The morning Cooper was born Shawn and I were pretty calm. More anxious to meet him than nervous. We had a scheduled c-section, which was the best thing ever, and our appt was at 10a. When we finally got to the hospital things were moving at a very nice slow pace. It took them forever to get my iv in, but after multiple attempts and some whining from me I got them to avoid my hand and put it in my arm. You would have thought they were cutting one of my fingers off I was complaining so much about the pain in my hand. I of course was fasting before the surgery and when they took my blood sugar right before I was supposed to wheeled in all things came to a screeching stop. There was no way the nurses were going to let my into the OR with a blood sugar reading of 62. Oops! After two hours and some bags to get my blood sugar up I was finally ready to go. We were going to finally meet our baby.
I had a semi-emergency c-section with Sophia so things went super fast. I swear she was born within 15 minutes of me being wheeled into the OR. This time was much much different. I got the epidural, which took what felt like forever. Shawn was on a chair in front of me giving my feet a place to be stable. (This was way more involved for him than last time) All I could think about in this moment was wow this is nothing like the operating rooms in Grey's Anatomy. Why in the show do they have half of the lights off? There were so many lights on in this room I felt like I was on stage.
I had a wonderful anesthesiologist that helped me from freaking out multiple times by doing some yoga breathing exercises. Normally I would say some negative comment about how I think yoga is a bunch of crap, but in that moment it sounded legit. It for sure helped me from having a mini panic attack while the dude behind me took FOREVER getting the line put into my back. Once I laid down I was feeling pretty good, until......the itching started! I seriously felt like there was something attacking my nose! Later that day I did notice I had rubbed it raw. I didn't get the shakes as bad like with Sophia, which was nice, just phantom ants all over my nose.
I delivered at Stanford, which for those who do not know is a teaching hospital. I am totally okay with this most of the time. I know that it is very important for these new doctors to get experience, but not in this case. When they started the procedure I heard them talking about things that were going on on the other side of the blue barrier. I was giggling with Shawn when I stopped and heard them talking about which organs they were moving around and setting to the side. Yikes!! It was all I could do not to start freaking out. I think the Yoga doc could tell I was freaking out because he asked me if I needed anything to calm down. Apparently my blood pressure was a wee bit high. You think?!?! Quit talking about my intestines and maybe I might calm down. Geez!
When I finally heard Cooper cry all the freaking out stopped. He had the cutest little raspy cry. Little may not be the right word, it was pretty freaking loud! He was so prefect. My whole pregnancy the doctors were predicting a very large baby. They said he would be like 10 1/2 pounds. I was pleasantly surprised when he weighed in at 9 lbs 4 oz. I mean that is not an average baby size by any means but I was expecting a 3 month sized one. Ha! He was 21 1/2 inches tall and super cute!
