Exactly one week ago today, I gave birth to this little dude!
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| Meet baby I |
The weird thing about a scheduled c-section is just how normal the whole process feels, despite the fact that you're about to be sliced open and have another human being hoisted out of your innards.
While my first c-section wasn't strictly an emergency, there was enough urgency to it that things passed in a bit of a blur. This time around, I got to have nice leisurely chit-chats with my anesthesiologist and the OB who would be performing the surgery (since my own had to bail at the last minute for a high-risk delivery). I surprised myself at how calm I was about the whole thing, right up until the point that the anesthesiologist was about to put in my spinal block. I was hooked up to a heart rate monitor at that point, and he asked if I was nervous and commented that he could see my heart rate going up a little bit. I replied something to the effect of "Well, you ARE about to cut me open, so there's that" which the nurses agreed seemed pretty reasonable.
The surgery went off without a hitch and at 3:24pm baby I entered the world at 8 pounds 4 ounces. The biggest difference this time around was that, while Q had a few breathing difficulties that necessitated a quick visit to the respiratory unit, M and I were able to hold baby I pretty much straight away, which was a lovely distraction from the stitching up process.
So here we are, a family of four! Right now we're smack in the middle of the transition process, which has been both amazing and challenging. Amazing in that Q was absolutely thrilled to meet his baby brother and has been beyond gentle with him, asking to hold him and then gently touching his tiny features with a huge smile on his face. Challenging in that Q was a MUCH better sleeper/eater right off the bat, whereas I has been going through some pretty fierce day/night confusion and cluster feeding so that's been putting us through our paces. I knew we had gotten off easy the first time, but maybe not exactly HOW easy. But with a little help from M's mom, who stayed with us until yesterday, we've been muddling through and I'm confident we'll find our feet soon.
Who would ever have thought when I started this blog five (5?!?!?!) years ago that this would be where we'd end up? But here we are. Me and my boys.
Complete.
