Madeline's Birth Story: Part II

(check out Part I here!)

At about 3:15 on Monday the 21st, the flurry began... a nurse walked in as E had been texting family, ("she's coming today!!! ETA sometime after 3:30!!!") and said, "Dad, you're not in scrubs yet??"

 While he threw on his supersized scrubs, they had me, while in the bathroom, scrub my own stomach with some weird soap... (I had just showered, c'mon guys!)

We loaded our bags onto the cart thingy that would follow us to recovery, and then on to our permanent motherBaby room...

The shakes began (from mostly being cold) and E got left outside the OR while I was prepped (given spinal block and foley catheter, thankfully in that order...)

 E's famous hallway view, pre-baby-meeting!

(check out his similar view from when Button was born...)

Meanwhile, getting my spinal was such deja-vue from 2.5 years ago - except this time, I conquered the shakes! Of course, the two heated blankets draped on my lap and shoulders helped, as did knowing what exactly to expect in the upcoming hour... warmth flowed from the spinal site down the backs of my legs, and with E being escorted in as soon as my catheter and surgical drapes were placed, surgery was off at about 3:45pm!

The oh yea! scent of cauterized flesh (yuck, right?!) and a bit of familiar tugging, and before I knew it - before E even knew it, he had no time to get the camera up and ready to video!!! - they were telling me - showing me over the curtain! - Ms. Madeline Claire, born at 4:09pm on December 21st! 
And here's where there's a split in the story telling... see, from my point of view (behind curtains, arms splayed out, my ears the only receiver of news from the baby and team) - I heard the suction and a quick gurgle as the surgeons literally removed her from me, and thought ok, not a great busty cry, but noise! HI BABY!! WELCOME!! I mean - they'd held her over the curtain, and she was all, DAFUQ JUST HAPPENED?!
A little silence, maybe 20 seconds - and juuuust as I'm thinking, ok - well she's much quieter than her brother! - out came the warbling newborn cry, and I started smiling big...



E's story on the other hand, is where shit got scary... I didn't hear any of the drama until the Baby Team (and Daddy) had left the OR for recovery a few minutes ahead of me at the end of the C-section, when the doctors mentioned her first Apgar score was FIVE... 

so back up to the point where the surgeons got baby girl out and suctioned... she was handed off to Baby Team, where E followed them over to the warmer, camera out taking pictures... 

In his narrative to me later, he only realized something was up when he saw, through the view finder, a nurse start to slap the bottom of baby's feet, and an oxygen mask come out... He then noticed her color - an ashy gray (she'd still not "pinked up" with new oxygenated blood...)

 (nurse is slapping baby's feet, and I think the nurse on the left has the oxygen mask on baby...)

At this point, E put the camera down, and started watching the nurses' faces for news (so the 20 seconds or so I was waiting clueless for some newborn wails, E spent 20 hours as a nervous wreck, waiting for something...her limbs were limp as the team moved them around...)

They suctioned her again, and according to E, she let out her busty newborn wail (and took that first/second gasp of oxygen for her blood cells) and immediately pinked up, from head to toes...

My pink wailing baby girl!! Her next APGAR (less than a minute after the first disastrous Five) was 9...

The new family! (minus big brother, of course... lol)

At 19.5" and 7lb11.6oz, Madeline Claire joined the family!

speaking of Ms. Mack, Daddy is rocking her now (she's spoiled, has gotten used to a set of arms 'round the clock... sigh) and is giving me the signal that he'd like his first shower in two days, so it's my turn to try to cajole her to sleep... (good news, she's above birth weight today! by 3.5 oz! nursing's going well, will definitely go more into that later)

But first, next up: big brother meets his new baby sister!