Done

To be honest, I really wanted to wait a lot longer to write this post.

But it's hanging over my head hounding me to just get it over with, so here goes.

I don't even know how to start.

Everything is fuzzy in my head and I don't remember exactly how the conversation went.  Mostly I just remember the conclusion.  And frankly even over 2 weeks afterward, I still haven't quite accepted it.

Let me back up a bit.

Because I think there's an important bit of back story here that I'm really unsure about whether or not I've ever really talked about it on this blog.  The thing is... was, actually... I never thought I'd have kids.

I mean, sure, when I was little I'd talk about being a Mommy someday too.  And I'd probably think about the things my Mom did that I liked and wanted to do to, and the things she did that bugged me that I wanted to do differently.  I wondered what my kids would look like.  I suppose I even might have wondered what their father would be like.

I distinctly remember deciding, at some point, that 4 kids would be perfect.  2 girls and 2 boys please.  That way everyone would be happy and have a playmate.  Not that ever, in my teeny young little mind did I ever really consider what it would actually be like to have 4 children.  Nor did it ever occur to me that you don't get to pick the gender of your kids, so my whole "2 of each please" plan was sort of ridiculous.

In any case, somewhere around the time I was in the 3rd or 4th grade my parents marriage, and therefore my entire life, started falling apart.  My dad broke my heart a few times and then disappeared.  My mother become the enemy.  Her new boyfriend... might as well have been Satan.  And I know every divorced child likely hates the new boyfriend, but this guy?  This guy was way way worse than anything you can imagine.  I promise.  He had this method of manipulating my mother (and her kids) that basically boils down to psychological warfare.

Ew.

Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.

But that's beside my point.  MY POINT is that because of this, well before the time that I hit puberty I'd basically made my mind up that kids were not an option for me.  My family was so unbelievably fucked up (and I'm sorry for the profanity, but using any nicer word just really wouldn't do it justice) that I decided the best course of action was to avoid marriage and reproducing all together.  I didn't want to be like my mother-- with one broken marriage behind her and willingly trapping herself in another unbelievably screwed up relationship.  I didn't want to put more children in the world to go through what I was dealing with.

And, honestly, I decided that the genetic lines in my family were just so completed jacked up that I'd be better off sterilizing myself and letting our family line die off forever.

*If you listen close, you will probably no doubt be able to hear the far away sound of every blood relative I still have any sort of relationship with having their head explode.  They're probably getting all offended and may be either smashing their computers in fury or simply just writing me off forever... again.*

I'm not saying that to hurt feelings, or diss people or whatever that's honestly how I felt.

And to be real, there are STILL a lot of days when I look at my 3 children, and I think to myself that I doomed them in their lives by the simple fact of them being MY children and I sort of wish I'd stuck to my guns on the no kids ever plan.

But I grew up you see, and I fell in love with this man.

And as great and amazing as that man is, his family is pretty great too.

And I eliminated enough of the people who made me downright insane from my life and I found happiness.

And the wounds healed and the scars faded almost completely away.

And I forgot all the reasons I had for not having kids.

My friends had them and they were just fine.  Matt and I got older and when he was at sea I felt lonely.  I loved my career but I wanted something more.  I wondered, no matter how much fun Matt and I had together while we were young, what we would do with ourselves when we were old if it really did just remain only us.  Maybe we would just start with one and see how it went.

So we thought about it and we talked about it and we prayed about it and eventually we had Peter.

And it's important to note, how thoroughly and completely sure I was that WANTED to have a child by the time I had one.  I mean, I was positive.  Terrified, but SURE.  I never would have had him otherwise, coming out of the adolescence I had.

I wonder now if Matt, who of course was busy having his own sort of "OHMYGOSH what has just happened, how did I just become responsible for another whole human being who I helped make from scratch" sort of nervous breakdown even ever knew how much having our first child was a leap of faith for me.  How much I had to put aside my pride and admit that maybe the decisions I had made for my life at the age of 10 weren't necessarily the best ones.  But even still, I wonder if he knew how much it scared me.

It still scares me.

What if I can't prevent the horrors and drama of my own childhood from happening again?

What if I really do end up just like my mother?

But.

(OH!  The big and powerful BUT.)

Peter was amazing.  He was beautiful and perfect and easy.  ("Was" may be the key word there, if you know anything about what he can be like now.)  Anyway, inside of his first couple weeks of life he made both Matt and I long for a sibling for him.

And it was scary again, but less of a leap the second time.

A.J. was perfect and beautiful and amazing but decidedly NOT easy.  She was tough.  Then Matt deployed, that was tougher.

Yet for whatever crazy reason, all along, I (we probably, though Matt might never admit it) knew we weren't done yet.  We wanted another.  Just one more.

I mean, sure, in my heart there was this weird place that sort of wanted to go back to my original number of 4.  But I'm 35 already.  The 2 we already have were practically breaking the bank already.  So 3 was probably, definitely, going to be it.

So we prayed some more, etc and now we have just been blessed with Lucy.

The pregnancy was harder, and it was scary and I flipped out a bit in the delivery room but she is here and she is okay and it is all going to be okay....

I was still trying to make my head clear of all the meds they'd given me in the O.R. when the OB who'd delivered her came in to see me.  Nurses were milling about running tests on me and the baby.  I think I was nursing Lucy for the first time.  I know Matt was there, but I couldn't tell you what he was up to.

And then that Doctor started talking at me.

Oh how I wish I could actually remember clearly how that conversation went.  I mean, I know the gist, just not many of the actual words.

Because of course I was still sort of freaked out about the whole difficulty getting numb situation and I honestly thought that had been the only sort of "difficulty" there had been in the operating room.

So the Doctor... the older one who looked and sounded so much like Mr. Feeney from Boy Meets World (even though I almost never even watched that show) was giving me the normal sort of post op "run down" I guess.  He said something about how everything had actually gone great in getting the baby out.  She looked good and we didn't seem to have anything to worry about with her.

However, the C-section had actually NOT gone that well.  They'd been going along, doing their thing I guess, cutting or opening layers of skin and muscle and, (forgive me here because I am so not medically educated about this stuff) at whatever point that they had gotten down to my uterus...

well...

as soon as they got down in there they could see the baby.

