I know this is overdue, but it's been a busy week for us. A week ago today, Charlotte Louise Folger was born on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 7:17am weighing in at 9.2 pounds and 21 1/2 inches long. At my 40 week appointment the day before, my Dr. says to me that I'm not even close. My cervix isn't even close to being ripe and I could potentially go another 2 more weeks. Dr. Mahan felt my stomach and said that the baby seemed pretty big so we did an ultrasound to double check. She was so big that the tech couldn't get her measurements to fit on the screen. They were estimating that she was about 9 - 11 pounds. 2 more weeks and Charlotte would have been HUGE! The Dr. said if we had induced it would've taken about 3 days and if I had any difficulties delivering we may have had an emergency c-section. So instead of putting me and the baby at risk, we scheduled a c-section for the next available appointment which was September 23rd. Ironically enough, it was (Grandpa) Mr. Pete's birthday, my Granny's partner of 30 years. When my mother called to give him the news, he was thrilled. ; )
We had to be at the hospital at 5:30am for the 7am surgery so needless to say I didn't get much sleep the night before. All I could think about was meeting my daughter for the first time - holding her, kissing her and hugging her. Once we got to the hospital, things started rolling along as planned. The only thing I wish I had known more about was the difference between an epidural and a spinal block, which I will explain later. The anesthesiologist asked me which one I wanted and since he said I wouldn't feel a thing, as far as the incision goes and all the tugging and pulling with the spinal block, I chose that instead. He was right, I didn't feel a thing (from the waste down) while they were performing the c-section. Once they pulled Charlotte out and we heard her crying, Gene and I just sat there (well. . . I laid there), he holding my hand and telling me that he loves me, we cried. We cried and cried while they cleaned her up and put her over the curtain long enough to see our precious baby. The most surreal moment in my entire life. That euphoric feeling that I wish I could bottle up and take on a daily basis. My precious baby was born. My wonderful husband and I created her together. Words simply cannot explain what I was feeling.
To make this really short since I was there for 3 nights, I ended up having a bad reaction to the spinal block. Some people develop a spinal headache which can feel like 1,000 migraines built into one. The only relief I got was by laying flat on my back and not moving at all. That made it almost impossible to nurse Charlotte or get my body moving around to speed up the recovery process. The only thing that cures a spinal headache is a blood patch and that's where they insert your blood back into the spine to clot the excessive space built up around the nerve due to the excessive spinal fluid. Basically, I had too much space in my spine that caused the severe headache. 95% of the time doing a blood patch works. Well it did - for a day. That next day it was back and more powerful than ever, so we did another one and while the anesthesiologist was doing it so much spinal fluid came out that the blood he took from me clotted and he had to redo it. A spinal block isn't a walk in the park either. They insert this LONG needle into your spine, after numbing it of course which seems like it takes forever to do. With all the needles and blood drawn, I look like a heroine addict. I almost want to wear a sign explaining my situation if I have to leave the house. It's really almost comical. Then after getting home I woke up the next day with another headache. The chances of them doing a third one was probably pretty slim and I was super eager to recover quickly so that I could care for my daughter. Besides, poor Gene was doing sooo much I just didn't feel good about him having to work extra hard. He's been helping so much around the house, then nursing me back to health and caring for Charlotte and trying to maintain his job, I needed to get relief and fast! So, I called my Mum-n-law for some serious prayers. Thanks be to God because late Sunday night I started to feel back to normal. I seriously love my mum-n-law for running down to her church to get a group to pray me to recovery and God because he hears our prayers!!!
So. . . so much for my 'long story short' explanation. So, even after all that, the rest of the recovery process went well and still is. My incision only occasionally hurts and is healing nicely. I'm trying to stay away from the Percoset b/c it makes me feel really loopy and I'm just sticking to the Motrin. Charlotte's got the hang of nursing and we're trying to get adjusted to her feeding and sleeping schedule. As challenging as that may be trying to function with little to no sleep I wouldn't trade it in for the world. My beautiful baby girl has arrived and I can't wait to watch her grow!
