I was scheduled for 7am on Monday the 26th. I spent Saturday and Sunday being a mad woman. I cleaned my house top to bottom, did (literally) 14 loads of laundry, changed all the sheets, finished setting up the nursery, and made spaghetti and meatballs, chicken soup, 3 loaves of bread, 2 kinds of cookies, and chicken salad. My parents came Sunday afternoon and my mother yelled at me for not staying off my feet. I could never have relaxed in the hospital if I didn’t do it, though. I also knew from experience that the food was terrible, so some of that was for my mother to bring to me!
Before I left, I had to call in to L&D to make sure there hadn’t been any emergencies that bumped me off the schedule. Luckily, everything was quiet, so I said goodbye to Aliza and my parents and Neil drove me to the hospital. We went up to L&D and they showed us to an LDR. That surprised me a little at first, because obviously I didn’t need the L&D parts of the room, but on reflection it was nice to be treated like any other pregnant woman and not just a surgical case. With my first, I went from the antenatal ward to surgery and then to a recovery bay next to the OR; I never saw the L&D unit. I had a brief moment of sadness as I saw the labor map and position posters on the wall and knew I would never need to know anything on them.
Two nurses came in and introduced themselves. I gathered from their conversation that it was the first day for one of them, so she wasn’t working on her own yet. They put me on the monitor to check the baby, inserted my IV, and drew blood work. The OB came to check on me, and then the anesthesiologist came in and introduced herself and checked me. I checked on my surgical requests (no strapped arms, catheter after spinal, and sutures not staples) and got okayed. By 8, we were ready to go. The OR is inside the L&D unit—just across the hall from the LDR I was in. I got wheeled into the OR by myself—husband not allowed in during anesthesia this time. They did a spinal, which went in fairly easily, and then everyone got assembled for surgery. A few minutes later, some pushing, some pulling—out comes the baby! A boy, which we already knew, and had the name ready: Isaac Asher. My husband realized he forgot the camera and I told him off. They didn’t allow photos of the surgery but they were okay once the baby got to the warmer. Neil tells me the baby was pretty bloody-looking and awful, though. He also peed on the way out. Everyone congratulated us, and the anesthesiologist wished us a Mazel Tov, which was sweet of her.
The pediatricians checked him and they brought him over briefly before taking him to the nursery for a proper exam. Since I was stuck in the OR anyway, and they said he’d be back when I went into recovery, I was okay with that. They measured him—8 lbs 6 oz, 19.5″. I grow nice big babies, what can I say? While he got his exam and bath, I got stitched up. In order to avoid the problems I had last time, the OB did a double layer suture with all internal stitches. It took a good amount of time–nearly an hour. By the time I was wheeled back into the LDR, Isaac was all done and waiting for me and I got to try nursing.
All in all, I was really happy with how it went. There were some problems post-op but it wasn’t anyone’s fault this time, and I’d like to remember them separately, so they’ll be in a separate post.
Congratulations! Peeing on the way out–that’s a funny image. :)