Welcome to the World, Baby Girl

I was going to write this whole long post about my stay in the hospital, but I couldn't decide between including all the little details and giving a general overview. I'm still not sure. It's a very personal thing, labor. I think I'm going to go with an overview. I feel like I sometimes share a bit too much of myself on this blog, and while I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, it is nice to keep some things to myself. I've already written it all out for Roo on the blog I keep just for her.

So this isn't going to be too detailed, but I've written it out the best I can. I was surprised to find in writing it that I feel bad that P and M missed it, that they weren't there. I wonder what things would have been like if I'd found them sooner, if they had been there for Roo's arrival. I feel a little guilty. I wouldn't trade my time as Roo's mother for anything in the world, but I do feel guilty for what P and M missed. Obviously, their version of this story contains a lot more detail :)

I was induced not long before 9pm on Sunday, July 5th. Twelve hours after that, my water broke. I got an epidural on Monday night, and … I was still pregnant on Tuesday morning. I figured the baby would come when she was ready. I wasn't worried.

My doctor was. “You're still pregnant,” she said, looking stunned.

Figured that out all by yourself, did you? I thought. But I just smiled and answered in the affirmative.

"You shouldn't still be pregnant." Her eyebrows narrowed as she perused my chart. "We're going to need to do a c-section," she concluded.

I worried then. I'd imagined childbirth going any number of ways, but none of my scenarios included being carved open like a Thanksgiving turkey. But my baby needed to come out, and my body didn't want to cooperate. The appropriate arrangements were made, and I was wheeled into an OR.

They pulled a partition up so I couldn't see below my own sternum. I didn't need to see. Thanks to my childbirth classes, I knew exactly what a c-section entailed. I was just grateful my doctor has very small hands. I didn't need someone with David Letterman-sized paws digging into my uterus.

I couldn't feel anything. It was nice. The doctor told me I'd feel a bit of pressure. Not much else was spoken that I could hear. Finally, she told me it was time, and a few seconds later Roo was born. They showed her to me, and in that moment, I was forever changed. I took one look at her, all tiny and pink and bemused, and I fell deeply and irrevocably in love.

I had thought more than once during pregnancy that if adoption were the right choice, I'd know it when I “met” my baby. I suppose I thought I'd just look at her and know. How stupid I was! No one could possibly look at their newborn baby and think, right then, who wants her? Because I wanted her, and I never wanted to let her go. I loved her so much already. Adoption was off the table in that instant, and I resolved never to think of it again. This amazing, fantastic, most perfect little person in the world was my baby. My mind was made up.

A nurse came to check on me in recovery and when she saw that I'd shaken off the drugs I'd been given she lifted Roo, wrapped up like a little burrito, and put her in my arms. I looked at my baby, and she looked at me, and nothing else in the world mattered.