In the meantime, we can start at the beginning of the 19th of March--a Monday. We weren't scheduled to arrive at the hospital until 10 am that morning, which sounds delightful, until you factor in the minor detail that I would be undergoing major surgery so I wasn't allowed to eat.
Talk about a looooong morning.
Ander woke us up at his usual time, between 6:30 and 7, completely oblivious of the monumental shift his universe was about to undergo. He had spent Friday evening, all of Saturday, and most of Sunday leading up to the 19th down in Tucson with his grandma and we were all thrilled to have a quiet, relaxed morning just the three of us.
My mom arrived just before 9 am and we began packing up our car with hospital things, and packing her car with Ander things.
The dog tried to hide his mild panic. Unsuccessfully. Jerky helped.
Soon it was 9:30 and we were off, whizzing down the freeway and discussing the birth plan(s). We were scheduled for c-section, but if they checked me and I was dilated, in conjunction with a baby not the size of a small toddler, we were to be allowed to discuss induction.
We arrived in triage, the nurse pointed me towards the bathroom and I was instructed to disrobe. I mentioned the call for cervical check and ultrasound. Her poker face was less than successful as she said she would run it by the doctors and get word from them. As we waited in our little room directly beside the front desk, Mark overheard an exasperated nurse ask, "why are we doing this? Isn't she a c-section??"
But I immediately discarded that bit of information from my mind. I didn't want to be crying just yet.
I wanted to offer to walk to the ultrasound, in order to avoid the Wheeling Throne of Awkward Feelings (aka the gurney), but turns out I'm glad I didn't because it was in an entirely other zone and floor of the hospital. With the level of waddle I had achieved by that stage of pregnancy, it may have taken most of the afternoon to get there.
As the tech gooped me up for the ultrasound machine, she asked how we were doing, why we were up here, and I joked, "we're just hoping to get a better idea of his current size and how impossible it will be to birth..."
To which she immediately chirped, "or how possible."
And that was the first (and last) medical professional to give a positive remark in regards to my desire to VBAC. Cue more choking back of waves of emotion.
She estimated 8 pounds 10 ounces, give or take a pound, which was actually pretty shocking to hear. I'd been resigned to hearing over 10 pounds again, and when faced with the sudden possibility that we would actually have to go through with discussing induction, I had the sudden realization that maybe I would have to be brave and try to labor and risk all the risks every doctor had been throwing in my face for the last nine months and it was scary.
Though it didn't matter anyway, since they'd forgotten to check my cervix first, and when they finally got around to it, I was about as high and tight as they come.
Which they could have just done when we first walked in and avoided the ultrasound and the waiting and the eventual delaying of our surgery by an entire hour.
But whatever. I'm not salty about it at all.
After that I finally met the OB who would be performing the surgery. And she was a gosh darn delight. She jabbered on about the procedure and everything leading up to it, offering to give us skin-to-skin time in the OR, possibly even breastfeed a little, and was very aware of our concerns regarding abdomen incisions and having a nearly three year old circus performer at home, proactively offering solutions before I'd even thought to bring it up.
Turns out they can provide binders for your belly there in the hospital. What a concept!
Basically, she turned the entire morning around from heading in a stressful direction, to feeling safe and comfortable and eager.
Already my memory of this next part begins to haze up, since it's the phase I dreaded the most going into it.
Mark dressed in his operating room paper suit and they instructed him to grab our belongings, leading us down a short, short hallway into the "hugging area". One wonders if the blatant naming of such an area is as good an idea as it seems, considering the frantic leaping and tugging of my heart as I got separated from my husband.
The room was just as barrenly crowded and cold as I remembered. Walls piled to the ceiling with machines and wires and not a speck of warmth, or dust even.
I found immense comfort in the kind but sassy Russian doctor who held my hand and gave me heavily accented instructions to make it through the spinal tap. If you have to have surgery, might as well get yourself a Fairy God-Babushka. I tried to read her name tag so I could remember her properly, but all I know is it started with an O and was approximately 28 letters long. With numerous X's.
As the hustle and bustle continued to flurry about me, I strove to take deeper and deeper breaths, talking to God and asking Him to help me be calm and stifle the anxiety. I know the anticipation is more often worse than the outcome and I was dangerously close to crying.
The nurses continued to lay out the medical science for me, I presume in hopes that it would be comforting, but explaining that pain and cold are registered by the same area of the brain don't make it any less bizarre and terrifying that the only way I am to be assured I won't feel that scalpel is by being sprayed in the leg with cold air.
That will never not petrify me to the deepest degree.
Just before I was about to blurt out that I was sure they'd forgotten to let my husband in, Mark arrived and I took a shuddering breath. He grabbed my hand and glued his fingers to my face, as I had emphasized how reassuring it had been during Ander's c-section.
