Surgery

So my sweet Elijah had surgery about a month ago and was a super star!! I won't go into the details because I want to respect his privacy when he gets older, but I do want to share the experience.

Mary Liz had written a book about surgery for Ryan when he was a kid and we borrowed it from her to help prepare Elijah for his big day. Ironically enough less then a week before we found out he was going to have to go under the knife I was telling Mary Liz that she absolutely HAD to get it published. Anyways, he loved that book. As a matter of fact, it was what he wanted to take into the OR with him when they asked if he wanted to bring a blanket or a stuffed friend! I'm getting ahead of myself.

We get there and we're sitting in our little nook doing all the prep work. Mary Liz was with us to help with the baby because I'm still breastfeeding and he refuses to take a bottle. Elijah starts right off charming the nurses. They take his blood pressure and count his respirations. The aide was telling the nurse his vitals to record and Elijah pipes up, " No, I'm three!". At different times that morning Dr. S , the anesthesiologist, and some nurses all came out to discuss the surgery and again Elijah would eagerly insist he was three when a figure was said. He was very adament about it and it sort of became the theme for the morning. Kim, or pastor, joined us while we waited and we all got to enjoy an episode of VeggieTales. Both Kim and Mary Liz were a great comfort to me that day. :)

Skipping forward to when it is time for the surgery, Elijah had attracted a crowd of about 5 or more nurses and doctors around our little pod just charming them all! He chose cake for his anesthesia scent and the last time I saw him before he had stitches, he was riding Dr. S's back piggyback down the hall and through the OR doors.

They moved us all to his recovery room and I walked up and down the halls pushing Leland to get him to fall asleep and prayed. With the baby fast asleep I settled down in our room to wait for Elijah. The surgery wasn't very long, but what must have been a total of 30 - 45 minutes total before I saw him again felt like hours. The doctor came and told us everything went great and that they would bring him back once he came out of the anesthesia some more. Kim went ahead and left and Mary Liz toke Leland to go get lunch for us.

I heard him before I saw him. It is common for kids to be upset when they come out of anesthesia. You can and should try to prepare yourself when they inform you about this little detail, but, after being on pins and needles waiting to have my child back in my arms and know that he's ok, nothing can prepare you for that initial sound of your baby screaming and crying. I'm not quite sure if I recall who it was but I think it was a nurse who walked around the corner with Elijah in his/her arms and set him in my lap. Oh, just to hold him in my arms brought tears to my eyes.

He was a bit shaky. He was a lot sweaty. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted for about 20 minutes. Then he was definitely hungry. :) He wanted to know if he was going to get to stay the night there like in Grandma's surgery book. He was very disappointed that he wasn't. So, thank you Jesus that it seems as though he has come through this whole process without being afraid of doctors or hospital like settings!

We were on our way about an hour later. He tried to insist that he could walk (he had a type of epidural) and tried to stand on his legs. It was like watching an old cartoon where his knees just wobbled back and forth and I quickly scooped him back up! Of course, he was right next to me and there was no danger of him hurting himself or his surgical site.

We broke the rules and he had his favorite breakfast meal for dinner. Sweet potato belgian waffles, homemade peach compote, bacon, and eggs. Grandpa Boston joined us and we all feasted!

He bounced back super quick! He was playing again by the next day and completely back to normal a week later.Maybe one day, my sweet Elijah, Dr. S will be your new step-grandpa. ;)

The Hospital

Sunday, March 8th:

Dr. Moreno was the doctor on call. We got to the hospital and I stripped down and put on one of those awful hospital gowns. Dr. Moreno came in and checked me. I was dilated to 5 cm and 80% effaced! She put me around -2 or -1 dissent, too (how far down in my pelvis the baby is, going from -4 to +4 which is crowning). She said since I was at a 5 I was staying in the hospital!! She was so impressed and surprised because I wasn't huffing and puffing! She was coming back in like an hour to check on my progress. After that check up I was at 6 cm!! She said that we had a couple options since me and baby were healthy and my water hadn't broken yet. She could either break my water then and see what happened or we could wait and see what happened and try to get some sleep through the night and then break my water in the morning if things hadn't progressed. After her initial exam my contractions had started getting more regular so I decided to wait through the night to see what happened and see if we could get some sleep. They always ask you on a scale of 1 to 10 how the pain is. So I ranked my contractions through the night from like a 1 or 2 to 3. Not painful just there.

