Moving On

You've probably already read all about Micah's birth, so I won't belabor (ha!) the point. I'll add a few things from my perspective, but D got all the facts right...of course!

So Mom, D, and I left for the hospital, which is three short minutes away, with enough time to make my 5am inducement check-in. I got hooked up and all went well throughout the day. I didn't have any adverse affects to whatever was being pumped into me and Mom and D were great entertainers and distracters. Actually, at one point, having more visitors somehow came up when a nurse was in the room and I told Mom that we were only allowed two support people. The nurse said that I was allowed to have anyone I wanted in the room, which we were not told, and that started the chain of visitors. D's dad came to visit from his office upstairs, followed by his mom, my dad and Yana, Ryan, then Nick and Kristina. The stream of visitors made the time go by even quicker and before I knew it, I was halfway dilated and 34 minutes later I was fully dilated. From that point on, Mom and D were in the room because not everyone wanted the view that was being presented.

At some point, I got the epidural which was heaven. My wonderful nurse Sharon kept asking me every half hour that she came to check on me if I wanted it, but I kept putting it off saying that I wanted to wait until I had "better" (aka harder) contractions. She looked at the tape pouring out of the monitor machine and told me that I had been having quite a few hard contractions already, which surprised me. So anyway, I pushed for almost three hours with little progress and was kind of disappointed that the baby wasn't going to come naturally, but I was totally ready to do anything to help the baby be born safe and sound. The doctor had been warning me that day and for weeks previous that I had a big baby and might need to have a C-section, so I was prepared for it.

The operating room was just how it looked in the many A Baby Story episodes I had been watching. I didn't like that curtain up in front of my face, which I knew I wouldn't, but that was the only uncomfortable part. The anesthesiologists had to wait a bit longer than usual for the medicine to kick in because I had been lying on my left side for a bit, so all the numbing medicine was there and not so completely on my right side. They tilted the table and injected some more stuff and we were good to go after about five minutes. D told me later he was wondering if they had forgotten about him, but they didn't. He eventually came in and not ten minutes later we heard two pitiful cries which marked our baby's entrance into this world, followed by, "It's a boy!". Someone asked me what my reaction was when we found out he was a boy, and the question kind of stumped me. I guess I always knew he was a boy because I wasn't surprised and I guess I really wanted a boy because I had a feeling of overwhelming satisfaction that he was a boy. Of course I would have been just as happy with a girl, but those were my initial reactions.


The nurses brought Micah to David a few minutes later (I think he might have been the only C-section baby with a cone head. They had to push him back up out of the birth canal because he was half way down and then pull him out!) and we got to meet our little man while one of the anesthesiologists took both pictures and video of our first moments as a family. Words can't describe the experience, but it's one D and I will always share and remember. The nurses took the baby away to the nursery to do their thing (His APGAR scores were 8 and then 9) and D stayed with me while they sewed me up. I would have never scheduled a C-section, but I have to say that it wasn't a bad experience at all. I tell the Lord all the time how thankful I am for a body that heals so well. The doctor gave me two pain medication prescriptions and I didn't need to fill either and I only took a few ibuprofen pills the first few days home. The bleeding isn't nearly as bad as if he had been born vaginally and I can sit down normally without any pain. So there are definite perks to having a C-section!

As the doctor was finishing up, he called out over the curtain, "Mrs. K, I've never seen someone with so little [insert some medical word beginning with a "v" here] before, I can't believe it." I didn't understand what he meant, but his tone of voice sounded kind of positive, so I said, "Oh, well, thank you." Then I turned to ask D what that word meant and he told me: layer of fat. I was definitely encouraged about the state of my post-pregnant belly after hearing that!


When they were done sewing me up, one of the doctors and a few nurses wheeled me back to my labor and delivery room where D and Mom were waiting for me. In the meantime, and unbeknownst to me, all the people who had gathered in the waiting room were now gathered around the Newborn Nursery window closest to Micah's isolate. Everyone was watching him get washed up and weighed and poked and prodded. No one knew if he was a boy or girl, so Mom got the nurses' attention away from the scale where they were still oohing and ahhing at his size and asked if he was a boy or a girl. The mystery was no longer and most people found out that they were right: we had a boy!

Back in the L&D room, Mom said there were people in the waiting room who wanted to see me and asked if it would be okay if they came in. I was shocked at the amount of people who were there, 11 in all: Mom, Dad, Ryan, Yana, Nick, Kristina, D's Mom, Dad, Sara, Rita, and Justin (plus D and me). The nurse (who was also shocked at the amount of people in the room) wheeled Micah in and made sure everyone knew that "Mom is in charge." We told everyone that they could hold him as long as they washed their hands...so of course he was passed around before another nurse came in to kick everyone out, check me over, and wheel me to the maternity room (oh, and I nursed Micah for the first time somewhere in there) where D was waiting for us.







The last thing I really remember is one of the doctors coming into our room and asking, "Was that mob for you?" "Well, " I said, "more for the baby."