I’m wearing a dress.
From two years ago.
I’m trying to decide if it fits me.
It used to.
But I’m not sure if does anymore.
Should I wear it to church?
Or…should I leave it in my closet a few more months?
(No, I won’t post a picture of it on here.
You will all just have to wonder.)
I go through this every week.
Because I have so many dresses.
And I miss them.
All of them.
The end.
A friend of mine commented on an old post from last year, the one where I talked about our journey to conceive Analie. I was feeling nostalgic as I sit here in the hotel room waiting for Joey’s session to be finished so we can go home, so I clicked back into The Archives and read the old post.
Oh, memories.
And then, just for good measure, I decided to watch Analie’s announcement video. I haven’t seen it since she was born, and going back and looking at it was really fun. It’s such a beautiful video that I just felt like reposting it again here.
(So no, I am not announcing another pregnancy. We haven’t saved up enough money for that kind of craziness yet. But maybe someday if we win the lottery or something like that.)
On October 13, 2009 we first met Dr. Babyplease, our Infertility Specialist in Texas. (I was just skimming the post I linked to, and it’s funny, after a successful pregnancy I still hate ultrasounds and find them terrifying. I guess some things never change.)
The first thing I remember thinking as we walked back to her office and seeing the bulletin boards plastered with pictures of literally thousands of babies was that maybe, just maybe, someday we’d have a picture up there too.
The last thing I remember Dr. Babyplease saying to us before giving me a hug and releasing us to an OBGYN was to please send her a picture of our baby after she was born.
We did it.
It happened.
Analie made the bulletin boards.
Every single day since October 13, 2009 has been a weird mashup of emotions, some stronger than others, some days more raw than others. But we learned that once you bite off the assisted reproduction pill, you don’t get to relax one way or the other. And now it’s over and it feels…weird.
I just wrote Dr. Babyplease a card and sent her a baby announcement; it felt like delicious closure.
419 days later.
Full Disclosure: This is REALLY LONG.
Tuesday morning, November 23, I overslept, didn’t take a shower, failed to make the bed, and left two dishes in the sink because I didn’t empty the dishwasher. GOSH, right? At 9:40, I jumped in the car and zipped up the road to the hospital for a routine Non Stress Test.
Another one.
Our induction was scheduled for Wednesday evening, and our doc wanted to have one more NST before we got this show on the road.
I had screwed up and scheduled the NST in the middle of Joey’s Tuesday morning meeting, but he skipped out and met me at the hospital. Good thing he did.
The 20 minute NST was going ON and ON and ON…and an hour and a half later, we were getting kind of confused about why I was still on the monitor. Also, we were getting starved because we had been planning to meet the Grandparents Laird for lunch. I had eaten barely any breakfast, too, because of this.
There I lay, all strapped down to the bed in Triage (doesn’t that sound so dramatic? It’s totally not) when the nurse finally came in. “You’re still on the monitor because baby’s not passing the NST,” she said.
And I was like WHAT DO YOU MEAN she’s not passing?!
They were waiting for her little heartbeat to spike 15 bpm and sustain it for 15 seconds, twice in a 20 minute period. And she had only done it once…in what was coming up on two hours.
“We’re going to send you down to Radiology for a sonogram,” the nurse told us. “We’re just waiting for them to come and get you.”
Shortly, my chariot showed up and its driver was the fastest walker EVER. Even Joey couldn’t keep up with him, so he was running along behind us, panting all the way to Radiology. It kind of cracks me up since I’m usually the one running along behind Joey every time we go anywhere.
We arrived in record time and were shown into a dark room with the typical bed we have seen way more times than we ever wanted to, and the usual sonogram machine. While we waited for the radiology tech to come in I just kind of stared around the room, feeling disturbing flashbacks to the exam room of the Perinatologist we saw right before our miscarriage.
That’s when I started getting nervous.
I told myself to calm down, I had just been upstairs for two hours listening to the consistent heartbeat and feeling her move. But I couldn’t stop shaking.
The tech came in shortly, and she sat down and started scanning. She was silent. Joey kept trying to get her to say what she was doing and seeing, but she would not play along. I knew she wasn’t allowed to talk about what she was seeing, and the fact that she wasn’t answering Joey’s questions was stressing me out more than her silence. I tried to send him Signals via enlarging my eyes and other methods that I’d like him to please be quiet.