(Of all the things the doctor said to me that morning) that is the only set of words that clearly sticks in my mind.)

Like, um, they hadn't cut or opened my uterus yet.... but they didn't exactly need to.

Apparently, since this was my 3rd pregnancy, after 2 Cesareans already, the scar on my uterus from the previous 2 incisions had gone ahead and separated some time before they got in there.

Essentially, there was a window into my uterus.

Thankfully, the amniotic sac hadn't ruptured, so all the vital baby life giving things were still all contained.

He went on to say that they got her out okay and then he and his colleague had an "interesting time" (exact quote) of putting my uterus back together again.

I thought to myself how glad I was to have been, well, doped up and none the wiser back in the post-delivery part of the surgery so that I'd been clueless to all of that.  Although a little bell was ringing in the back of my cloudy mind wondering if that had been why I'd heard them discussing vertical incisions.  And I had wondered earlier why they hadn't offered to drop the curtain and let me see her be delivered.  Odd details from the morning were starting to fill in on their own.

And then, for whatever reason, this word popped into my head:  "Frankenuterus"

Really, thinking about it now, a comparison to Humpty Dumpty might have been better.

But all I could think about is how now, I had this weird, malformed, patched up uterus, not unlike Frankenstein... or something.

(I blame the drugs.)

The doctor went on...

...to tell me I should probably not have any more children.

And, then, (really I don't know why I didn't see it coming because honestly I'd just found that I now suddenly had a weird monstrous, sewn back together, mutant Frankenuterus in the place where my old shiny perfect womb used to be) my heart broke completely.

I mean, he didn't say ABSOLUTELY not, but basically, he said it would be really, really risky.

And then he said that it was such a good thing that I hadn't tried to do a VBAC.  (I read between the lines and understood that if I had tried to deliver vaginally, with that hole already there, my bag of waters might surely have ruptured and well, it probably could or would have ended very very badly.)

I asked a few questions.  It went something like this:

How come nobody knew that hole was there?  He said something about how there would be no way of knowing about it until a surgeon got in there.  (I'm not entirely sure that is true, because I've been doing all sorts of reading on this since and I'm lead to believe that a good ultrasound would have had a decent shot at seeing it.

Suddenly I'm flashing back to Doctor's visits towards the end of my pregnancy with A.J. and clearly remembering my old OB commenting on the thickness (ie-likelihood of tearing) of the bottom part of my uterine walls.

So basically, my uterus ruptured?  No not exactly.  The scar separated.  There probably wasn't even any bleeding.  It probably happened gradually.

Does this explain why I was having so much pain a few weeks back?  Maybe, there's not really any way to know since we don't know when it separated.

But when I told my doc about the pain, shouldn't they have done an ultrasound to be sure this sort of thing wasn't happening?  Wouldn't they have spotted this then?  There's really no way of saying for sure.

So does this sort of thing happen a lot or am I just a freak of nature?  He said it was pretty rare but not totally unheard of.  (I talked to the other, younger, doctor about it at length a couple of days later.  I really wish I'd asked him if he'd every seen anything about it before.)

My head swam.  My chest ached and I seriously contemplated bawling.

He went away and promised to stop in again later.

I nursed Lucy.  I rejoiced in her little life.  She was perfect.  She was here.  She was okay.

Oh.... but she might very well might not have been....

The horror of what might have happened IF the "window" in my uterus had fully ruptured or if my bag of waters had broken pushed down on me heavily, not unlike when the Doctor in Monterey told me about discovering the cord wrapped twice around Peter's neck and how blue and unresponsive he'd been when they got him out....

I tried really hard to ignore the what-ifs and be grateful.

And then, for whatever reason, a dark cloud settled in around me and I still haven't completely shaken it away.  I could not safely have any more babies. This was it.  We were done.

It's ridiculous really.  Just earlier that morning we'd been talking about contraception and considering the best ways to eliminate my fertility.  An I.U.D. could cover me for up to the next 5 years and basically, knock out the vast majority of what was left of my child bearing years if we went that route and that was honestly the way I'd been leaning.

Several months before, when one of the more idiotic and annoying Doctors I'd seen was trying to convince me to try a VBAC rather than just schedule another C-section he'd told me that having a 3rd surgical birth would basically eliminate the possibility of any hospital or Doctor allowing me to try for a vaginal birth ever again.  I'd laughed because I was so sure it wouldn't ever be an issue.  This baby was going to be our last.

We were done, okay?

But they'd also offered to tie my tubes on several occasions (even that morning) and on those several occasions I'd always refused, adamantly.  Nothing permanent!  Not ever.  How can I ever be sure of what I want or don't want for permanently.

I was (am) at least 90% sure we were done.  Matt may have been higher than that.  But I wasn't really interested in eliminating the possibility forever.

So I guess God went ahead and did it for me.

And it's just so, so STUPID. (Sorry God.)

Why is this making me cry YET again?

I didn't even want any more kids.  I don't.  Not really.

I guess I just wanted the option.

I always did want another boy.  I'd love to have another boy.  Or even another girl really.  But I'm too old.  I mean, not really.  I'm not really too old, lots of people do it (really really cool people like my Aunt and Uncle), but I just kept telling myself that because I'd prefer not to be in my 60's when my last kid graduated high school.

But the night before we had Lucy, I sat up talking to my Mother-in-Law who tried to convince me to go ahead and have a 4th child if I wanted.

(She probably mostly convinced me.)

(Oh how I wished she hadn't.)

We were done.  I already knew that.  It didn't matter.

But the dark cloud was there anyway.  It still is.

I guess it's like this:

I really don't care for chocolate ice cream that much.  I almost never choose to eat it.  There are lots of other flavors to eat after all.  But now somebody has told me there is no more chocolate ice cream ever.  I can never eat chocolate ice cream again and suddenly ALL I WANT IS ONE LAST CHANCE TO ENJOY SOME CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM.

So dumb.

Ridiculous actually.

But feelings are feelings and you can't help them or change them.  Not really.



Since I've been home from the hospital, like I said, I've done a lot of reading on this.  A lot.  I've read some downright horror stories and fairy tale endings rather like mine actually, where the baby ends up safe and the mother is fine. I've even read lots of stories about women having their scars separate and having successful VBACs and found tales of women whose scars separated in the past and delivered safely and are now pregnant AGAIN.

