Friday, January 18, 2013

Our family has grown by two tiny feet....



I should have posted this earlier, but things have been hectic. 

On Monday, January 7, I had my last scheduled OB appointment.  It was 8 days before my scheduled c-section.  I went back to the back, they weighed me (total weight gain: 16 lbs), and took my blood pressure.

The conversation with the nurse went something like this:
Nurse: Your bp is a little elevated.
Me:  What was it?
Nurse: 150/90
Me: Shit. SHIT. 
So they took me to an exam room, and I laid on my left side.  The nurse came back in 10 minutes to re-check my blood pressure, and my doctor, Dr. N., came in.  I cried.  We talked for a minute about how I had been feeling.  I told him I was fine.  I promise.

He said, "You know I have to send you to l&d right?" 

My response came out jumbled and something like this: 

Listen, I mean, I'm sure a trip to l&d would be fun and everything, but I can't have this baby today.  She's scheduled to come next week.  I have to work this week.  I haven't finished all my paper work.  And my Christmas tree is still up.  And I have 1000 sq. feet of wood floors in my living room.  And I have a 15 month old.  She's in the lobby.  With my mom.  I can't take a 15 month old to l&d. And you know, she woke up this morning, and I laid her on the changing table.  I unzipped her pajamas, and there was poop laying inside her pajamas.  My first thought was, OMG, how did the poop get outside of your diaper?  Then my second thought was, OMG, you blew poop out of your diaper, and then finally, I opened the diaper, and there was no poop inside the diaper.  HOW DID YOU POOP OUTSIDE OF YOUR DIAPER? And then we cleaned up, and got dressed, and I can't have a baby today because there are poopy kid pajamas in my sink, and I have to go to work.  Then on the way here, she was starving because they feed her lunch at like 10:00 at daycare.  That's a stupid time for lunch anyways, so I gave her some applesauce in a pouch.  She's been a master at applesauce pouches, but yes, today, I felt applesauce hit me in the back of the head.  And I'm not ready to have a baby today.
 And breathe.....

Dr. N. said
We'll send you over there for a few hours.  You can relax.   Listen to the baby's heart beat.  If your blood pressure goes down, we'll send you home.
What followed was a conversation about going back to work.  I just asked to work a couple of more days.

And off I went to L&D where my BP did not go down.

Dr. M., the on-call doctor,  came in.  He told me to relax a little while longer and we'd see where my BP was.   My BP never ever went down.

The hubs called.  He was leaving work.  He asked me if he needed to go get anything.  I told him no.  I called him back and said, "Maybe you should bring my pajamas."  He called me back, "Do you want me to bring anything for the baby?"  I said, "No, I'm sure we'll go home tomorrow. "

Twenty minutes after hubs left the house, which would make him about halfway to the hospital, Dr. M. came back in and said, "We're going to have this baby tomorrow."  WTF??

I was not prepared for this.  I hadn't made child-care arrangements.  I didn't have anything for baby.  How was this possible??

I spent the night in labor and delivery and the next morning, the nurse woke me up for my c-section.  Our second baby girl, Emmalyn,  was born at 7:49 A.M. on 1/8/13 weighing 7lbs 1 oz. and 21 inches long.



I remember her first cry.  It was kind of nasal and echo-y.  My speech-language pathologist voice came out and said, "Something's wrong," and the hubs said, "No, no.  She's perfect."  She is perfect, and beautiful.  I'm so in love.


But there is a thing.

The pediatrician came in about 2:00 in the afternoon, and said, "Your daughter looks great, and everything's fine.  There's just something we need to talk about."



She told me that Emmalyn has a cleft palate.  She has a very mild cleft of her soft palate.  She will need surgery, but she's amazing, and healthy, and that's what matters.


No comments:

Post a Comment