Worst & Best Day. Ever.

Catch up on the past stuff…Unloved & Angry, Confident & Empowered, Running from Love, Pregnant & Selfish, Hate & Anger, Pregnant Beast and Induction & Pitocin.

When we left off last week, I was going under the knife for my failed induction turned cesarean and scared out of my mind.

I was clad in a cheap hospital gown, open in the back but thankfully Nurse Amazing taught me to put another one on the other way like a robe.  Despite being cheaply made I remember it being soft, probably from the many many women who had worn it before me.

I couldn’t stop shaking.  I was shivering and my teeth clattered together.  They swathed me in warm blankets but I couldn’t stop trembling.  I was terrified.  I didn’t know if I would make it out of that operating room alive, I had read so many things about women dying during surgery and that’s all my brain was focused on.  I remember they kept asking if I was okay, was I going to be fine and all I could do was say “uh huh” or “no” in answer.  Nothing else mattered to me other then surviving this surgery to see my son and baby daddy.

When I arrived in the OR I was met with friendly faces and my wonderful anesthesiologist (there was a bad one and one that I adored).  Nice nurses were there to reassure me, my face has never been good at hiding my emotions, and the surgeon was young.  So young that I was concerned but he looked so much like my stepbrother T that it somehow helped reassured me.

I was still shaking uncontrollably, almost as if I was having a seizure and they had to strap me to the operating table so that I couldn’t move.  It was awful, they put more warm blankets on me and continually asked if I was okay as they firmly taped me down to the table.  What if I hadn’t been?  My baby was stuck inside me and I had to do this, there was no other option.  They made sure I was numb and told me that I would feel pressure but no pain and after I asked 523 times where Chris was he was finally brought in.  After I saw him, I knew that I could do this.

I felt tons of pressure.  I kept repeating over and over again ‘pressure, it’s just pressure, pressure, it’s just pressure, pressure, pressure’.  I would lose consciousness for seconds at a time and my heart rate was low.  It was taking longer then it should have and I heard ‘oops’ and lots of pressure and then I heard ‘Got him!  Uh oh’ and more pressure, at this point I was crying because I was confused, full of drugs and convinced something was going wrong.  After THREE tries of pulling on Nathaniel to get him out of my pelvis, he finally popped free and I heard nothing.  I couldn’t hear anything and my head felt as if it was going to explode and then finally that little beast cried, just a little cry but it was a cry!  I remember seeing them weigh him and he was huge and then the next thing I remember is waking up in recovery.  I later found out that I had lost quite a bit of blood, my heart rate had been very low and I passed out.  I also found out that Nate was wedged sideways and kept turning back because his cord was around his neck.  I also found out, much to my delight, that he was actually 42.5-43 weeks gestated.  I guess everyone who called me a lying whore or doctor crazy who said I must not know when I get my periods were wrong.  Never did get that apology haha.

It was three hours…THREE hours after I had Nate that I finally got to see him.  They had already bathed him, he had been given formula despite my specifying that I didn’t want that and he went right down their line of things that I wanted to be there for so I could refuse or approve them and he was delivered to me in a cute little package.  They couldn’t have waited a couple hours?  I asked for him and Chris countless times in the recovery room and I was ignored.  Finally when I was about to lose my shit I was moved to a room.

Please ignore the dates on our very cheap camera.  Also note, the stack of warming blankets and tape strapping me down.

We finally saw each other and I brought to my knees with the love that I felt for that little boy.  I had known that I would love him because I already did but holding him in my arms and touching him, I loved him so much I thought that my heart would literally burst and rain glitter everywhere.  I wanted to squeeze him until he couldn’t breath like you feel when you get a puppy.  I wanted to protect him from every bad thing that could ever happen and give him every thing that I ever could.  I knew that everything I did from now on would be that much more important and I couldn’t remember what I had been doing before him.  We completed each other and I hadn’t even known I wasn’t whole.  Being a mother is the most amazing thing I have ever done.  Period.

Nathaniel Lawrance Martinez, 9 lbs 2 oz, 20 1/4″ with a headful of hair…note the giant cone head from being literally stuck sideways in my pelvis.

I will leave on my sunshine and rainbows.  Next week, what happened after the labor.

Linking up with longtime blog homie Shell for her Pour Your Heart Out!