They began, and I steeled myself as best I could. The motion sickness was about as bad as I remembered, if only slightly better because they couldn't be as quick as before due to some organs with scar tissue loitering about.
Far more quickly than I would have liked, things got more uncomfortable. I started feeling a pulling sensation in my left side, similar to that of a side cramp from running. I mentioned it and they "doused" me with Lidocaine (topical anesthetic) and reminded me how perfectly the spinal tap went, she got it on the first try, everything is fine, yadda yadda.
The discomfort didn't abate. And soon it spread into a fiery burn across my abdomen, increasing in intensity at an alarming rate. Try as I might I couldn't refrain from arching my back, fingernails digging into my palms. They were close to getting the baby out. The anesthesiologist was going to give me something else, I just needed to hold on a minute longer. I was "doing so well". Swarms of people spitting words at me.
Splats of water hitting the ground.
"There's the head."
Gurgling and tiny baby cries.
Mark struggling to hold my hand, touch my face, hold the phone steady to take a video, see our child, the simultaneous joy and concern twisting the corners of his eyes.
More hoarse baby cries and a sudden cavernous empty feeling.
Mark faltering between leaving me and going over to the clean-up station, which I could not see from my vantage point. I urged him to go to the baby.
All they had to do now was close, right?
"That is a big placenta!"
It still hurts.
"This really hurts."
They throw the rest of the Lidocaine in.
Mark's holding our baby up to my face. I choke out the only thing I can think to say about a million times, "Hi, baby. Hi. Hi, sweet. Hi, baby. Hi."
I want to touch his tiny face but I don't trust myself. I beg Mark to hold onto him tight.
They ask if I want to do skin to skin and I've never wanted anything more but they just don't understand how much it HURTS.
My face must have said enough because they whisked Mark and the baby out and I saw the anesthesiologists face leaning over mine as he said something that didn't matter.
I blinked and the curtain was removed. It took a moment for me to understand and remember that I was feeling better because I had been feeling pain in the first place. They told me to hug my arms around myself as they moved me onto a rolling gurney.
As I wheeled backwards out the OR door I noticed the clock read TWO:FIFTY.
I blearily recalled we had started at one o'clock. It seemed strange but I couldn't put two and two together.
I remember how fondly I looked upon Mark sweetly holding our newborn to his chest, relaxed and calm and reassuring. I don't remember what was said for awhile. Turns out they had to pump me so full of meds that I finally just went under and went to sleep.
I may have asked the nurse why my face itched a gross amount of times. Blinking was arduous, and keeping my eyes from crossing with each blink even arduous-er. But our child was born, we were both alive and healthy, and I wasn't being cut open or sewed shut anymore.
And the entire rest of our hospital stay was a flurry of rainbows and unicorns and every nurse was precious and wonderful and Rohan is just a literal champion of babies.
Ironically, though he weighed less than Ander (9 pounds 12 ounces to Ander's 10.10), he had difficulty passing the blood sugar tests. We were thiiiiis close to having to put him on an IV but he pulled through at the last minute. Which sounds more drastic than it was, he simply had to have a blood sugar level surpassing 45 three times in a row. His poor little heels are all chewed up from the poker and he's still sensitive about people grabbing his feet, but all things considered he's an actual real-life peach.
He immediately latched like he'd been a pro at it for months already. It took some convincing to get him to feed for longer than two seconds (not even exaggerating) and we had to supplement with formula because of the blood sugar, but even after we'd only been home for barely 24 hours he was already feeding almost exclusively from breast so we're optimistic that we'll be able to save that formula moolah for more fun stuff!
He passes gas and poops and burps without question and it's just...such a turnaround from Ander's first couple
He rarely spits up, and when he does it's the tiniest amount. I've actually been able to dress and swaddle him without fretting that I'm risking ruining the cute clothes and blankets.
And best of all, Ander has been so incredibly sweet with the baby, I am thrilled with his reaction. He finds binkies or teething toys and comes running over, "here, baby!"
If I'm feeding Rohan, Ander's right there to say, "baby eat! Baby eating food!"
If Rohan cries Ander asks, "baby hurt? Baby okay?"
Ander wakes up from his nap and first thing, he asks where the baby is.
The other night we were putting Ander to bed and unprompted, he went up to Rohan's swing, kissed the baby on the forehead and said, "good night baby, wud you!"
We feel incredibly blessed and lucky and over-the-moon that we get to keep this precious bubba. He is a gift and was always meant to be in our family, I genuinely feel like he's always belonged.
I love my sweet boys, and I love having talented and sweet friends who want to take photos of my babies! Thanks, Allie! <3
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