I tried sleeping on my own first, but I just couldn't drift off, so they gave me the lowest dose Ambien and I was out for the count!! I should mention, Penny had met me at the hospital and she was with me the whole time at this point! Kit and Travis had come up, too, but left after I made the decision to sleep. Mary Liz, or course, came up, as did my father-in-law, Randy, but they also left after I made my decision.

Monday, March 9th:

When I woke up in the morning things hadn't really changed. Kit came back around 6ish with breakfast for my troops. There's a reason why she's my bestie. ;) Mary Liz came back, but I'm not sure exactly what time that was. Dr. Moreno came in around 7:30 to check me and confirmed that nothing had really changed since last night, so we decided to break my water! Luckily, my doctor chose this time to make his appearance because things went pretty fast after that! Leave it to Buzz to come bursting through the doors complaining that they hadn't called him until this morning to let him know I was there! lol. So, he left to go put some scrubs on, and I decided I should go to the bahroom, before my contractions got too bad. If your bladder gets full it can make your contractions feel worse, and if you have anything in the other end it can come out when you're pushing, so I obviously wanted to avoid both issues if I could!!

I got into the bathroom and almost instantly my contractions started getting real rough and real close together. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to make it out if the bathoom! Everytime I tried to time it between contractions and stand up to get out of there, another one came rolling on. In the end, I got a sensation to bear down and knew I had to get out of there now! Of course, everyone was asking if I was ok during this time, and I had said yes, so please don't think that I was abandoned or anything. I just didn't realize I needed to get out of there so fast until I felt the urge to push all of a sudden! 30 min after I had entered the bathroom, I came barreling out of there saying I had to make it to the bed quick!

Everything had happened so fast and some of it's a blur, but after I got into bed, it felt like almost immediately they were slapping an oxygen mask on me and getting me to move onto my left side. Keep in mind moving is no easy thing when you're having intense contractions. Apparently, the baby had slipped further down into the birth canal and his cord was wrapped around his neck (which they say 1 in 4 babies have the cord around their necks. It's usually not a problem), and the cord was being pinched. That is a problem. So the oxygen was actually for Hendrix and once they got me on my left side things seemed to be ok. Ryan quickly asked Buzz if he had time to go the bathroom, too, before the baby was born and Buzz said yeah, that we were probably looking at another 30 to 45 min at least. (I didn't know this conversation was happening until a couple hours later.) Ryan had considerately used a bathroom in the hall in case I needed mine again. Anyways, I remember them getting me to my left side and everything calming down for a contraction (Ladies, at this stage that's how time is counted. In contractions.) then all hell breaking out again! They're screaming, "She's pushing! She's pushing!!", I'm screaming, "Where's Ryan?! Where's Ryan!!?". Buzz goes banging on the bathroom door telling Ryan, "Baby's coming!!" while they're moving me to the end of the bed to deliver. Buzz is there making sure my cervix is all the way dialated. Ryan's there holding a leg and my hand and Penny is there holding my other leg and my other hand and I push and apparently the head is out. It all happened so fast that I'm asking Buzz what he's doing to me not realizing Hendrix was already coming!! Push number 2 and here comes the rest of him! All of a sudden I have this floppy slimy beatiful baby boy on my chest just eyeballing me and blaming me for disrupting his beauty sleep and I just can't believe Mr. Hendrix has already made his debut!! He was born at 8:29 AM. That's right. About an hour after my water was broken. FAST. I deliver the placenta, which I feel it's delivery this time and they check me over and clean me up. Mary Liz was in tears and as happy as can be with her beautiful new grandson and her amazing and talented daughter-in-law. :D Everything was great. I didn't even tear!! And then my body starts shaking slightly. Penny tells me that I'm just in shock because everything happened so fast and they give me an Ibuprofen to help.

So everything is great! Randy and my brother-in-law, Zach, were in the waiting room and got to see little Hendrix and Kit was, too. Mr. Hendrix Finnian Boston weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs. 8 ozs and was 20 1/2 inches long!! He has the chubbiest little cheeks and a double chin, but tiny skinny little arms and legs and body! lol...too cute!

