hospital

I delivered (or should I say Dr. Singer delivered) a beautiful healthy 8.1 lb baby boy. 10 toes. 10 fingers. Healthy!! Now I stress this because when a woman is over the age of 35 and pregnant, all she hears for 9 months are the RISKS. If you are pregnant now and are of advanced maternal age (over 35) then you have heard the statistics. I don’t need to reiterate and freak anyone out. I’m not here to discourage anyone from trying to have a baby. That clock ticks loud enough for most everyone. But for me, delivering at 44, my risk for having a baby with any chromosomal abnormality was 1 in 26. Eek. So, having a healthy baby was a pretty big deal. I have to say, after the amniocentesis, I hardly thought about the negative possibilities.

The hospital we delivered in was brand new. I actually went through labor in the room I would be in for the duration of my stay. Had I not had the c-section, I would have delivered the baby right in my room. It was pretty nice. The new thing now is “rooming in” with your baby. There was no nursery. From the moment I had him, he was with me. Right from the start, all through the night, he was with us. I had thought that was a wonderful idea, until I had a c-section. There I was, unable to even sit up, completely drugged out of my head, and the baby has his first poop. Poor Ian, had never changed a diaper (that little morsel wasn’t covered in all the freakin classes we went to…Really?) We had to call a nurse (who was all annoyed that we did) to come help him. I have to say, hospitals should really let a woman rest at least one night after a major surgery or if they had a particularly tough labor. I truly have not had a full uninterrupted nights sleep since before the baby was born. That is not an exaggeration. And I have a husband who takes “Ollie duty” at least a couple nights a week or more!

Now this is something really important that no one told me before I went into the hospital. When you have a c-section, you are going to need pain medication. This is no joke! My amazing Dr. Singer told me, “Stay on top of your pain medication. Don’t let it wear off. It is most important that you don’t feel the pain so you can start to get up and around.” Sounds good. Except, the nurses don’t stay on top of the pain medication for you…you MUST ask for it. They CAN NOT offer it to you. ???????? Well, I didn’t know that. I’d fall asleep and wake up in such pain, cause I was two hours over the time I should have taken it. My husband kept up on it as best he could, but he was sleep deprived as well. It wasn’t until the last night I was there, I had a really nice night shift nurse who told me the score.

Another thing to watch out for in the hospital, is who comes in and out of your room to check on you or your baby. Because the hospital was brand new, the pediatrician we chose didn’t have privileges at that facility yet, so we used the pediatric neonatal group the hospital provided. The hospital was in our insurance network. But the pediatric group was not….?? What? It’s not like anyone asked us…or we had a choice. Well, we didn’t find this out until bills started coming to us in the range of $12,000….just for this group. There were exorbitant charges for the baby’s subsequent hospital care, but the only people in to see him that we remember were the nurses that took care of us both, who were employed by the hospital. Anyway, we wound up having to get hospital records, etc., blah blah blah. Point being: If I had it to do over, I would have had a visitors log for every single person that came into our room to sign. Name – Time- Purpose of visit. I’m so not kidding. It seems almost silly…but it would have saved so many headaches.

I remember looking down at my legs the day after I gave birth. I was numb still…but I was NOT prepared for what I saw. My legs were swollen beyond recognition. I told the nurse, “Excuse me, these aren’t my legs.” She just looked at me, and said ” Yes, they are.” I said, ” No, you don’t understand, these aren’t my legs!” I swear, they all thought I was crazy. But, again!, no one told me, I would swell up like an elephant after I had my baby!! The anesthesia makes it horrible! Why did no one tell me!? At least I would have been slightly prepared. Do they think you are going to turn around and decided to not have the baby? I mean, really. By month 9 you are begging for someone to get the baby out of you. Geez, it would have been nice to know. And I am not the only woman I know (NOW) that had this issue and was completely freaked out by it! For the love of God, women, we need to share this information! It took a couple weeks at least for the swelling to go down. My friend Joey said to me after the fact…”Holy $%!#….you looked 7 months pregnant when you came home!” It’s true. The swelling went down and I lost about 25 lbs in the first couple of weeks. My mind took a little longer to recover. 🙂

2 weeks after the birth! Can you imagine what it was like before?? OMG!

A week after the birth! Can you imagine what it was like before?? OMG!

