It was a Monday, a day like any other day ...

(Sorry for the delay. I'm not trying to be dramatic, just been overwhelmed. Thank you, everyone, for the well wishes! Here's the whole birth story for anyone who may be interested.)

So Monday arrived ...

I'd not gotten much sleep (as you can imagine), Mother got here pretty much right as we needed to leave, so we felt a bit rushed. We did last minute instructions, kissed everyone, and left.

Check in at the hospital was uneventful. It's the most dreadfully boring bit - that beginning part. At least when you're in labour, or being induced, you get to get the ball rolling doing something. Preparing for a c-section is just dull. You get hooked up to monitors, stuck in a particularly juicy vein, read a long list of questions ... then you wait. They push two bags of fluid before you even get to consider thinking about maybe going back.

The only amusing thing that occurred was the rather tired (by now) warning from the triage nurse (while gesturing at my facial piercings): "You know you have to take all those out, right?" and my carefully rote reply: "No. No, I don't" followed by explanations.

So we wait and wait and wait. Fiver kicks the heart rate monitor off repeatedly and bounces my Steven King book around so much I can't read. Evil Genius Husband goes through all the comics he brought, makes forays down to the gift shop and the cafe, and we wait some more.

Here's EGH looking like a Mad Scientist or perhaps an actual doctor:

Finally, after (literally) hours of waiting, I got wheeled into the OR. As usual the OR team was bustling about, lying out what they need, and chatting. The anaesthesiologist arrives and was a tad off-puttingly brisk, his nurse anesthetist, however, was quite warm; an older, motherly lady.

The Anesthesiologist was immediately irritated that I couldn't sit cross legged on the table (I can't physically bend my right leg past 90 degrees because of my bad knee). I reassured him that I could, however, squinch over to his satisfaction (having done this before) even straddling the table.

Less than 15 minutes later the spinal is in and Dr H comes smiling in followed by EGH.

I always warn the Anesthesiologist of three things prior to surgery: my positive Beta Strep (just in case), my asthma, and the fact that the morphine makes me retch (this is common).

Unfortunately, the last little tid-bit proved to be troublesome. I didn't just gag and carry on - Sweet Mother of Stan Lee - I was hurling like a dedicated St. Patrick's Day party-goer.

The Anaesthesiologist stood well back, asking me at intervals if I was Ok (do I LOOK ok?) and the nurse anesthetist was left (literally) holding the bag for me to puke into. At one point I realized someone was gently holding my hand and I said: "EGH, is that you or am I loving on Dr. Off-Putting?" It was EGH, thank goodness. The anesthesiologist was standing well back out of the fray.

They finally loaded me up with enough phenergan so that I could take a breath or two without blowing groceries and I realized that Dr. H and staff were still working. Cut, cut, snip, snip, hack, *suction*, cut. Four c-sections worth of scarring and adhesions was making for slow going.

I was fine, just having a bit of trouble breathing since they have you lying with your head tilted down. Between my asthma kicking in (the phenergan doesn't help there) and my wee Fiver pressing back on my lungs, I was reduced to taking little sips of air.

They finally got to the prize and he was wedged up under my ribs like his biggest sister had been. As with her, it took two people pushing and two pulling to get him down and out of the incision. At one point I heard Dr. H say dryly to the nurses who were supposed to be (and already were!) pushing: "Any time now would be great."

Usually, the time between my feeling the baby-weight lifted out and hearing the baby cry is like an eternity. I know it's not that long in reality, but it always feels like it. I may be paranoid because of my first, Boy, who was in distress and had aspirated meconium. It did take them a second to get him cleared out enough to cry.

No worries with Fiver. They barely had him out when I heard a hoarse, outraged cry. And it didn't stop. He was NOT happy. This was no 'I'm cold', 'I'm frightened', 'WTF?' sort of noise. It was the full-on, 'Put me back in, you arsewads!' bray of the truly effed off.

Here he is, Y, The Last Man*:


He got here at 1:30 pm on Monday the 5th and weighed in at 9lbs 130z. I asked everyone several times to confirm that weight. I was convinced that he'd be much smaller. In reality he is my second biggest baby, smaller only than Boy (who was 16 days overdue) and an oz larger than The Incredible Bulk.

Here are the nursery pics of the other four for comparison. It seems people are going to be rude comparing my children to each other (is that a large family thing? Why can't they just be their own individual people? I know mothers of twins want to Hulk out on folks who do this). My mother cried, "He doesn't look like any of the others!" (Number one, who cares? Number two, he looks JUST like Bitty and Bulk to me.)

Oh, sorry, he was over 21 inches long and EGH's first assessment of him was: "Stringy!" LOL.

ANYway ... more later. More pics, my hospital story, and the Jaundice Adventure (an ongoing story)!

Stay tuned.


*For all you non-comic heads, this is the title of a v. cool post apocalyptic comic by Brian K. Vaughan. No real connection, except Fiver's name starts with a Y and he's the last baby (and it sounds cool).