He didn’t pick up on them.
Half an hour later, we were finished and I was sent back upstairs in another wheelchair, this one driven by a much slower person. In fact, this guy was so slow that I almost got out and walked. I knew once we got upstairs we’d find out the results of the Biophysical Profile they’d just done on our baby, and by this point I was so nervous I could scream.
At anyone. At any time.
Once back up in Triage they strapped me back up for a second NST. Maybe she’d pass this one and we could all go home, said the nurse.
By this point it was 1:30. I was cold, tired, starving (we hadn’t gotten to eat lunch!), and shaky. The last thing I wanted was to be all hooked up to a freezing cold NST monitor for another 2.5 hours, but I was trying to be polite.
So I said nothing.
Ten minutes later, Radiology called back with the results from Analie’s Biophysical profile. She had scored a 4/8, which would definitely not pass muster as a test grade in school. I’d never heard of a Biophysical profile before an hour and a half before, but I was pretty sure scoring a 4/8 isn’t something to necessarily be proud of. The nurse told us that my doctor would be calling us soon, but to prepare for a C-section that afternoon.
I watched the heartbeat monitor go up and down, up and down, up and down while we waited (again) for someone to tell us what was going on.
“Oh look, you’re having a contraction,” Joey said, pointing to the contraction indicator thingy on the monitor. “Nice, it’s going off the top of the monitor chart.”
“Huh, I don’t feel anything,” I said. But sure enough, the machine said I was. So I must have been.
The nurse popped in again. “Did you know you are extremely low on amniotic fluid?” She asked.
“Um, no,” I said. Like…seriously, how am I supposed to check for that?!
“It’s low enough you won’t be leaving,” she said, then disappeared from the curtain.
Another minute passed and the curtain moved again. “And did you know she’s breech?”
I burst out with the loudest, most obnoxious stress-filled laugh I have ever laughed in my entire life.
“No,” I said. “We definitely didn’t know she was breech.”
“Your doctor called, she wants to have you in surgery by 3:00,” said the triage nurse. “Anesthesia will be up for a pre-interview in a few minutes.”
Joey and I looked at each other. In an hour and a half, I’d be having what we’d always never wanted: a C-section.
My doctor came whirling in just then, all smiley and cheerful like usual. “Well, this isn’t quite how we planned it!” She said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, throw away the Birth Plan,” Joey said. “Just stick to the part about giving us the baby at the end of it and we’ll be happy.”
My doctor assured us that, unfortunately, a C-section was quite necessary because the baby wouldn’t tolerate labor with the fluid levels so low, and I definitely wouldn’t tolerate it with her in the breech position. “We can’t turn her with no fluid,” she said.
Oh well. The best laid plans…
“We’ll see you in the OR in an hour or so,” she said with a smile.
Yeah. In an hour.
It’s hard to get excited about giving birth when you know you’re going to be literally back-stabbed in an hour and then cut open with a scalpel. And I was terrified of having a C-section; all I could think of was how awful my recovery had been from the last surgery. While not a C-section, it seemed somewhat similar. I didn’t think I could do that again.
With the doctor gone and just the two of us there staring at each other, it was time to get the wheels turning. Action. It must be taken.
I had packed the last of the bags that morning, just in case something like this happened, and we decided Joey should run home and pick them up before the section, that way he wouldn’t have to leave once Analie was born. So he kissed me on the forehead and left Triage, looking about as pale as I’ve ever seen him.
As soon as he left the guy from Anesthesia showed up to interview me. Then someone else came and asked all the same questions over again. And another person shortly after that. I wondered why they didn’t just have one system they could put my answers into so I wouldn’t have to tell every single person in the entire hospital that I am allergic to Betadine and it makes me break out into hives. (Because, in truth, I am and it does.)
At 2:00, a nurse came and to the room which would be mine for five days and four nights. (Ugh.) She was in High Stress Mode because my doctor had requested that we expedite the C-section process, but things had just not been started soon enough.
“Joey’s not even here yet,” I said, glancing at the clock. “He was told 3:00 and I don’t think he’ll be back much before then.”
