Orion's Birth Story (Part 1)

Doombot and I spent all day on Sunday the 13th getting the house ready for the baby to come. We did laundry, packed my bags, and got the rest of the gear installed/set up. Even though we were exhausted, we were both sure that there was no way we'd be getting any sleep.

We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 5:30 for my c-section at 8:00. For the first hour or so, there was really nothing going on. I sat there on the monitors waiting for someone to pay attention to me. There was some entertainment though, as the woman in the little cubicle next to me refused to be convinced that she was not in active labor. That was fun enough to keep me relaxed. I guess if I hadn't known for sure that I was done being pregnant before the next time my feet hit the floor it might not have been as funny.

At about 7:00am, everyone in L&D triage seemed to realize that I had to be ready to go in just an hour and the nurses swarmed me. At some points there were as many as four of them working on different body parts. I'd be signing a form while someone else put socks on me and another girl started an IV in my loose hand. It was all pretty overwhelming. At one point, I had my gown pulled up to my belly button with a nurse shaving my pubes when the male anesthesiologist walked in and introduced himself. There I was, shaking hands and learning about what would be involved in my spinal block while some strange girl shaved my crotch. It was pretty much at that point when I realized that this was going to be pretty sureal.

Once all the introductions took place, Doombot changed into his scrubs and we headed across the hall to the OR.

The first order of business was getting my spinal block in. This was the part that scared me the most. I had heard nightmare stories about the insertion being very painful and about having the block work either too well or not well enough. Honestly though, it wasn't bad at all. The Dr. talked me through everything and a felt little more than pinching and a kind of odd "funny bone" sensation in my hip.

Once I laid down and Doombot was able to come in and join me I felt a lot better. Just knowing he was in there was such a comfort. At that point the surgery started quickly, but it seemed to take forever. As I had anticipated, the pulling and whatnot that went on made me pretty sick to my stomach, but the wonderful Anesthesia doc took good care of me by both talking me through it and giving me the right meds at the right time.

Eventually, Orion was born! It seemed like it took forever for him to cry, and when they finally brought him over to me so I could see him for the first time he looked a little blue to me. Afterwards, I realized that it was probably just due to the white cheesy stuff all over him. I thought I heard someone mention that they needed to give him a little bit of oxygen in the OR, but nobody ever mentioned it again. The told me later that his Apgar scores were 8/9, so he must not have needed oxygen after all.