In my next post I will share the blur of my first couple weeks at home with the baby. It’s actually hard to remember, as I feel like someone else had taken over my body. Like an alien. A freaked out, terrified, exhausted alien. 🙂 xo Until then, chin up!

After a few false alarms and one actual trip to the hospital (just to get sent home…oh the humility!)….the day of our scheduled induction had come. May 30, 2014.

All set to go! Let’s do this!

I feel like my husband Ian and I left for the hospital that day with the wide eyes and excitement of kids. We were giddy. We were all set. All packed. Birth plan all printed out. Finally had our roll of quarters for the vending machines. This was a tip that is on every Pinterest list for things to bring to the hospital. We never used it. It is now in Oliver’s piggy bank as a reminder of our last few hours of carefree married life. Now anyone who really knows me, knows that I ADORE Pinterest. Just love it! But… the lists on there of what to bring to the hospital? Sorry, but just ridiculous. You know what I needed to bring? A log book, of who was in and out of my room to check on our baby and a sign to attach permanently to my bedside that said “I’d like my pain medication now, thank you.” More on these topics later!

So I opted for a “natural” delivery….with an epidural, of course. I’m 44, I wanted to enjoy this. Now I mentioned the birth plan. I must say, mine was pretty loose. I was not attached to anything happening one way or another. The classes we took pushed the birth plan printout, so we did it. But I told the nurse when we got there…”My plan is to HAVE this baby. Whatever it takes to keep him safe.” And I meant it. So after 26+ hours of labor (which included 3 and a half hours of intense pushing) my little Oliver decided he was going to tilt his head and relax for a while. He was in a transverse position with a 14 inch head. He wasn’t going anywhere. My epidural had worn off a couple hours prior and the assigned mid-wife had a worried look on her face (when she actually was in the room) and decided it was time to call Dr. Singer. Hell, I knew that! My wonderful doctor (who’s name is cutely appropriate) came into my room, chastised the mid-wife for making me push for three plus hours, and gently told me I had to have an emergency c-section right away. Now I am getting a little weepy as I write this because even though my head was spinning around like Linda Blair’s, I looked at my husband (who was literally holding my legs down)…and the look of terror that was on his face still gets me emotional. I took a breath and was like, “Whatever we need to do…let’s do it.”

Now at this point, things for me get a little fuzzy. As I said, my epidural had worn off, so they pumped me up with some heavy duty drugs. It was all so quick. At least it seemed quick. I do remember my doctor asking me if I could feel anything when he poked my abdomen. On my right side I didn’t feel a thing, but the left side, a little… I said, “Oh, I’m sure it will be fine by the time you cut.” Well, not so much. So they gave me another push of anesthesia. So Ladies getting a c-section, wait until you don’t feel a thing!! Apparently, I was telling jokes while they were taking the baby out of me. Seems likely. And I can’t say I felt any pain after that, but I did feel them taking Oliver out of me. Weirdest feeling ever! And of course you feel the humpty dumpty effect as they put you back together. I mean think about it…your organs have been squished pretty fiercely for the last couple months. I truly believe my liver was under my arm for at least the last two weeks of my pregnancy.

I must say, what happened next is perhaps the most profound moment in my entire life and certainly the most intense. Ian, who had went with the baby while they put me back together, brought Oliver to me and placed him on my chest. My son had his eyes wide open, staring into mine. The connection was unreal….electric, huge, emotional. He knew me. Me. It is truly hard to describe. A love was born that day, that continues to grow in leaps and bounds each and every day. And every day I think, it can’t get bigger, but it does. May 31st 2014 at 5:18pm, I became the luckiest woman I know. 🙂

I don’t even know who took this…but I love it.

I had thought I would incorporate all our hospital hoopla in one post, but there is just too much. And I don’t want to gloss over some of the things ahead that I think could really help someone else. Things I wish someone had told me to look out for. Things to expect. And of course, there needs to be an entire blog dedicated to my breast feeding fiasco, as I like to call it. Let’s just say, not everything happens the way you want it to or expect it to….and you aren’t a bad mother because of it. Wish I had known that morsel. Until next time. Keep fightin the good fight! And remember, behind every great kid is a mother who is pretty sure she is screwing it all up. xo

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