It wound up being a moot point, because things too SO long that I wasn’t even prepped and walking (WALKING!) to the operating room until 4:00.
Aside: why is it that I had to be driven all over the hospital in a wheelchair when I’d go for an NST or downstairs, but they made me walk to the operating room to have my surgery? Whilst shaking like a leaf?
Joey wasn’t permitted to come into the OR until after they had done all the pre-surgery prep and had administered the anesthesia. For a girl who wanted to go all-natural, it was extremely unnerving to have my back washed down with a cold, cold, wet something, then told to arch my back and yet still not arch it so they could jam a needle into my spine.
It hurt.
While my entire body went numb from the ribcage down, the nurses discussed my Betadine allergy. It went a lot like this.
Nurse 1: Have you ever tried the other stuff we use besides Betadine?
Nurse 2: No, have you?
Nurse 1: No.
(At this point, I am getting nervous.)
Nurse 2: Oh, I found it in the cabinet. I think this is it. Is this it?
Nurse 1: Yeah that looks right.
(Do they think I’m asleep? Because I am not asleep, just numb and unable to move.)
Nurse 1: Wow, it’s really hard to get open.
Nurse 2: SUPER COOL, look at that spongy thing on the end!
Nurse 1: So, we just put it on her like this?
Nurse 2: I think so.
Anesthesiologist: No, no, no, you do it like THIS.
Nurse 1: Ohhhh, I get it.
(And I’m just wondering if maybe breaking out in hives from the Betadine would have been safer.)
Anesthesiologist: No…more like this. Make longer scrubs with the sponge.
Nurse 2: That sponge is so cool.
FINALLY they had me all cleaned up with whatever they had used instead of Betadine. (And I am pleased to report that it did not cause me to break out into hives.) Joey was whisked in, and he stood by my head, still looking pale.
I was still shaking, and the anesthesiologist offered to give me something (Demerol?) to stop the shaking. I declined and said I’d ask later if I was still shaking and couldn’t stop. I lay there on the table, freezing cold, closed my eyes and took deep breaths. The shaking subsided, slightly, but as soon as I stopped it would come back.
By this point I’d been shaking for just about three hours, so what’s another hour?
The anesthesiologist told me that my doctor would do a pinch test to ensure I couldn’t feel anything before she started the incision. I was waiting to feel the pinches (which, I’m not sure why…since I had been anesthetized) when the anesthesiologist reported that my doctor was halfway through with the incision.
I started to panic, realizing that my stomach now had a big HOLE IN IT and I was still awake!!!, and then realized I couldn’t feel anything.
More deep breaths. More deep breaths.
Joey glanced across the curtain just long enough to realize he did NOT want to see what was going on over there, and he quickly looked back at me and squeezed my hand.
The anesthesiologist asked if we had a camera. Joey said yes and immediately she grabbed it from him and began snapping pictures. OF THEM PULLING ANALIE OUT. By this point we decided it wasn’t worth it to tell her I really hadn’t wanted pictures of the surgery.
Then, I heard my doctor’s voice from the other side of the curtain. “She’s out!”
I didn’t hear anything else. No infant crying, nothing. My heart began to race wondering if there was something wrong and then…the tiniest little wail.
I felt so relieved to hear her, even if I still couldn’t see her because of that stupid blue curtain. Joey snatched the camera back from the Anesthesiologist and began snapping pictures of her and then bringing them back to show me.
The nurses whisked her off to the Panda warmer, and lay there on the operating table, so angry that those nurses were touching MY baby first while I was trapped on the table getting my stomach mashed on and stitched up.
Joey went over to stand with her and let her hold his finger, and as soon as he did that I burst into tears. Two and a half years of feeling guilty for not being able to have any children when Joey would make such a wonderful Daddy came exploding out of my tear ducts because we finally had our daughter.
The anesthesiologist handed me a washcloth to dry my face with, but I couldn’t stop crying. Not until they finally had me sewed up and put our little baby girl on my chest. She was 7 lbs of perfection. And she was healthy, despite all the drama of the last three weeks.
