Levi's Birth Story

Well, I managed to write his story before he turned four months.....that's an accomplishment for this momma.

Let's see.....on Sunday, September 6th, (36 weeks, 4 days) I started having very weird fluctuations in my blood pressure. I felt dizzy and lightheaded and generally unwell. I kept track of my pressures every half-hour or so, and finally put a call in to the OR. (Why is it every time I called the on-call, the ONE dr I didn't like was on duty?) He told me to go to L&D to be checked out.

So we went. Or should I say, I went. Mom went with me to keep track of Ruthie until Jay could get there, then Mom and Ruthie went home. They monitored me for contractions (none, thankyouverymuch) and Levi's heartbeat (such a beautiful sound) and blood pressure checks every half-hour. It continued to be all over the place, but since I wasn't having contractions and Levi seemed content where he was, they sent us home about 2am with instructions to return if I didn't feel any better tomorrow and the pressures continued to be wonky.

Fast forward to Monday, September 7th.....Labor Day. (The official one, not just my own. ;)) I didn't sleep much that night - I was still dizzy and just felt "off." We kept track of my blood pressure every hour that morning while Jay packed the rest of our house in boxes. (I was politely ordered to the couch to rest.) Around noon, we went back to L&D. My blood pressure was getting higher and higher and approaching the 200s, and any woman who's ever been pregnant will tell you that's when it starts getting scary. 

After they monitored me for a few hours, the on-call OB (not Mr. No-Bedside-Manner this time, thankfully) made the call that we would go ahead and deliver Levi. It was Monday afternoon; he was scheduled to be delivered Wednesday morning......not a huge deal. We were officially admitted, paperwork signed, speeches given (risks of c-section, possible complications for what they considered a "late pre-term baby," blah, blah.) Once they found out we were parents of a 24-weeker, they knew we weren't exactly green and the possibility of Levi needing a little oxygen after birth really wasn't all that scary for us.

They took me back (I got to walk, thankfully) about 5:30pm. I will say this - no matter how much you read up on c-section stories (and I read TONS) and what to expect, you'll still be overwhelmed with it all when it's your turn. The lights were glaringly bright and the room was SO cold (but you'll never hear me complain about being cold - I loved it.) The nurse who had admitted me and had been talking to us all afternoon about "this and that" was in there with me. While the spinal went in, she talked to me about her weekend. I've heard the spinal is the worst part - I barely felt it. But when they say it kicks in fast, they're not kidding. By the time the needle was out, my legs were already numb. The table was really narrow and I remember worrying about falling off and not being able to catch myself. One of my biggest fears was having my arms tied down. (To anyone who knows me, I am EXTREMELY claustrophobic!) I just knew the minute they strapped my arms to a table I would freak out. The anesthesiologist promised me well beforehand that they wouldn't strap my arms down, but that if I freaked and reached into the "sterile zone" they would either tie them down or knock me out. I promised not to freak out and told her I'd already "missed" the birth of my first child (I was stupid-drugged the night Ruthie was born) and I didn't want to miss a moment of Levi's. 

They gave me O2 and let Jay in. I think he'd been nervously pacing the floors, waiting to be called and hoping they wouldn't forget him. He got to sit right by head and hold my hand, and the anesthesiologist gave us the play-by-play. At one point she told Jay to stand up and look over the curtain if he wanted to, and he was greeted with the view of a little butt and feet and what he called "a murder scene." Big fibroids = lots of blood loss. They had a hard time getting Levi out for all the fibroids, and had to cut across one of the largest ones to get to his head. In what I now know is true Levi-fashion, he was grabbing hold of anything in his path to not be made to do something he didn't want to do. 

The entire 36 weeks I was pregnant, I was so aware of the reality that a full-term, healthy birth would be the closest thing I was ever going to find for what my soul needed to heal from the trauma of Ruthie's birth and early life. No amount of medication, therapy, or crying would ever take away the terror of that night. 

When they pulled him out, feet first, and I heard that first cry (okay, scream), I lost it. I immediately felt like the last four years of PTSD was just.....gone. It was gone. We had the healthy, full-term (full-term enough for us) baby I had been terrified to try for for over three years. I don't know how else to explain it other than it was just lifted from my body and flew away. I can finally look through pictures, videos, posts/blogs that I wrote over those first few months and not curl up in a ball and sob. I can talk to other moms going through the same experience and not fall apart in the middle of Ruthie's story. It took Levi's birth to give me the permission to finally let go of the pain and the blame of what happened with Ruthie. My soul healed at 6:11 that evening and I'll never forget that feeling.

I had hoped to be able to have him handed directly to either me or Jay, but since he was technically a "preemie" they had to check him over quickly. And boy, did he SCREAM. Part of me was so happy to hear those robust, healthy lungs and the other part of me was begging them to pick him up so he'd stop crying. Jay was with him the whole few minutes he was at the table, then they wrapped him up and gave him to his daddy. He weighed 8lbs 3oz and was 19" long. He was the spitting image of his daddy and had a ton of dark curly hair. So. Much. Hair.

They stitched me up and moved me from the operating table to the hospital bed. That is a WEIRD feeling - being moved and rolled and you can't feel any of it or catch yourself when they roll you a little too far.... They unwrapped Levi and put him on my chest, then covered us both and took us back to our room. He was so perfect and so content to be snuggled. He's still a super-snuggly little boy. 

It didn't take long at all to get the feeling back in my legs. I really worried beforehand that I would have a panic attack at not being able to move, but....I was preoccupied. ;) 

I don't think we put him down for something like 7 or 8 hours. He had his opinions and made them known. He did not want to be put down for diaper changes, he did not want to leave my skin, he did not like being at ALL cold, and he loved his momma. (Still a big ol' Momma's boy. :))

I won't go into detail about our hospital stay, but suffice to say - while Greer was a great hospital, the nurse we had for the three days I was there was a nightmare. A true Nurse Ratchet. I cried more over her lack of sensitivity and other things than I did over anything else. The c-section recovery went great and if I had it to do over again, I would have another one. :)