Okay, I'm ready to admit it: our kids are born looking like clones of each other.
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| Robert |
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| Alice |
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| James |
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| Matthew David, 7 lbs 15 oz, 20.5 inches long |
So far, Matthew has been a calm and quiet fellow with few complaints. He's worked through the newborn jaundice and weight loss with ease. His elder siblings fight over him at every opportunity. The honeymoon phase seems to be passing more quickly for James, though I suspect it has more to do with my incapacitation than Matthew's presence.
My recovery is slow, but certainly progressing. I've been able to cut my narcotics dose by half after just one day at home. The pain is well-controlled. I'm just doing everything more slowly than ever before.
Bobby has really stepped up this week. I'm so lucky to have him and a pocket of loving friends/family/neighbors nearby. People have already watched our kids, brought food, and taken the older kids trick-or-treating.
The labor story is hard for me to tell. I get the shakes every time I try to remember the sequence of it all. But I don't think I can heal from it completely until I talk to someone about it. Let's get the healing underway, shall we?
Here's the best way I can tell it right now: water breaks, no contractions for an hour, mild contractions start, head to the hospital, dilated to 3cm, 4 hours of sporadic and funky contractions, epidural, rapid blood pressure drop, blood pressure normalized, 2 more hours funky contractions, only dilated to 4cm, start pitocin drip, back pain increasing during contractions, 2 more hours on increasing pitocin doses, sudden overwhelming feeling that something is terribly wrong, all pain gone, whole body tremors, urge to push, midwife says push, midwife feels baby's face instead of his head, continue pushing to try and orient the baby better, whole flock of nursing students come to observe (Bobby counted 12 people in the room at one point, not including him and me), baby's heart tones lost for a minute, then recovered, OB called in to consult, "can't use a vacuum on a baby's face", push for 45 minutes more, baby's position not changing, decision to perform c-section, wheeled away to operating room, epidural increased and combined with morphine, numbness moves up through my chest, arms, and hands, morphine makes me loopy, Bobby suddenly standing next to me, hear baby cry, see the wonkiest head shape as the baby is swept away, whole body tremors, tingling and numbness up to my neck, see the swaddled baby up close...
...only have enough control of my hands to barely stroke his hat, want to hold him, want the nightmare to end, lie loopy and helpless on the table while getting sewn up, ask Bobby to stay with the baby (not realizing how long I would therefore be alone), both leave the room for baby cleaning and assessment, OB finds an IUD floating next to my bowels (I did tell you this pregnancy was an unexpected miracle, yes? The IUD had somehow worked its way through the uterine wall and into my abdominal cavity, suddenly and secretly making it possible for me to get pregnant 9 months ago), more body tremors, fighting to stay conscious or slip into unconsciousness but can't manage either, wheeled off to recovery, reunited with Bobby and baby an hour after his birth, still can't control my hands, need others to hold baby to me to try to nurse, whole body tremors that just won't stop, feeling more normal as morphine and epidural wear off, wheeled into post-partum room to continue recovery.
And then I didn't have control over my bladder for a while. I'm still struggling with it a bit, actually.
My face and arms were perpetually itchy from the long-acting morphine they had given me.
The nurses, midwives, OB, and technicians were all excellent, though, and I was in good care.
At first, I wondered a lot about Matthew's funky position and whether there was anything I could have done differently to avoid that problem. The midwife assured me that my labor choices had nothing to do with this particular outcome. Kristi Higgs is the midwife who was on-call that night. Dr. Dillard was the one who delivered Matthew. Kristi said that sometimes it happens that a smaller baby born after a couple larger ones can get spun around and jammed in that little extra bit of wiggle room. If he had been able to grow all the way to his due date, maybe Matthew would be just enough bigger that he wouldn't have twisted around like that. Don't know. Won't ever know. The reality was my water broke on its own at 38 weeks and one day. Surprise! And this is how it worked out for us this time.
Dear Matthew, you are only 4 days old and already your life has been full of unexpected surprises for us. An exploding firework in our lives, indeed.
More pictures to come!
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