So maybe all hope isn't lost.

Maybe I really could have another if I really really really wanted to.  Not that I do.  I just want the option again, I guess.  That's probably really selfish.  I'm sure women who've struggled to get pregnant everywhere are wishing they could clock me upside my head right now.

And not that my husband would go for that.  He finds this whole thing terrifying.  He may never touch me again actually.  As if hugging me too tight may somehow knock me up again and tear open my Frankenuterus....




When you have a new baby, well, the feeling is just indescribable. Simply, the best thing ever.  It beats out graduations and birthdays and wedding days times a thousand.  It's like the greatest emotional high possible. Even though it is mixed with the left over pains of childbirth and fear and uncertainty it is just the most amazing time in a person's life.  After Peter was born I spent the next 17 months trying to feel that happy again for even an instance until A.J. was born.  When she came to us it was different of course, and the joy didn't last as long (probably because I left the hospital so soon) but it was just as real and just as dynamic. When Lucy was born, 15 days ago actually, that joy was there again but only really for this quick fleeting moment before that darned Doctor quite literally rained all over our parade.  Part of me really wants to hate him for that, but the rest of me wants to just love him for getting her out safely and fixing me up afterward.

Anyway we're never going to feel that way again.

And it shouldn't matter, because we should just be thankful that we have been blessed with 3 healthy, wonderful children.

But still.




And finally, this last part is going to sound dumb probably....

I just keep thinking about how despite a few false starts years ago, I have been blessed to be the really easy pregnant girl.  I seem to conceive really easily and the pregnancies go really easily overall and I stay the right weight and have the right blood pressure and I pass all the tests along the way with flying colors.  After I deliver I recover really well and really fast and the baby weight magically melts away like butter.  It's a blessing really.  A huge one.  And honestly, it's one I've often considered using to benefit someone else.  For example, I have this old, amazing friend from high school.  She is AMAZING and her family is amazing and if any one ever deserved to have children it was her.  But it seems like maybe that's not going to happen for her.  I don't know the details.  But when I hear about her struggles, I think seriously about using my "awesome powers of conception and incubation" to be a surrogate for her.  Or someone else like her.

I guess not though.

Not really an option any more.

With one little separated uterus scar I went from being the Valedictorian of Pregnancy to one of the Drop Outs.

(Phooey.  I mean, it was probably definitely never going to happen, but it was such a nice thought anyway.)




Lucy, if you're reading this someday, please don't ever ever look at the pictures from your birthday and think I was sad about you.  You were another gift to us from God.  Another miracle.  Our last little miracle as it turns out.  We love you.  We love your brother and sister.  You 3 are the greatest things to ever happen to us.  And I just think it's because the 3 of you are so so great, that the idea of never being able to have another one like you makes Mommy so sad.

Lucy's Birth

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

After our morning at the beach on Monday, the rest of that day was spent in last minute baby preps.  I repacked my hospital bag and took Gramma on a driving tour for preschool drop off the next day. We laid out school clothes, prepacked snacks and backpacks, charged the cameras and then we went out for our strangely traditional dinner-out-before-baby at Islands.  Yummy, hamburgers!

That night, when we got home we got the kids to bed.  I sat with them and explained that they wouldn't see me or their Dad in the morning as we would be leaving very early for the hospital to have their new baby sister.  I asked Peter to help Gramma, urged them both to cooperate as much as possible and to PLEASE be good at school.  They both promised.  Then they went to sleep.

I guess eventually we did too.  I kind of don't really remember.  I know as usual before one of my baby's delivery days I laid awake for a long time praying and praying.  As much as I wanted to have the baby already I was getting scared.  Really, anyway you slice it, and any way you approach it, childbirth really is terrifying.  

Before I knew it, Matt's alarm was going off.  It was only 4 something and was a bit earlier than I actually expected.  I heard him get up and go out of our room for a while, but soon he was back in and was taking a shower.  I made myself get up too.  I felt shaky with nerves but eventually I was dressed and ready to go too.

I looked in on Peter and A.J. sleeping in their beds.  They looked humongous and grown up to me all of a sudden.  I resisted the urge to cry and silently wished them both a fantastic day at school before I snuck back out of their room. We woke Matt's mother up to say goodbye. 

Then we left.  It was dark and cool outside still.  Matt and I chatted about how it felt like maybe we were going to a race or something since it is so rare to find ourselves up and on our own going anywhere that early in the morning.  Honestly, I think the last time was the Thanksgiving day Turkey Trot last fall.  

The trip down to the hospital takes about 25 minutes without traffic, so we made good time.  It was actually odd to me still how many cars were already on the road that early, as it was only just after 5 am.  When we rounded the last corner before the turn into the hospital, we found that the traffic at the gate was already backed up with all the staff showing up for their shifts.  It took awhile to get through and on into the deserted parking garage.  Then we had to walk clear across the medical center campus to get to the 3rd floor Obstetrics wing, completely on the opposite side of everything from the garage.

It was a long walk.  I felt winded and had to take a few short breaks to rest.  I'm actually unsure if it was nerves or contractions or just the normal pregnancy pain and fatigue that was slowing me down.

We went in and greeted the nurse or Corpsman working the front desk.  She gave me some paperwork to fill out (paperwork I figured out pretty quickly I'd already filled out at my last appointment) and sent us to the waiting room.  The whole place was quiet and sleepy and seemed pretty empty.  

We waited for a long time and honestly, it was killing me a little.  We watched the local news on the TV which was full of blather about it being the first day of school for most kids in the area and I silently resented the news people for rubbing it in my face that I wasn't at home getting my own children ready for school.   

