Part Three ...I know its about time!

So what’s the first thing my beautiful new baby did right after she popped out? Pooped all over me. Yup, good job baby! The nurses were impressed with the quantity too, but hey she works! So the pushing was done, the contractions were over, but the aftermath had just begun. I was hurting all over, shaking and trembling pretty hard also. They took Norah to clean her up a bit and the OB starting putting me back together. I got a shot of some pain killer in my IV to help me relax a little, then several shots of local anesthetic before she started stitching.

Basically, because Norah came so fast, her head didn’t mold much as it was coming down and my body didn’t have a lot of time to stretch around her… All that leads to a bunch of stitches. Shortly after the OB started her repairs I finally picked my head up enough to look at her. I think I said, Hi, nice to meet you. It was the first time I had seen her, I wouldn’t recommend meeting anyone in this fashion it’s a little awkward. During this time, the nurses were checking Norah over and told us she was having some trouble breathing. Again because she came so fast she still had a lot of amniotic fluid in her lungs which would normal have been squished out with contractions. They put her under the heater and monitored her for a while. At some point they decided to call someone from the nursery to check her out since her breathing was so rapid and they could hear the fluid in her still. (OB is still stitching) We were told that she may have to go to the nursery for a while if she didn’t improve. Luckily she started breathing better and the fluid continued to come out.

At some point I looked at the OB again and commented on how she seemed to be putting in a lot of stitches. She smiled and told me that there were quite a few and she had to pause for a while and wait for the bleeding to slow down. Oh that’s not what I wanted to hear…So again with the TMI but all you other mommas can sympathize with me, there were two major tears and another smaller one. One was very deep and went pretty high up in there, enough that the anesthetic hadn’t reached all the way to the end. So eventually the OB was done, and the nurses decided Norah was okay to stay in our room. We made some phone calls, sent emails etc to share our news. My mom or dad went to get my sister who I had wanted there for the birth but again, went too fast. Then it was time for me to venture to the bathroom.

George and a nurse helped me get up very very slowly. We shuffled to the bathroom and I managed to sit before anything bad started happening. The nurse had George stand in front of me ‘just in case’. She told me to tell her if I started feeling lightheaded or dizzy. Nope, I feel all right, oh, wait, maybe a little dizzy, oh now sparkly, and everything started to sound really far away. I’d never fainted before, pretty much as everyone describes it. Good thing George was there, he caught me so I didn’t hit the floor.

From here George tells me the nurse pulled the help cord in the bathroom and a few more nurses came in, then I started having convulsions and they called a code, meaning a nurse pulled the lever thingy in the room and lots of nurses came running. I woke up as they were moving me to a wheelchair and back to bed. Once in bed the nurse hooked up my IV to a bag of fluid and explained that I had lost more blood during delivery then they like to see so they were giving me some fluids. I felt really cold and dizzy for quite a while after that. I guess everyone else was pretty scared too, George stayed at my side for a long time. The next bathroom trip went better, meaning I made it back to bed without actually fainting again but I was close. It got better each time.

We had a lot of visitors that day which was nice but exhausting. Norah was pretty fussy that night, the nurses were in about every hour to check on one of us, and I was in a fair amount of pain. There are signs in the room that say to place your baby in the bassinet if you feel tired or drowsy, but we held her while we slept. Funny thing is, the nurses never told us not to. The next day George went to the airport to pick up his sister Sarah and her daughter Evoly. They came right to the hospital to visit us and it was so cute to see Evoly hold Norah! She was very gentle and did a great job. That afternoon we had lots of visitors. My parents, sister and her family, her sister in law and her family all came to visit. It was fun to have Jamie, Naomi and myself and our husbands and babies in the same room! Our second night was pretty hard also, lots of fussing for Norah, lots of pain for me. The OB decided to keep us until the third day due to my blood loss, so Friday the 21st at about noon we finally got to go home!

I didn't realize how far back in the birth center we were until we started walking out, it was a long way! I was super mommy hormonal too. There were people in the waiting areas who commented as we walked by, congrats, what a beautiful baby, etc. I almost cried. We made it to the doors and a nurse waited with me while George pulled the car up. Then we were on our way home! I rode in the back with Norah and we made it most of the way home without any problems. Then she started to cry. She was hungry. She cried a lot, and loudly. It was too much for me, so I cried too, maybe more than her. That wasn't exactly how I planned to arrive home, me sobbing and her crying, but it is what it is. I nursed her right away and then all was well again.

After that, well, we're still here. Nobody came to take her away from us so I guess we're doing an okay job. Tired, sore, sleepy, but healthy and happy to be home as a family.