Juliet’s Birth Story (part two)

They made me leave Dan in my hospital room when they wheeled me down to surgery. They had to get me prepped before he could join us.

Prep for c-section includes:

• Being stripped down by nurses
• Getting a second IV line
• Perching precariously on the edge of tilted table while they inject a spinal block
• Having someone poke you with a safety pin to gauge how the spinal block is taking effect
• Laughing with the whole operating staff when you say “Ha, I just told my legs to move, but nothing happened.”
• Being strapped down with IV’s running out of both arms

After what seemed like an eternity, Dan joined us in the operating room looking especially cute in his ‘Daddy Bunny Suit’

They sat him down next to my head and raised the paper curtain to shield us from what had to be a gory sight.

The anesthesiologist suddenly leaned over and said “They’ve made the first incision.”

What now? No warning? Really? Let’s just slice her open and see if she notices? I was shocked but happily surprised to find that I really couldn’t feel anything.

I could feel pressure. I had been warned by my sister and some nurses that when they started to pull the baby out I would feel a ton of pressure on my chest, almost as if someone was sitting on my chest. I was instructed to just breathe through this.

I could also feel incredibly itchy. My face felt like it had ants crawling on it. A word to the wise, all would-be future Mama’s out there, practice having your face scratched by your husband. In the moment you won’t be able to scratch it yourself and you will not be able to adequately instruct your husband to do so. I’m told that the itch was caused by the spinal block.

I also felt a lot of upper body shaking. My adrenaline was pumping so hard I thought I was going to shimmy right off the table. Apparently this is completely normal.

Before we knew it the anesthesiologist leaned down again and whispered to Dan, “They’re about to deliver your baby if you’d like to stand up and take a picture.”

This was seriously the weirdest operating room ever. Dan declined and the anesthesiologist leaned over to me to ask if I wanted him to take a picture of my daughter being delivered.

Let me put this another way, this guy was adamant we take a picture of my premature baby being removed from my split open body. How is that even legal?

Obviously, I declined. What would one do with that picture anyway? It’s definitely never going up on Facebook.

Suddenly the doctors said “Ok, it’s time.”

And at 12:17am on August 26, 2011, I heard three of the most precious little squawks coming from the other side of the curtain. Not only was she here, but she was mad about it!

Obviously the waterworks started on my side of the curtain. I will never forget that sound for as long as I live.

I knew that the NICU team whisked her off into the adjoining room to get her cleaned up and assessed, so I sent Dan in after them to get the first pictures of our precious little bundle. I knew it would be quite a while before I would be able to see her in person and I wanted as many pictures as possible to tide me over in the meantime.

He came back with these:

And just like that, we became parents to one amazing little girl.

*kisses*