There was a sign somewhere on the wall that said to notify the staff if you found yourself waiting for more than 20 minutes.  I understood this waiting room to be mostly for women who were showing up, thinking maybe they were in labor who were waiting to be checked to see if that was actually the case.  So basically, the sign didn't really apply to us, as I was waiting to be called back for a scheduled procedure.  In any case after 25 minutes I sent Matt to find out what was taking so long.  He came back after a few minutes to tell me my check-in Nurse wasn't even due in until 6:30 so everyone was wondering why they told me to come in at 6.  I reminded him that when I'd come in Sunday morning they'd told me to be extra early since there had been some concern over their ability to complete all my blood work ahead of time.  He said it didn't matter because my Nurse was in a bit early and was already getting my room ready.  He told me it would only be a few more minutes.  Then he said there were also 2 teams of people in full scrubs and gear waiting out in the hallway outside of a couple of rooms.  I guess, even though it was so quiet, there were a couple of laboring women who were just about ready to deliver.

Finally they called us back.  The Labor and Delivery ward is basically a big triangle.  There are maybe 5 or 6 patient rooms along the 2 long sides, and there's a big desk and some offices in the middle.  The bottom part of the triangle is the waiting room where we'd been, several triage rooms to check patients and the doors to the whole wing.  We were put in the first or second delivery room , just inside the wing, to the right of the doors.  Two nurses greeted us.  It seemed like one was more senior and was finishing a training/check-off sheet with the other one.  

The sent me in to the bathroom to change into a hospital gown.  When I came back and got in bed, they hooked up the fetal heart rate monitor and the contraction monitor.  They asked me a bunch of questions for their check off list and put in my I.V.

The very last pregnant picture of me ever.

Matt sat in a chair off to the side and very usefully either read the news on his phone or played games.  The doctors who were scheduled to perform my procedure came in and out a few times to introduce themselves and check on things.  Neither of them were the ones who'd seen me during my prenatal appointments, but I knew ahead of time that was going to be the case.  The lead one was an older man, who sort of reminded me of the teacher on Boy Meets World.  The other, who I'm assuming was a Resident, was much younger and seriously looked exactly like a grown up version of the kid in The Sand Lot with the glasses.  You know, the kid who fakes drowning to get some attention from the cute life guard and says the whole "FOR-EV-ER!" line.  Seriously.  It was uncanny.  

Aside from the looks of the younger one, they seemed competent enough.  I ignored a mini-lecture on the budget crisis and costs of health care from the older one (even though I think that part really made Matt happy) and focused more on the small army of anesthesiologists that were rapidly collecting around me.  For real.  The first guy came in and introduced himself.  He was taller and had glasses and, thinking about it, he might have been a Nurse Practitioner who specialized in anesthesia.  (I had a nurse anesthetist last summer when I had my little knee surgery.)  Soon he was joined by a nice youngish looking lady who seemed to be either a med student or a very new resident.  I never really figured it out actually, but she mostly observed and I didn't see her actually do anything medical other than observe.  She was nice though, and gave me some very helpful words of encouragement a little bit later when I was starting to freak out.  Finally, a shorter lady with a Grey's Anatomy style scrub hat showed up.  This is when I started to get confused.  So far I had 2 nurses, 2 doctors and now 3 anesthesiologists.  I kept trying to read everybody's name tags to figure out who was civilian and who was military but even with my glasses my eyesight wasn't that good.  As best as I can figure, everyone was Military except the older, senior level doctor (OB.)  Additionally, everyone seemed to be either a Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG, or O-2), a full Lieutenant (LT or O-3) or a Lieutenant Commander (LCDR or O-4), so really looking at all of their abbreviated ranks wasn't really helping me to figure out anyone's seniority or who was in charge because they all seemed to be some flavor of a Lieutenant. If you're wondering, Matt is an O-4, but I know that the medical community promotes differently than the rest of the Navy to account for all their extra education.  

Anyway, this latest arriving Anesthetist said she was staff.  I guessed that meant she wasn't directly assigned to my case, but that she didn't have anything else to do at the moment, so she was supervising her people.  I can't remember if she was military or civilian or not.  Anyway, so the little army of anesthesiologists and I discussed my previous c-sections and their spinals.  I told them what I'd been told after Peter was born about having small spaces in my spine and asked to lay down on my side while they put the needles in since that had gone so much smoother when A.J. was born.  They agreed.  They mentioned possibly putting in an epidural too, I guess as a back up, in case the procedure ran long or something, to make sure I was kept numb after the spinal wore off.  Or something.  I'm not really sure.  But I'll get to more about that in a minute.

The doctors came in and we discussed stuff some more.  I found it ridiculous a little actually how many times they were double checking everything.  I had to remind myself that before that morning they had never even met me, so it made sense they were being extra sure of my wishes about everything since they hadn't had the time with me before to get to know me well.

Finally, a couple of Navy Corpsman came in.  There were 2 of them, but I can only remember at all what one of them looked like.  All I know for sure is they both looked to be about 12.  Seriously.  Tiny, young looking little things they were.  I mean, how nice for them.  If you don't know, Corpsman are like the Navy's odd mixture of nurse and doctor.  Most smaller ships in the Navy just have Corpsman on board  You might compare them to EMT's I guess.  Anyway, by the look of these 2, neither of them could have been in the Navy for much more than a year.  It didn't matter of course, they were both perfectly nice and seemed absolutely competent.  They explained that they were going to be mostly responsible for taking care of the baby immediately after she was born.  

Okay then.

The nurses brought Matt his OR suit.  It was a full on one piece jump suit.  He kept complaining about how he couldn't get to his pockets for our phones.  Thankfully he had the foresight to take the camera out of his pocket before he put it on.

Once he was dressed, they rolled me out and off down the hallway.  I don't think my doctors were there but it seemed like everyone else, possibly in the entire hospital, was. I might be mistaken, but I definitely remember Matt and both my nurses and all the anesthesiologists and probably the corpsman moving with me as we rolled down the hallway in a big giant herd of people.  I told them I felt ridiculous.  One of the nurses reminded me to be thankful this wasn't a crash c-section and that they hadn't had to put me in some weird position on my knees with my bottom up in the air to try to get oxygen to the baby, because lots of women had made the short journey down that hallway in far more embarrassing positions than the one I was comfortably lying in.  

Fair enough.

