The Story of James

Telling the story of a c-section is a lot different than telling the story of a regular birth. With Kate, everything leading up to her birth was such a mystery. Today? Tomorrow? Two weeks from now? How long will labor last? Should I get an epidural? And mystery after mystery after mystery. With James I wrote on my calendar, Friday March 11, 12:00 c-section. Be there at 10:00. How simple is that?

My wonderful mother-in-law and sister-in-law flew in the night before so that they could stay with Kate. It was really comforting to know that she was in good hands. The next morning I woke up around 7 or so. From 7 until 9:30 when we left was just about the longest two and a half hours of my life. The clock SLOWLY clicked by. Finally it was time to go. In the car I told Christian that I had changed my mind. I told him that since we had a baby-sitter until Sunday we should start heading south and go to Disneyland for the weekend instead. I thought I could convince him, but he wouldn't budge. He did agree to a couple of loops around the block before we went to the hospital. Then he said, "Ok, you don't actually have to have the c-section. Let's just go in and talk to them about it instead." He convinced me. We went in.

After checking in at the main desk, we headed up to labor and delivery. They put me in a delivery room, turned the lights down to their nice ambient level, and let me hang out in a bed for a couple of hours. They did an ultrasound one more time just to make sure he was still breech, which he was. It was weird to see him on the ultrasound knowing we were going to actually see him in just a few hours. Everything would have gone on the 12:00 schedule, but there was only one anesthesiologist and a whole lot of women having babies. We finally went into the O.R. around 1:15.

I don't think there was anything that could have prepared me for the operating room. I had to leave Christian in the hall and then I walked in, by myself, to what looked like a bigger, brighter version of the back of my dad's veterinarian clinic. It was the exact opposite of the quiet dark delivery room I had just been in. There were surgical supplies all lined up just waiting to be used on me. I think it was one of the scariest moments of my life. The first thing they did was give me a spinal tap. I kept thinking to myself--one shot in the back. That's it. One shot and then they're going to use all of those sterile surgical supplies. Can that one shot possibly be enough?? But it was. I laid down, everything went numb, they put up the sheet, Christian came in, and after that it all went very quickly. Just like they said, I didn't feel any pain, just pressure and pulling. Christian was brave enough to peek over a couple of times, so he actually saw the birth of our baby. Once he was out, they help him up over the sheet, and they moved him over to the warming station. They had Christian go over and cut the cord. He struggled a little bit. One of the nurses said, "You are not very good at this." He responded, "That's why I'm going to law school, not medical school." I don't remember seeing anything after Kate was born, but I could see everything with James. I saw them clean him up, weigh him, cut the cord and everything. I kept thinking, "That's my son! That's my son! That's my son!". I got really emotional. They took Christian and James out of the room and finished sewing everything up. They then transfered me from the operating table to a recovery bed and wheeled me off to the recovery room.

As a side note, I think it's a good thing most patients are completely out during surgery. One of the doctors said, "Careful of the vessels there," and in my head I thought, "Oh no, are they going to get my vessels? I don't even know what that means!" There was also a very odd conversation about Osama Bin Ladin and government conspiracy theories. The doctor assured me they were focused on the surgery, but it was still really weird to listen to.

My recovery from the surgery was actually much more pleasant than that of Kate's birth. I had some bad moments, but over all it was not bad. I had visitors a few hours after the surgery and I was even some what put together when they came.

We had a shared recovery room the first night and the next morning but after that we had the room to ourselves. Every day my mother-in-law brought Kate to come see us. That was really nice. I looked forward to seeing them. I also had some other visitors. Every day Christian and I took laps around the hall. He made different goals for me. Each time I had to be able to touch a certain object. The first day it was the 'Happy Saint Patrick's Day' sign. The next day it was the picture of the Virgin Mary. By Sunday afternoon I was ready to go home. My mother-in-law had already gone home and my mom was with Kate. She stayed until yesterday, playing with Kate in the mornings while Christian and I slept and cleaning in the afternoons. I feel so lucky to have gotten so much help.

Today was our first day alone, just the four of us. It was really fun. I like to be able to say, 'look at our kids' and 'look at our son and our daughter'.

So there you have it, that's the story of my sweet little James. I couldn't be happier to have him as a part of our family.

The night after James was born, we got a special celebration dinner, complete with sparkling cider.Proud Mom with her Kids.

Christian and his sister holding Kate and her brother.

I was supposed to blow into this thing every hour so that I wouldn't get pneumonia. Kate loved playing with it!
Brother/Sister tea party.