When I look at Analie today, I am amazed when I think of where she came from. I remember the shots that led us to the day we retrieved the eggs, I remember waiting nervously to find out if any would be viable, and I remember the transfer. I remember cheating and taking a pregnancy test the night before the blood test at our RE’s office. I remember our RE giving us a congratulatory hug at our last appointment with her. I remember her asking us to send a picture of the baby when she was born.
All of it was worth it.
The last thing my doctor told me on Analie’s birthday, right before they wheeled me out of the OR and back to my room, was that she had completely removed the Scar from my earlier surgery. My new incision was a bit longer, she said, but the old Scar was totally gone.
I didn’t want to have a C-section. I didn’t want to have to go through what I thought would be a re-do of an earlier, awful experience. But what I thought would be a terrible thing wound up being redemptive. I never have to look at my Scar and be reminded that I cannot have children. When I look at my new incision, I will remember the day that Analie was born.
And I will be thankful.
Well. Our scheduled non-stress test turned out to be a little stressful (for us) and, well, six hours later I was in the OR getting prepped for a C-section. But more on that later.
We are quite pleased to introduce to ANALIE Alexa, born at 4:20 this afternoon. She was 19 1/4 inches long and a whopping 7 lbs.
Just look at that little attitude! Already with the pouting lip.
I know that, like, 90% of you are just refreshing this blog every four hours to see if I’ve had the baby, or at least started having the baby, yet.
The answer is nope.
No baby.
I am starting to wonder if she actually exists.
But if I don’t hurry, I’ll be late to run back to the hospital for another test. Maybe when I am there they’ll be like ,”Oh! You’re in labor you just didn’t know it!”
Sorta doubting that will happen.
We were in Pottery Barn yesterday evening, swapping out our defective rug, when one of the salesladies said “OH! I think you have dropped!”
I found this curious because this woman didn’t know me from Adam. (Or is it Eve in my case?)
Therefore.
I decided to take a poll of The Internet, which is obviously much more scientific than the lady at Pottery Barn.
Please view these two pictures and respond accordingly in the poll below.
38 weeks
39 weeks...5 days
I look way more excited about life in the 38 weeks picture. Also maybe a little bit more swollen in the face, too. (Maybe the 1 lb I managed to lose between doctor’s appointments came entirely off my face?)
And yes, the outlet covers ARE different colors in each picture. Joey installed the safe (white) ones this week. No more flaming outlets for us!
SO. Look at the pictures again.
Did I drop? Did I not drop? Or…WHAT??
Good morning.
I am skipping church.
But not because I am in labor, or any stage of early labor. Just because I don’t feel well at all. I feel like one of those rotten pears at the grocery store that got buried under the perfectly ripe ones.
I want a pear now. A ripe one.
I had this epic moment at 4:30 this morning: I feel like I need to share. I was laying there, asleep, and for some reason I suddenly felt like I was going to lose whatever I had eaten for dinner the night before. (What WAS that, anyway?) So, half asleep, I shot straight up, launched myself out of bed and somehow missed crashing into and destroying the Pack ‘n Play, and ran to the bathroom.
And once I was in the bathroom, I realized I felt completely fine. There was no reason for that whole lunging from the bed thing I had just done. Must have been in my dream?
In any case, I haven’t moved that fast in about…ten months. I kind of wish it had been caught on tape so I could relive it.
So far this morning, I have eaten some breakfast, threw lunch in the Crock-Pot, and sat on the couch. Today’s agenda is going to be basically take my sweet time cleaning the house (so it’ll probably take about 5 hours instead of the usual 3 1/2 hours…lame) and maybe put up a few Christmas decorations.
Maybe if the child senses Christmas decorations, it’ll inspire her to want to come out into the oxygen.
I’m not getting my hopes up.
Also, Henry needs a bath. It has been at least three weeks (he usually gets bathed once a week) and he smells not unlike the rotten tomato I discovered behind the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator of our first apartment. Thing had been in there so long and was so rotten that it completely disintegrated when I touched it….and oozed its rancid guts all over the bottom of the fridge.
It was one of the grossest moments of my life.
I’m feeling a little up against the wall. We have five days to born this kid before I have to take Cytotec, and the pressure is ON.
I was SO EXCITED when I woke up in the middle of the night and thought “hmm, my stomach feels a little hurty, MAYBE I AM IN LABOR??” and then realized I just had to go to the bathroom and had laid on my right side for too long so all my extremities had fallen asleep. It had nothing to do with labor at all.