We passed through some double doors and back into the official operating room area.  Matt was directed to a big red chair to wait to be called back.  And I'm not kidding, the red vinyl chair in a corner had actually been labelled on the seat back in sharpie by someone to read "THE BIG RED CHAIR."  Weird.  He headed over to sit down and one of the nurses asked if he wanted to kiss me goodbye for the time being. He seemed to be surprised by this but obliged anyway.  I took my smooch and hoped that little goodbye wouldn't be necessary.  Then I started to worry that something would go wrong with the pain meds and they'd have to put me all the way to sleep or that I'd loose consciousness or something terrible like that.  

Apparently my brain was getting ahead of itself.

Matt went and sat down in his BIG RED CHAIR and I was rolled a bit further down the hall and around the corner into an OR room.  To me it just seemed tiny and crowded.  Crowded with people and with equipment.  I don't know why, but I found myself silently comparing it to the OR rooms where I'd delivered in Monterey and I'm sorry to say it was matching up well.  

They moved me onto the actual operating table.  I looked around for a moment and then they laid me down on my right side so the anesthesia docs could get to work.  I thought back to the last time I'd been in that position (just before A.J. was born) and wondered how this was all going go.  I tried hard to ignore the fact that my hind end was basically hanging out in these doctors faces and closed my eyes tight.  I felt them clean my back.  The nurse who was holding me warned me they were going to put the lidocaine in to numb my back a little and that would likely be the worst part.  I felt the prick and a warm burning sensation and just tried to focus on my breathing and holding still.  Soon one of them seemed to be ready to put the real thing in and they warned me to tell them if I felt a sharp tingling pain.  He went for it and then OH MY GOODNESS I felt the pain.  It hurt like hell so, knowing he was busy sticking a needle in my spine, I think I calmly and quietly said something like, "Yes, um, ouch, that hurts!"  He pulled back.  Soon he tried again, but the results were the same.  I wondered in my head if he was going to wind up paralyzing me.  I laid there for an eternity then while he did something else I guess but I have no idea what.  Thinking about it now, I find it a little amazing how my little team of doctors communicated and adjusted their plans silently so I never heard them.  I never did feel much else happen that I remember so I'm not actually sure whether he ever did get a spinal in.  I kept waiting for the little prick and the warming feeling of numbness to take over but it never came.  At one point I moved a little, I guess to try to adjust my back for him and the whole team of them back there told me promptly to hold still and not to move.  More time passed and I don't remember feeling anything until eventually, I guess he got an epidural in because I could feel him taping the cord to my back and up over my shoulder.  

That had taken forever, but at least it was over right?  We could get on with it.  I waited expectantly for the numbness to take over like I remembered clearly from A.J.'s birth but nothing happened.

They started rolling me over onto my back.  Somebody propped me off to one side with a towel under my right hip for some reason.  People started putting up the "curtain" between my head and the surgical field.  I thought to myself, "Really?  I.V. poles with random sheets clipped onto them?  After all these years of them doing C-sections nobody has come up with anything better?"  Somebody mentioned something about how this doctor preferred a double layered "screen." so the layer of fabric in front of my face was doubled up.  The tall anesthesiologist with the glasses did his best to push it out of my face.  He was remembering that I'd mentioned feeling claustrophobic in my previous deliveries when the cloth got too close to my face.  

I wiggled my toes.  It seemed odd to me that I could still do that.  

The doctors went on about setting me up in position.  They spread my arms out wide.  With the double curtain I couldn't even see where they were.  I wanted badly to pull them in near to myself protectively but I remembered how this made it tough for the I.V. fluid to get through with Peter so I left them where they'd been put.  Then they loosely draped and tied some small cloth napkin like things over my fore arms to remind me to keep them in place anyway.  

One of the docs started doing in his numbness tests.  To be honest, I'd pretty much forgotten about those from before.  Maybe that's because before this they'd always gone smoothly.

He pricked me gently on my arm with something that felt like a tack.  "This is your baseline he told me. Now I'm going to run this up your body and you tell me when it feels the same."  He took the tack or whatever it was and started gently poking me along the side of my stomach.  He started somewhere down near one of my hips and moved upwards towards my head.  To be perfectly honest, it felt almost exactly the same the whole entire time.  But I felt confused, so I wasn't really sure.  I think I told him it felt the most clear around my bottom rib.  Then I wiggled my toes again just to see if I could.  Why weren't my feet numb?  I told the doctors my feet weren't numb and that I could still feel and move them.  They seemed to ignore me.  

I noted to myself that the only part of me that felt at all numb was my butt.  And it didn't really feel numb at all. Just heavy and hot... like maybe I'd been sitting down too long and it had started to fall asleep.  I don't remember if I mentioned this to the small army of anesthesia doctors hovering around me.

By now I had one of the nasal air things on my face, and it was, well, blowing air up my nose.  I tried to relax and breath in Oxygen.  Whoever had put it on had reminded me that the baby needed Oxygen and I wanted her to have as much of it as she needed regardless of whether or not I felt very much like I couldn't breath at all right then.  

A few more minutes passed and the doctor did his prick test to check for numbness again.  There was almost no change.  I told him as much, but I still wasn't sure he really heard me.  I wiggled my toes a bit, just to make sure I wasn't crazy or anything.  I told them about it again, and I'm sure I was beginning to sound ridiculous.

The "staff" anesthesiologist lady in her Grey's Anatomy style scrub cap appeared in front of me and assured me it would be okay.  "We can give you the medicine," she said, "but we can't tell it where to go exactly."  She assured me they'd figure it out though.

Somebody decided that to help the medicine numb me up, they needed to tilt me upside down.  They explained this to me and the bed moved.  I felt like all the blood was rushing to my head.  Heck, it probably was.  I just wanted to get on with it.  It had already taken forever and they hadn't even gotten started yet.  It had already been nearly half past 8 o'clock when they'd laid me down.  How much more time had passed?  

How were the kids doing anyway?  Matt's mom had said something about calling Matt that morning.  Had she?  Were they okay?  Were they at their schools already?

The doctor with the glasses came back to do another numbness check.  When this 3rd check failed again I started to cry.  I mean, I tried to hide it, but the tears started coming.  I was scared and it seemed like nobody was really listening to me. Why wasn't this working?  Were they going to cut into me and was I going to feel everything?  Were they going to have to put me all the way under?  I didn't want to go all the way under.....

