My own baby story

On July 8th I entered the hospital to begin induction of labor. I went into a small room with my daughter, my Al and my youngest brother to artificially begin the natural child birth process. They placed Citotek (Sp?) on my cervix twice at three hour intervals and hooked me up to the fetal monitors to ensure that Brooklyn was tolerating the process. The first drop in fetal heart rate occurred shortly after the first application of Citotek. A couple of hours went by, but no further signs of distress from Brooklyn, so they applied the second dose, after finding NO progress being made on the labor front. The second dose brought about more signs of fetal distress, through the night a worried nurse continually checked, telling me to sleep, but HA how is one to sleep upon hearing her child's heart rate drop so low and waiting the two minutes which seemed to be an eternity, to hear the heart rate return to normal. Who can sleep wondering if the next time they wake up, the heart beat of that little person will no longer be there? My OB arrived around 7 a.m. the morning of July 9th to check the strip and verify what the nurse felt she was seeking. No more Citotek, as it was endangering the baby, but now they were looking at an IV of pitocen to further the process. Notice it was to further the process, not to speed the process, as apparently starting the IV without the Citotek doing it's job means the first stages of labor would probably take 24 hours to start. So she calls my Perinatologist, who says that it is too dangerous, a Cesarean is the only way to ensure that both of us survive labor. OH, OH, this is my worst fear, this is the one thing that I haven't even explored because I am so terrified of it. I begin to cry, I can't stop crying, this means gaping hole in my abdomen, in a spot that is prone to infection due to the extra weight I carry, this means a major surgery and a long recovery. This means more risk of leaving possibly not one but two daughters motherless as I am. There's no other way though, we'll begin immediately.
In walks the anesthesiologist. Who takes one look at Al and says "Hey How are you?" Al says, "Nice to see you, this is my baby coming!"
Turns out the two knew each other as the Doctor worked his way through medical school at my beloved Fitzgerald's. This is a good omen, I'm still scared of the procedure, but this is a good omen to me, this is lucky.
So they give me some nasty stuff to empty my stomach, I drink it down and they wheel me down the hall through the doors of the surgery suite. Al is to wait until the epidural is done, but after many tries to get the epidural in place have failed, I end up opting for general anesthesia and Al can't come into the room. So I am out for the birth of my little Brooklyn. I wake up at 10:15 in a recovery room, my first thought is, oh good, I'm alive, Sydney still has a mother. I can't talk yet, but I can think and I can hear, and I've heard someone say recently that Brooklyn is fine. It seems forever, but I find a little strength to ask the nurse if the baby is good, she's perfect, no need for NICU or anything, just perfect, she's in the nursery being cared for until I am back in the land of the living. No Al at my side, no brother, no daughter, but I am not afraid or even upset by it, I know they are somewhere near Brooklyn, staring at her and watching like a hawk, because they know that is what I want them to do. I lay there awhile longer, finally I see a little curly head peak around the curtain, eyes red from crying, I say "I'm ok, Syd, I'm ok, how's your sister? Beautiful?" Yep! So now they are going to take me to a room down the hall to recover some more, the next 12 hours are critical apparently, for me and my blood sugars. Ok, so I sleep off and on, and I feel pain in my abdomen, I wonder what it looks like there, it hurts a little, that's for certain. Where is the baby? In the nursery still, they will bring her soon. Finally at 2:10, they bring her in, she was born at 9:11 a.m. and I didn't see her until 2:10 p.m., so strange for me, I couldn't get up and go find her, but Al knew where she was and had check on her numerous times. It may be years before I get all of that time accounted for, but I know that eventually my wonderful Al who says so few words, will trickle out what occurred while I was out of commission. So they bring her in and I hold her for the first time in my arms, she has Al's nose, dark black hair just as soft as Sydney's was, and big beautiful pouty lips. She's 7lbs 5.5 oz and 18 inches long. Such a good baby, loves to be swaddled, sleeps so well. They moved me after 12 hours to the post partum floor. It was a beautiful room with a fake skylight and this big huge window facing east. The first order of business was them making sure I could get up to go to the bathroom. YEP, then they left the IV in my arm overnight to ensure that I could have medication quickly if needed, but it turned out to be unnecessary. I think there was something I was allergic to in the IV or something, my arm was swollen to twice it's size and very stiff until this morning when I took some benydryl. The nurse thought perhaps the IV had infiltrated the vein and some medication was stuck under the skin, but it was swollen and itchy, which is what happens when I find myself in contact with any kind of sulfate.
The doctor came in on Saturday morning to check on me. He said that dependent on how I was feeling I could possibly go home on Sunday, if I met certain mile stones, that was getting up, walking the halls, having a bowel movement and being able to manage my pain with medication. Ok, now I had something to work on throughout the day, so I did. Sunday morning the doctor came in and said you will probably be here two more days, then we can get your sugars managed, I said, "can I go home today?" Oh You want to? YES YES AND YES
So I got to go home on Sunday!
Our first night home was a little rough. I've never been fantastic at making a four ounce Playtex nurser hold two ounces of formula, so she seemed to not have enough to eat or something until I switched to the Gerber bottle in the middle of the night. Then she slept at three hour stretches, which gave me time to rest too. now she's been asleep nearly four hours and it's time to wake her to eat. She's so beautiful, Sydney and I can't stop staring at her!