I had a hard time sleeping the night before Eve's birth. I was feeling scared and lonely. I prayed and as I was thinking about all the women before me who've given birth, even at times alone and often without their spouse nearby, I felt the Spirit strongly that my grandmothers and Joe's grandmothers were nearby. That knowledge strengthened and comforted me. I listened to some conference talks, which helped to soothe me as well. They put an IV in my arm at 1am which I later found out wasn't big enough or something so they had to put a second IV in my other arm the next day. Not so fun. By 4 am, I was finally able to get a little bit of sleep.
Saturday morning started bright and early when the nurse came in at 6am. She had bad news. She said they had changed their visitation policy so that anyone who came in would have to stay the entire time I was admitted to the hospital. I was so upset by this because I knew I couldn't ask Lisa to stay the whole 3-4 days I'd be recovering from the c-section, sleeping on the uncomfortable fold-out bed, but I really wanted someone there with my for the birth. I was crying and calling Joe and wondering if I should tell Lisa not to try and come in. Thankfully, soon after the nurse came back in and said she had gotten it wrong--my visitor could leave when she wanted but I was only allowed one. That meant that even if Joe did get a negative test result in time, he wouldn't be able to come in to see me and the baby. That was sad news but at this point we doubted that he'd get the result very quickly and having someone there for the birth was more important.
I got up and got ready and took this last belly picture before she was born:
All prepped for surgery:
Before we went back to the OR, Lisa gave me a wonderful prayer/blessing of protection that brought me a lot of peace.
Ready for the spinal:
It wasn't as bad this time. It didn't feel like it hurt as much and they had this nice inflatable warmer thing on me so it wasn't as cold, laying there basically naked for all to see :).
Lisa was able to FaceTime Joe during the surgery. Here he is waiting for it to start:
They put the curtain up really high so Lisa couldn’t see a whole lot but it sounded like she still saw plenty. She was a champ and didn’t get sick at all :). There was definitely a lot of scar tissue and they were working pretty vigorously at times. It seemed like it took a long time to get to the baby. Finally, she said they were cutting to get her out. She didn’t make noise right away and it seemed like it took forever for me to get to see and hear her. They held her up to the clear curtain and my first impressions were that she was so tiny and that she had hair! It’s about the same amount as our other kids—just a little bit—but it seemed like a lot. The wonderful thing about this time is that they checked her out quickly and then brought her over to have skin to skin time on me while they finished up the surgery. I’ve never experienced that before and I loved it. 
Then it was off to the recovery room. She started nursing a little bit but she was also grunting when she was breathing and retracting a little bit. They eventually decided to take her to the nursery for a little bit to watch her. Lisa went with her and they took me back to my room.
Joe's first view of Eve:
The beautiful 6 lb, 2 oz, 19.25 inches long girl:
With Aunt Lisa:
I loved getting quiet time to snuggle her in the hospital, but it was rough being on my own after Lisa left. I didn't get much sleep at night the first night because she kept waking up choking on spit-up and freaking me out. It was hard getting her out of her bed on my own, too. My recovery wasn't bad, though, except for eating too much too fast and throwing it all up. I got up and moving pretty fast. The hospital was letting women recovering from c-sections leave after only two nights because of COVID. At first, we thought we'd wait until Joe got a negative test result for us to go home. But, the second night was so hard for me that I just wanted to get home and be in my own bed. So, I left Monday. They said I'd be able to leave around noon so Joe got a ride from our neighbor Kristen (since the van was already parked here from when I came). Unfortunately, it took hours after that for them to release me and I'd been holding her waiting for most of that time so I was physically and emotionally spent by the time they finally wheeled me out to the Joe and the van. The poor guy was probably worried when I cried most of the way home but I think I was finally starting to process all that emotion from everything. I felt so much better when I got home and changed into some comfy clothes in my own bed. We were so grateful for all the nurses and doctors (and room cleaners, and techs, and cooks, etc) at the Stanford Hospital (LPCH). We overall had a good experience there, but it was just such a tough time to have a baby. We were so glad she came safely, though. What a blessing!
No comments:
Post a Comment