I think by the 4th numbness check I had started to develop some "deadness" in my midsection.  Or maybe I just convinced myself I had.  It was all getting very confusing.  The older OB doctor was sounding grumpy, asking if they could get started.  The doctors by my head said it should be fine.  

I felt the electric razor going to shave the incision site.  The nurses starting moving my legs around to put the catheter in and the Doctor got grumpy again.  "She still has control of her legs!"  he almost shouted.  I wondered if he was irritated that it was true, or that he seemed to be the only one who noticed.  I can't be sure, but I'd swear he stormed out for awhile.

Behind my head, the doc with the glasses put more stuff in my IV and probably pushed that epidural button another 40 times or so.  The nurses left the catheter for the time and started cleaning my stomach.  I felt them scrubbing my stomach and belly button with their cleaning agent and I couldn't help myself.  "I can feel all of that!"  I might have been yelling.  Probably not, but I was bordering on hysterical now.  If I could feel them cleaning I'd surely feel them cutting and I DID NOT WANT to feel them cutting.  

The 3rd anesthesia doctor, the younger lady who didn't seem to be allowed to do much of anything other than observe appeared in my face.  She had a tissue and began dabbing away my tears.  She promised me it would be okay.  Nobody was going to do anything until I couldn't feel it.  She never mentioned the spinal, but she said the epidural could much take longer to take affect.  I assumed she meant that they'd never gotten the spinal in and so they were working on their backup plan.  I wished somebody had explained all of this to me better before hand.  Maybe I wouldn't have been freaking out so much.

I asked her how much time had passed.  Had anyone checked on my husband?  Was he worried about what was taking so long?  

It's at about this point that everything gets a bit fuzzy for me.  I think perhaps my brain went into overload. Or, maybe it's been almost 2 weeks and I've just already forgotten the rest of the finer details.  At any rate, eventually, I guess the numbness took over.  I'm sure there were several more prick tests before we got to that point.  I also remember the doctors assuring me that just because I could feel the poking pressure, it didn't mean I wasn't numb.  They told me there'd be tugging and pulling feelings.  I wanted to tell them "DUH!  I've done this twice before, so I know what I am and am not supposed to be able to feel.  I also wanted to ask them why they heck getting me numb was so much harder this time," but I kept my mouth shut.  

I'm sure I thought to myself more than once, that "Heaven help me, these military doctors really are going to kill me after all!"  And to that, my only reassurance was that they'd managed to keep me alive during my little knee surgery last year so there was still probably some hope to be had.  Then I remember them finally leveling the bed, and I remember hearing about them putting in the catheter and finally agreeing it was time to get started, but I have absolutely no clue how much more time passed or in what order any of that last stuff happened.  

I mean, literally, though, I heard the doctors all agree it was time to get started.  And a moment passed and then the lead doctor, still sounding grumpy said "Can somebody please go get the father?"

By that point I wasn't even surprised by it.  I was exhausted and emotional and numb in more ways than one. I was basically tied down, in one of the most uncomfortable and exposed positions possible and there wasn't really any fight left in me.  I wondered if after all of that, the baby was even going to be okay.

In another minute Matt appeared at the side of my head.  I felt him burrow his hand down into the covers to hold my left and and I guess with his right he was sort of massaging my shoulder.  Seeing him just made me cry harder.  I felt terrified.  I was shaking and the tears were streaming and making my vision all blurry.  I asked Matt if he'd been worried and he assured me they had come to give him updates.  I asked him if I'd shaken like I was the other times and he told me I had.  That's funny to me actually, because I don't remember that.  Maybe with Peter, but his whole delivery was scary and painful so if I was shaking then it doesn't really surprise me.  But with A.J. I honestly remember it as if I was very calm the whole time. Weird. 

I complained to Matt about my nose itching.  He tried to help but it was the air tube making it itch so there was nothing to be done.

Also, my glasses lenses were partially fogging up. I guess from the moisture of my tears.  I really couldn't see anything.

I think I kept saying something about how I just wanted to hold my baby.  Why was it taking so long?  I just wanted to hold her.  I wanted to know she was okay.

(In retrospect, once they got started, the actual delivery couldn't have taken very long at all.  10 to 15 minutes at most.)

I don't remember what Matt said back but I'm sure he did his best to be reassuring.  I couldn't hear or I couldn't focus clearly on what the doctors were saying as they worked on the other side of the curtain.  And with the double sheets hung before me I couldn't even be that sure of their movements on the other side.  When Peter was born I clearly felt them tugging to pull him out.  (A lot actually, since he'd been tangled in the cord and stuck.)  With A.J. I clearly saw the assisting doctor move up towards my chest, put his back to the curtain and then I'd seen his arms push back against the sheet as he prepared to push her out.

This time I didn't detect any of that.  I had a very blurry view of the dingy operating room ceiling through my tears and I just kept trying to be calm and honestly survive the morning.  It's weird to me now to think back and realize that after ALL that drama to get me numbed, I barely ended up feeling a thing.  I mean, the tugging and pulling was barely noticeable until finally there was this sudden little gurgly sound.

Matt made a face and we looked at each other.  Was that her?  Was she out?

When Peter was born, he didn't make a sound for several minutes and the only way we even knew he was out is because they told us.

When A.J came into the world she'd screamed from the instant they cleared her lungs.  

Then we heard her.  She cried.  It was weak, and sort of bubbly, but it was unmistakable.  More of a string of individual squawks then all out crying actually.

I think somebody said something about it being a baby girl.  

The senior nurse I think, declared the time of birth to be 9:11 am.  Matt peeked carefully around the edge of the curtain.  They had her over at the warmer and they were cleaning her up I guess.  

Someday said something about her APGARS being good.  I never did get the numbers though...

The Nurse corrected herself, "Time of birth should actually be 9:10 am.  Sorry, my watch is fast!"  I wondered why that minute even mattered.

Matt kept peeking around the curtain.  Somebody asked him if he wanted to come trim the cord.  He declined.  A minute passed and then they asked him again.  "No, that's okay," he said, "I'm good.  I know my limits."

Then finally they brought her over and handed her to Matt.  Honestly, I still felt pretty crappy and it was hard to focus, but I wanted to see her.  It was tough to get a good view.  She just looked small and pale to me.  I wondered if she really was okay. They snapped a few photos and then soon Matt kissed me goodbye and he took her away.  

