Birth Story

I am pleased to say that Willow's birth story is not as exciting as Michael's birth story. After all the drama and worries of his birth, it was nice to have a scheduled C-Section that went very smoothly. We went into the hospital at 7 a.m. on April 24th. The nurse attending me was very nice and gentle with the IV (one of the things I always dread). We waited in the recovery room for our scheduled time. We even heard the first baby born that day via scheduled C-Section (out in the hallway, being wheeled out with his mommy). Once I was wheeled into the OR, the only complication was finding a good place for the spinal. For what seemed like FOREVER, I was hunched over, holding onto the nurse, while they kept jabbing me with the spinal needle. FINALLY, they found a good spot, and AWAY we went! The operation was pretty quick, I felt some tugging, but not much else. I saw Willow almost immediately, my husband held her and said how beautiful she was. I was holding her in recovery.

Recovery was pretty quick...although so quick, that I started feeling like I could eat the soft liquids right away. They offered me raspberry sherbet and I took it. They offered me raspberry sherbet a second time, I took it. The third time was for "dinner". When visitors and family were gone, the nurses helped me up to walk around for the first time and besides the dizziness, I felt sick. And then came the throwing up of raspberry sherbet. I do not like raspberry sherbet anymore.

The rest of my hospital stay was pleasant. The nurses were wonderful and Willow was brought into my room whenever I wanted her (and whenever she needed to feed). I chose to not have her room in, as I knew this was the last time for a while that I would get any type of sleep. The first night there was hard, being alone and in some discomfort, and being in an unfamilar place. However, by the second night, I had a routine down pat. Visitors/family would leave about 8 p.m., I would take Willow back to the nursery and rest for about an hour, she would come in to breastfeed, I would watch our favorite programs and my husband and I would call each other during the commercials. Then I would go to bed, with interruptions from the nurses and Willow--at 3 a.m. the nurse would come in and offer to make me some wheat toast. The first solid food I had was that wheat toast, and it was wonderful!

I was able to walk around pretty quickly, and the only snag came the second shower--when some of my dressing came off, and I had to have my OB staple up part of my incision. My last day of at the hospital, I took a walk down to the cafe and had ice cream with chocolate sauce. The next day, Willow and I were dressed and ready to leave!

And here are some current photos:


These are pictures of Willow in an outfit that JJ sent us:






Michael holding Willow (she wasn't crying until I took the picture):


First born doing something he rarely does--Nap!