Cole’s birth story

I’m not sure how to tell his story in a way that is either witty or sentimental.  In many ways Cole’s birth story starts about six weeks ago with a call to the neurologist that tells me there’s a little something weird going on in my head and I need to have c-section.  The next couple of weeks were part denial, part try to find someone to override his decision, followed by a couple weeks of being relatively OK with having a c-section and trying to focus on the positives, then the last week or two of reading up on c-sections (stupid, stupid move) and scaring myself to the point of not being sure whether I was more freaked out than I was excited about having a new baby.

So, let’s start with Monday morning… 

Not surprisingly, I didn’t sleep much Sunday night. I woke up around 2:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I watched bad TV for an hour or so, got a bath, put on some make up (what? I knew there would be pictures) and we left for the hospital around 5:00.  When we got to the hospital, we found out that my surgery had been pushed back an hour and wouldn’t start until 8:30.  Super.  So, Craig and I stared at each other in the hospital room for a while.  The nurse came in to hook up an IV and catheter and we stared at each other some more.  Finally, she tossed him some scrubs, moved me to an operating bed and wheeled me to the holding area. 

When the delivery room was ready, they wheeled me in.  A very nice man stuck a needle in my back while a nurse held onto my shoulders.  Then it was game on.  The spinal kicked in pretty quickly and my legs went from normal to tingly to heavy to OhMyGod do I HAVE legs in about 5.6 seconds.  They laid me down, strapped me down and brought Craig into the room as they were lathering up my belly with something that looked like iodine. 

Craig moved in beside me and focused on looking at me instead of to his left where my OB was starting to cut.  The surgery itself was quick.  It was also…  weird.  At one point, I thought I was going to throw up.  At another, it got really hard to breathe.  The anesthesiologist stood behind me and told me enough about what was going on that I knew what to expect I would feel, but not so much that I knew which organs were where they should be and which were on my stomach. 

A few minutes into the surgery, the OB yelled out, “Here he comes! Or she.”  We held our breath and I started to cry when I heard the baby cry. She yelled again, announcing “It’s a….Boy!” and everyone in the operating room cheered and started congratulating us.  I think they held him up, but I couldn’t really see him.  Craig went to take pictures as they cleaned him off and before Craig and Cole left the operating room, a nurse brought him over so I could see the little bit of his face that was peeking out from the blankets. Even from the tiny bit that I saw and the photos I looked at on the camera, I knew he looked like his big sister. 

The rest of the surgery was uneventful, although I could have lived without the play-by-play when the anesthesiologist told me that the OB was putting my ute back in.  Um?  Where did it go? I listened to them count their instruments to make sure that none were left inside my stomach and answered the operating team’s questions about the baby’s name, if I knew it was a boy and if I thought Craig had a football for him yet. 

After I was put back together and spent the appropriate amount of time in recovery, I was wheeled back to our mom and baby room, hooked up to a bag of pitocin and tried to avoid every nurse that wanted to come in and push on my stomach.  Jerks.  The cramps from the pitocin and the feeling of the incision were both pretty painful most of the day.  I was so physically and mentally exhausted, I spent most of the afternoon and early evening on the verge of tears.  I had to be careful of how I held Cole – all 7bls, 11oz of him.  And getting out of bed the first day was way too overwhelming of a thought. 

By the next morning though and until now, I’ve been feeling pretty good as long as I keep up with the drugs.  If I let them wear off or try to move to quickly, I pay for it. 

So, all in all, was it as bad as I thought it would be?  Eh.  Some parts no – I definitely didn’t feel any pain during the surgery.  Yes that was a fear of mine.  But other parts, like the cramping afterwards, the big ass blood clots that came when I stood up for the first time and the not being able to shift my weight on my own for the first 24+ hours… those parts still have me wishing I had delivered vaginally instead. 

But all that matters is that Cole is here.  He is content, he is healthy, he likes to snuggle up against my chest and I will be fine.  (As long as they send me home with good drugs.)