I didn't really know how to feel.  She was out, and she seemed healthy enough which was good but I knew I still had a long road ahead of me before I could hold her.  Thankfully, I'd mentioned to the little army of anesthesiologists about my anxiety issues multiple times. The one that was running things had offered to give me something to help me relax in surgery "once the exciting part was over and the baby was out."  In retrospect, maybe he should have tried doping me up a whole heck of a lot sooner, because... seriously. Then again, I suppose the Mellowing Meds may not have been good for the baby.  So anyway, once my husband and my new baby girl were off on their own, he asked me if I still wanted them.  I agreed whole heartily and soon I found myself feeling really, well, rather calm and sleepy.

So for however long it took for the doctors to clean me up and put me back together, I basically snoozed.  I wasn't fully out of course.  I could still hear what was going on, I just wasn't necessarily able to pay attention. Like maybe I was 90% asleep or so but suddenly felt loads better, drifting along happily on cloud 9.  

I remember hearing the nurses doing their thing counting tools and sponges briefly.  I think the Doctor in the glasses asked me how I was feeling a few times.  I kept wondering where the pain of the uterus shrinking Petocin was, since I remember it so clearly from the other times.  Occasionally I'd wonder about my new baby and my husband.  At one point I distinctly remember hearing the OB say something to his resident about a vertical incision and thinking that was weird since I knew in the past I'd had the horizontal ones.  I assumed they were just discussing the differences or something and drifted back to my happy place none the wiser.  

Eventually they took the curtain down.  My head started to clear and they moved me back onto a regular bed.  I was rolled in it back to the room I'd started in over in Labor and Delivery, where I knew from the little tour I'd taken a couple of weeks ago that Matt would be waiting for me with the baby.  While we were en route I started to hear them talk about how busy it had gotten over in Labor and Delivery in the last couple of hours.  I guess women were showing up in swarms.  That would figure, being the morning after a long weekend.  Somebody suggested there'd been too much hanging out in the sun at the beach getting dehydrated and sending them all into labor.  I thought to myself how I'd tried that just a couple weeks ago but it hadn't worked at all for me.

When we arrived the tiny little Corpsmen had her in the warmer.  The explained that they were cleaning her up some more and running some more little tests.

I guess while I'd still been in surgery, Matt took these photos:

Officially getting weight.  8 lbs 1.3 ounces.
Yes I know the decimal is hard to see in the photo.

Isn't she sweet?

Everything stays really fuzzy in my head here for awhile.  I think when the Corpsman were finished with their work, they swaddled the baby up and gave her to her Dad.  The nurses set to work on me, hooking me up to heart monitors and blood pressure cufts and things and probably pushed on my stomach and stuff until finally it was time and somebody handed me my girl.

Yes, I know I am making some weird faces in those pictures.  It had been a tough morning.  My smile didn't seem to be working quite right.  I was thrilled mind you, ecstatic even, to finally hold her... but for whatever reason my facial muscles wouldn't quite cooperate.  Anyway, I could tell from the moment they handed her to me that she was... she IS perfect.  God delivered to us another little perfect miracle.  

I nursed her, skin to skin which was really weird to me since they hadn't even yet put a diaper on her and I kept wondering if she was going to pee on me.  

My doctor came in to talk to me.  He blew my mind a little with what he had to say and then, honestly, before I even had time to process or think of many questions he was gone again, off to see about the swarm of laboring women who'd apparently shown up that morning while I'd been in surgery.  His words actually might have a lot to do with the face I'm making in those last couple of pictures too.  But anyway, we'll talk about that later.  

Because in the mean time, there was this to focus on....

After I burped her the first time she cuddled in and made herself comfy.
Her color is better here, but she was still looking a bit too pale and purple-ish for my liking.

Thankfully, as the morning ended and afternoon wore on into the night, her color kept improving.

And I know I said something like this already, but isn't she beautiful?

Also, notice the pacy?  The nurse said I could give it to her by midnight that first night.  The night nurse noted how mobile I was already and started harassing doctors for permission to take out the catheter and grant me more freedom.  But then after the catheter came out I was back and forth to the toilet trying to make my bladder function properly again and she just wanted to nurse and nurse and nurse.  Finally, we opted for the pacy rather than letting her get all upset while I was fussing around in the bathroom.

So much for waiting a couple weeks.  Again.  Ha.  My kids never make it out of the hospital without one.  

Labor Day at the Beach

Monday, September 2, 2013

For Labor Day, since it was a holiday for everyone and Matt's mother was here, and we didn't have anything really important to do besides keep waiting around for the baby... we decided to spend the morning down at the beach in Coronado.

We assumed it would be crowded, even at the base on beach so we got there pretty early.  

Also, going early allows us to have our fun and still make it home in time for A.J. to get in a bit of a nap.  

The fog rolling in towards us over Point Loma looked pretty cool.

Mostly, Matt, Gramma and the kids alternated between playing in the surf and playing in the sand.  I only got up briefly to go down to the water to fill our buckets to fill our mini-ocean near our blankets.  Otherwise, I just laid under the umbrella on our blanket like a gigantic beached whale and took pictures of everyone else having fun.

Gramma really was there the whole time, but for whatever reason, she seemed to avoid my
lens most of the time.  Except in this one, where Peter was having a grand old time kicking water
and splashing her.  :)

And...  (Ugh) in case you don't believe me about the beached whale bit:

Fun by the Bay with Gramma

Sunday, September 1, 2013

If you ever find yourself due to have a baby, and then for whatever circumstances wind up with a scheduled birth (whether via induction or Cesarean) I would like to highly, HIGHLY recommend that you not let them schedule that thing for the Tuesday following a long, holiday weekend.  

Because the waiting around all weekend SUCKS.

If you're wondering, Peter was born on July 1st, which was a Wednesday.  Yup, we scheduled him right smack in the middle of the week.  That's actually a bit ironic really, since his actual due date was Monday July 6, and would have fallen right after another long holiday weekend (for the 4th of July.)

