Lucid again
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008First off – wow. Bowled over by all of the bloggy land love. Thank you all so much for cheering me on during and welcoming Tessa after. I’ve had several real life people express awe at all of you being here for this wonderful occasion. Being so far from most of our friends and family it was wonderful having a virtual waiting room full of all of you waiting for news.
Now for what you came for – details and photos.
My doctor broke my water at 7 am yesterday. The nurse said she never gets to use words like “copious amounts” in her notes but breaking my water qualified. It was rather amazing and a bit painful. About an hour later, I was sitting on the bed talking to Steve and there was another geyser – water running off both sides of the bed and flooding puddling on the floor. The nurse came in and said I now officially had the most water in my that she had ever seen in her years of nursing. (Heh…that doesn’t even count what I’m still holding on to in my legs and ankles.) I couldn’t stop laughing and imagining it happening at the grocery store “Clean up on aisle 5”. I was having regular contractions so they decided to hold off on the pitocin (no idea if that is the correct spelling – it is the med that helps jump start labor). Around noon, the pain was getting worse and they want to start pitocin so I received my epidural. I was stoned off my ass for the next 4 hours. Didn’t feel a single contraction from then on. Epidurals rock.
I hit 4 cm at 4 pm. My doctor said she was starting the active labor clock then and she wanted to see some progress in the coming hours or we would have to make some decisions. At 8 pm, I was still stuck at 4cm. Steve went out to get himself something to eat while I tried not to growl at him since it had been 24 hours since I was allowed anything but ice chips. He had barely left the hospital when I was informed we were heading down for a c-section. I freaked out until they tracked him down. We all headed for the operating room. I was a little freaked by it all happening so fast (the c-section, obviously not the labor). I didn’t enjoy the c-section experience. It didn’t hurt exactly but wasn’t comfortable either. Knowing they are tugging out your innards while rocking you around on the table is rather disconcerting. Tessa didn’t want to come out but they eventually managed to get her free and clean her up. Steve and I immediately started crying when we heard her cry.
She is beautiful and perfect. She has been wonderful so far. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night but that was more my fault than hers. I catnapped while she slept on my chest and fed every few hours. I will admit to some trepidation that I couldn’t possibly love another child as much as I love Sabrina but I quickly fell in love with Tessa. I am completely enchanted by her. It is different from our first days with Sabrina but no more or less amazing.
As for me, I was shocked by the amount of pain immediately following the c-section. And I continued to be shocked by the pain through the night and this morning. They still didn’t give me the okay for food this morning and I started getting very sick to my stomach. I told the nurse that I was going to be sick if they didn’t feed me so they brought me broth. Didn’t help. They gave me percocet and 2 saltines. When the lactation consultant came to see me at 11am this morning and found me unable to pay attention to her and in tears, she immediately rounded me up some food. Too late, the pain killers were too far ahead of the food and I ended up tossing my cookies. I felt horrible for hours but once the pain killers got out of my system, my day started looking up considerably. I still have some pain at my incision site, but nothing I can’t handle. I’m moving slowly but I’ve showered and been moving around a good bit as the day has moved on.
We are both enchanted with our beautiful girls. Many of you have asked what Sabrina thinks. Unfortunately, she was here during my not-so-lucid period today so I wasn’t able to interact much. She said baby and hi and wasn’t amused that mommy didn’t pick her up. Otherwise, no real reaction from her that I noticed. Abuela has been keeping her happy at home. Steve and I both miss Sabrina a lot so he went home to stay there tonight. We look forward to us all being under one roof.