We’ve been researching natural labor induction methods. I even tried jumping jacks last night and, word to the wise: kids, don’t try this at home. It’s a little bit more complicated to do jumping jacks at 39 weeks 3 days than it ever was in gym class. See, there’s this thing called a belly that throws off your center of gravity and making it kind of impossible to see the ground. So it’s easier to accidentally jump on a pair of wadded up socks, for example. Hypothetically, doing that could cause weird foot pain.
Joey tried to be “helpful” when he saw me flailing around our bedroom trying to do these jumping jacks, and he was all, I’ll hold your belly in place so you don’t have to get thrown off balance by it.
Let’s just say jumping on socks (or even Henry’s doggy bed) is a preferable solution.
That’s when I decided we’re moving on to walking and spicy food now. It’s less dangerous.
I have a feeling we will be regular customers at nearby Thai food restaurants and mall security will be kicking us out of the Fashion Mall for walking so many laps. Or, maybe I’ll just eat San Antonio Chili Powder by the tablespoon. Wait, no. I can only get that from Central Market and it’s like gold.
We need to go get some lame/regular chili powder if I’m going to straight up eat it.
Actually just thinking about eating chili powder makes me feel like I’m going to throw up.
Wait, isn’t throwing up a way to induce?
Hmm…
(Not to worry, Internet Helpers. We will not be attempting to induce via Castor Oil. I already crossed that, and several others, off the list as unsafe on a number of levels.)
On Tuesday morning, I had ANOTHER doctor’s appointment. And this time, when the nurse came in with the blood pressure cuff, I was ready.
“Check the left arm first,” I said. ”I had high blood pressure on my right side last time.”
So she checked my left arm. ”Uh…” she said, staring at the numbers, “You have really high blood pressure on your left side today.
Oh. Darn.
So she checked my right arm. Right arm was the same. Something like 162/100, whatever that means.
When my doctor came in, she was all, “Have you had any headaches? Nausea? Swelling?” and on and on down a list.
Headache? Totally have one. Nausea? Just threw up the other night. Foot swelling? WELL, have a look at these hams.
My doc decided that a.) the baby was clearly not going to be born anytime soon due to my lack of “progress” and b.) I should probably head over to Labor and Delivery RIGHT! NOW! so they could do some kind of really long Non Stress Test (again) and suck out a bunch of my lifeblood. She gave me supplies for another test I had to do at home over the next 24 hours. Oh, and by the way, I would most likely be induced on Monday, because she wasn’t going to let me go all the way to my due date with my blood pressure this high.
I was like, Uh…holy cow? What just happened here? I feel fine?
So I trundled off to Labor and Delivery. By myself. Joey was at a staff meeting because I screwed up when I scheduled this appointment.
Joey showed up just as they were hooking me up on the monitors and we sat there for an hour and a half. It was pretty boring. But my bloodwork came back clear, so they sent me home with my at-home testing supplies (which was better than the alternative as my doc had said they might keep me overnight), and told me to go straight to bed and stay there.
BEDREST, they said to me.
Do you have any idea how hard that is for me to comply with? This whole laying around all day thing? It’s ridiculously hard. I finally just started cheating and “resting” on my “bed”, which basically means sitting on the couch and stuff.
After 24 hours of “bedrest”, we dropped off the testing stuff at the lab yesterday. I was informed to keep “bedresting” and wait for my results. UGH. Finally this morning my doc told me that YAY! my test came back within normal ranges. I do NOT have Pre-Ecclampsia, like she was riling me all up about, and therefore I do not have to stay on “bedrest” anymore. I just have Gestational Hypertension, so she’ll see me tomorrow again and we’ll do another Non-Stress-Test.
Those make my belly itchy. Oh well.
I’m not sure if Monday is still The Day for induction, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised. Induction is not the way we wanted to go, but if it’s what we have to do…we’ll do it.
So if you don’t see a whole lot of me between now and Monday, this is why. I am trying to be prepared for the upcoming birth, which will apparently be Monday. Plus, I have zero energy, so doing laundry totally wears me out. But…it must be done. Three loads today, y’all.
After I make Chex Mix, that is.