A.J. was born on November 30th, which was a Tuesday.  I actually scheduled her to be born on a Wednesday as well, for December 1st, but some patient of my doctor's winded up needing a hysterectomy that day so she got my O.R. time and we got bumped up by a day.  She was due December 7, she winded up being born exactly 7 days early, so in her case the day of the week didn't change.  Although we did still have the long Thanksgiving weekend right ahead of having her, so, well, yeah.  

Hurry up and wait much?

Lucy?  Lucy was due on a Saturday, which was September 7.  Now I can't exactly figure out why, since the Naval Medical Center is huge and there always has to be doctors on call and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week anyway... but when you start talking to military docs about weekend due dates their eyes seem to glaze over and they absolutely loose their ability to give you a straight answer about anything.  

Like, I'm not saying military doctors (and civilian staff at military hospitals) don't work really hard and deserve their weekends off when they can get them BUT, seriously, the hospital is huge.  There are just bound to be doctors available on the weekends, so their inability to schedule a weekend Cesarian is just a bit mind boggling to me.  

Oh.... but if my actual due date was the 7th, then back that up a week early for the operation at 39 weeks (to decrease the chances of me going into labor ahead of time on my own) then that meant we were looking at the weekend of September 3rd.  And this year, the weekend of September 3rd was Labor Day weekend.  And there was just no way, no how the Navy was going to schedule ANYTHING over the long Labor day weekend.

I tell you, if I had had my way, I would have gone into Labor on my own that weekend and waddled on in their just to spite everyone....

So like any normal, rational pregnant woman, I suggested we back it up just one more day and have this baby on Friday August 30th.  The baby would be 38 weeks plus 6 days gestation.  Just 8 days shy of her actual due date.  Perfect right?  Except NOT.  According to one of the 2 doctors I was seeing, one of which was the director of the Obstetrics Residency Program and the other was head of the whole entire Obstetrics department.... (that's only important because it goes to show how I was just not going to be able to bitch and moan and get my way with them) they can not schedule deliveries of babies earlier than 39 weeks.  The March of Dimes will fine them or something.  There is too much concern about the lungs not being developed.

Never mind the fact that A.J. was born (scheduled EVEN) at 38 weeks and 6 days gestation and that kid came out screaming with her perfectly healthy, well developed lungs and didn't exactly stop screaming for the next year and a half or so....

There was no way these Doctor's were going to take Lucy out of me before the Labor Day weekend.  And there was also no way they were going to do it over the Labor Day weekend either.  Unless I went into labor on my own.  So basically, even though I had TONS of pain and suffering and contractions around the middle of August (which we'll likely dicuss again later in a future post) they had all but stopped on their own by that last week (for whatever reason) so all I had to do over the long weekend was wait.  

Grr.

But thankfully, we managed to stay busy and I was therefore (mostly) distracted.

Saturday, we took the kids to a pool party for the dance teacher's younger daughter.

And on Sunday, we slept through Church (Forgive me Father for I have sinned...) and then after lunch we got to go to the airport to pick up Matt's mother.

She was, of course, coming into town to help out with the other children while I was in the hospital having the baby.  But since she got in a couple days early, we decided rather than just sit around and wait for the baby we would go have some fun downtown after we got her.  

There was all sort of stuff going on down at the bay front for the holiday weekend.  There was something going on with all the big huge Sailboats, and then there was the sand sculpture competition.   I've had friends go to it before, but it used to be down at one of the beaches.  I guess to draw more crowds, these days they truck in sand and have it on one of the cruise ship piers downtown.  

The main, competition sculptures, by, like famous international artists and stuff were cool and huge but there weren't as many as I expected.

And as exciting as the sculptures were, my kids enjoyed standing at the end of the pier ad looking out at the water and the boats and ships and things just as much.  

Oh my GOSH I am humongous!!!

One of the big sailing ships, just, with the sails down.

Daddy's girl.

The main competition sculptures were mainly at the back of the pier.  Up in the front part they had food booths and a few rides and things.  They also had other random piles of sand were amateurs were making sculptures right in front of the crowds.

We particularly enjoyed this Dr. Seuss themed one:

"We fit in when you were born to stand out" -Dr. Seuss

This Picasso one was cool too.

So that was fun.  Peter begged and begged to take a zip line ride until Matt caved.  He got all harnessed up and climbed the stairs and was ready to go but then he saw the people in front of him go and he got scared. So they came back down without their ride.  I might have tried a bit longer to convince him to go for it... conquer his fears and all that.  But I wasn't up there was I?  Nope... I was too busy being 39 weeks pregnant.

Blah.

Not to worry, nobody but me seemed to mind.

So we moved on.

A.J. tried to drive the cruise terminal building with this
fire hose controller thing while she waited for her brother to try
the zip line.  That was cute.  :)

We left the pier with the sand sculptures and walked down the waterfront towards the big sail boats, just sort of looking to see what there was.

Every so often the big sailing ships would fire off cannons in mock Pirate type fights.  

Eventually we turned around and headed back towards Sea Port Village.  I thought maybe we'd get ice cream or something.  We passed the Midway museum and I thought again about how much Peter would enjoy it, but it wasn't the day for it.  It would be too crowded, and I wouldn't have been able to climb the ladders and things well.

So anyway, we got to Sea Port village and wound up at the Carousel.  

Obviously.

So Matt and the kids and their Grandmother all took a ride.  

I sat out and felt tired and fat and took a few pictures.  It was nice to be able to watch them have fun.  I do always try to enjoy the fun with them.  I want to be a part of their memories whenever possible, just not be the parent waving from the sidelines.  But I didn't have choice that day.  So I sat in the grass and watched them go by me over and over and it was.... melancholy.  They all smiled and giggled and had fun.  I loved watching that.  A.J.'s smile was.... probably, the best thing I've ever seen.  Pure, uninhibited joyful happiness and glee.  But I wasn't with them and it made me sad.  I sat down and wondered about the baby.  Who would she be?  What would she be like?  

By then their ride was ending.  

They all came tumbling out to join me there in the grass.  It was sweet and adorable how excited the children were to be reunited with me again, after really only being separated from for a few moments.  

From there we decided to head for the car and make our way home.  It had been a long afternoon in the sun, I couldn't really walk any more and it was getting to be dinner time.  

It had been a fun afternoon.