Going back a little in time...

The last post I wrote was March 2nd and a lot has happened since then, so I thought I'd start at the beginning. Sort of...

Saturday, March 7th:

Ryan, Elijah, and I went over to our friends, Travis and Kit's, house to celebrate one of my very best friends, Erin's, birthday. Her mama, Penny, was there and we started talking about my going into labor. She told me that since my body was so ready for labor that I could get some contractions going, even if it wasn't true labor, and they could break my water and it would send me into labor for sure! As I'm sure you've already guessed, I jumped at the opportunity. :)

Sunday, March 8th:

So...what can I do to get some contractions going??? I know!!! I'll sing at church! Nothing like some good old fashioned adrenaline to jump start my uterus! I had previously decided to not get on stage for that very reason. Anyways, that helped a little bit.

We went and had Taco Bell for lunch with my family. That helped a little bit.

Went home and took a nap and Ryan contributed to the uterus contracting. ;) That helped, a lot!

We headed over to Mary Liz's for our routine Sunday night dinner. Ryan, Elijah , and I walked to the playground in her neighborhood and had some fun playtime! That 1 mile walk there and back was awesome! We made a new friend at the playground and her daddy said they were expecting again, too! They were pretty much just like us just 2 months behind. We had fun talking about the kiddos and comparing notes! :)

After we got home and put Elijah to sleep, I called the on-call nurse to see if I passed the test to go to the hospital. I got a call from Penny saying they had just called her and said they had me down to come in!! So, I passed! (In case I didn't mention this before, Penny is a L&D (Labor and Delivery) nurse there at Seton)

I called my Aunt, who came to stay with Elijah, and she was here in in a jiffy! Ryan and I finished up some last minute things (I washed dishes and Ryan updated my labor mix on the iPod.), we packed up or things in the car and we were off!! Yay!

Sonogram News!!

I had my weekly appointment with my wonderful, amazing, fantastic doctor on Friday complete with sonogram! I'm at 37 weeks and they wanted to check little dude's weight. The sonographer said everything looked great! I had good fluid still, his bones were measuring well, I was measuring right on for my due date! She said that's something they don't see often. The verdict is 6 lbs. 10 oz. Makes me so, so very happy! :D

Here's a facial for you guys. The big ball on the right is his massive head! (She did say it was measuring BIG. She stopped being worried, though, when I told her all the babies in our family tend to run on the big-headed side. ;) He's lying on his left side. The dark hole is his eye socket and the darker splotch under that and to the left is his nose socket. The other side of his face is shadowed. His heart beat was resting at 128. Here's my baby!!!

Some sadder news is that Elijah still has that pesky rash. It looks just awful now, but it still doesn't seem to be bothering him. Pray that it will start to fade tomorrow, or I'm going to have to call the doc again. Ick.

My wonderful mother-in-law has graciously agreed to kidsit Elijah tomorrow so I can go to church. I was a little sad that I would have to miss church (so E wouldn't contaminate the other kids in the nursery) because it very well could be my last chance to go for awhile. But, thanks to Mary Lou, I'll get to go. Thank you, Mary Liz! You're the best and I love you so much, even if you couldn't watch Elijah!! :D

I'll have to post a blog soon detailing my complicated and extensive family tree. I'm so, so sorry to those of you who might not be familiar with either branch of my families. That blog will probably just tie your brain in knots.

So, I'm supposed to dish all my dirty little secrets on here, right? I have something to admit. I'm very happy about finishing a project tonight that I have been working on for the last week, but has been in the making for over a year! Ryan, being the worship leader at our church, has binders full of disorganized music that he uses and goes through on a weekly basis. I, being the huge, organize-loving, dork that I am, went through all of his music, resorted it, made sure it was in alphabetical order, catalogued each song on an excel sheet complete with all keys the song is available in, how many different versions of the song we have, and what binder it can be found in, and arranged all the hard copies in brand new, non-tattered, working binders! It was a massive undertaking, but immensely rewarding! Now. If only I can organize and clean my house that way...

Btw, I'm definitely nesting. More to come later!