulled her out, and told everyone to keep quiet until DH could look and tell me the sex. When he peered around and said GIRL, I couldn't. believe. it. With every fiber of my being, I thought I was carrying a boy!!! He went over while they cleaned her up a little and then they moseyed on to the recovery area while I got put back together. During this time, I was an emotional wreck. I was just on the table, with my arms out, crying my eyes out. I was so excited for our new little baby, but I was really, really missing the one I left at home. I was upset that I didn't tell him goodbye, and I was so sad that he would wake up and I wouldn't be there.
Once I got to recovery, it was all smiles and baby snuggles! They let me hold her pretty quickly, and she was excited to latch. We hung out there for a while, because we ended up getting on top of a shift change before we could be moved to a room. I could already tell when I had to 'crab crawl' from the rolling bed to the bed in my room that things were going better than they did the first time around. (I'll post more about my C recovery in that thread.)
We've been home for almost 48 hours, and things are going great! It's a little tough - logistically and on my heart - not to be able to pick up DS, but I do as much with him as I can. We are headed to the Ped tomorrow morning, and I hope to hear that she is gaining back the weight she lost. My milk came in much more quickly this time, so I am hoping to avoid a lot of weight-worries that I had with my first.
I think that's about it! Thanks for reading, and I am happy to answer any and all questions for mamas going through the same things (especially ones that might end up with an un-planned C... that brings up a whole new set of issues that we didn't always plan for!)
Re: Frances' Birth Story
As as far as what determines which one you get, I don't know the answer to that... It could be hospital preference? Dr preference? Depends on the procedure?
Married: October 2014
Began TTC: April 2015
BFP #1: 9/18/15. EDD 5/18/16. MC 10/26/15. (9w)
BFP #2: 2/27/16. EDD 11/7/16. MC/D&E 4/20/16 (11w)
BFP #3: 9/22/16. EDD 5/29/17. DS born 4/24/17
BFP #4: 5/20/18. EDD 1/23/19.