39 weeks, 27 lbs, and unmeasurable worry...on May 18th at 8:39am, we welcomed Audra to our family. After all the weeks of worry and stress and the overwhelming feeling that something would go horribly wrong, she is beautiful and perfect. I realize that I am a bit biased, but she is the most beautiful baby girl I have ever seen. I guess in one aspect my "gut feeling" did come to fruition. It is one reason that I am thankful that Tobin and I have decided not to have any more children.
This was my 3rd Cesarean, so I was pretty confident that I knew what to expect, my first with Greyson, was an emergency. I had been laboring for close to 18 hours and he was beginning to go into distress, plus my blood pressure was dropping with every contraction. By the time they made the decision to take him by Cesarean my epidural had begun to wear off so the anaesthesiologist worked on getting me numb enough for the surgery. I was exhausted and was in and out of conscienceless while they were prepping me, then one of the nurses pinched my stomach...I woke immediately and said "OUCH". On the other side of the curtain I could hear a lot of movement and chattering..."did she say ouch?". So they began to poke me with a tool to see where I could feel. Unfortunately, whatever was being used to numb me was not taking, they ended up using general anesthesia . The recovery was horrible, for what seemed like forever after I shook uncontrollably, which was excruciatingly painful. Plus I always felt like I had missed out on that special moment of Greyson's first breath. Thankfully, Tobin was allowed to video tape the delivery, because I have no memories for the first several hours after coming out of anesthesia.
Colton's delivery was much more pleasant, they rolled me into the delivery room, the anesthesiolgist put the medicine in my back, they laid me back on the table. Dr. Montgomery came in and 15 minutes later, Colton was out screaming and I was crying with joy and watching them clean him up.
Audra's delivery wasn't as pleasant. We were scheduled for 8:00 am surgery, we arrived at 6:30 checked in, they hooked me up to the IV, got me in the gown, and ready to roll into the operating room. When the anesthesiologist put the spinal/epidural (not 100% sure what they use), something immediately felt different than when I had Colton. With Colton's delivery, my legs began to tingle and go numb immediately. This time I could still feel and move my toes. As they were prepping me, I knew that it wasn't working. The doctor started to pinch me to see exactly where I had feeling...everywhere! Crap, here we go again. I started to cry and told them that I DID NOT want to be put under, Dr. Montgomery agreed to use a local to help with the numbing as he cut. It was HORRIBLE!!! I could feel them cutting into me. He would inject me with the local and cut a little more, then I would start to feel it, so he'd inject more. I remember him asking the nurse to bring all of the local anestesthia that they had in that supply room. I was crying, but refused to be put under, I couldn't stand the thought of missing her first breath. Dr. Montgomery finally stopped and told the anesthesiologist to knock me out, give me the general, "she doesn't want it" she told him. I was trying so hard not to scream as he made one more cut, that I felt all the way across. I finally gave in and told them to put me under, I couldn't stand it anymore. Thank goodness, Tobin did a great job of keeping the video camera on the entire time so I was able to see from the time they pulled her out until they took her out to the nursery. They woke me as they were cleaning Audra up, I have absolutely no memories of that or the next 2-3 hours. The only memories that I have are from an outsider seeing it on video. I would not hesitate to do it all again for Audra, and I will have the memories of taking her home, and the lifetime of memories in the future.
I still feel like the luckiest most blessed woman in the world. I can't imagine having a richer fuller life than I have. My boys are amazing, Greyson loves his baby sister so much, he is going to be so protective of her!!! He'll sit and watch tv w/his hand in the bassinet and rub her head, it's adorable. Colton is showing a little signs of jealousy, but all in all he is doing great. He loves to help with anything to do with "his" baby. Audra is such a good baby, the only time she cries is when she's hungry or dirty. I stand back everyday and marvel at them, and thank God for everything that he has given me.
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