Still Life with Tiny Boy and Little Gwinne

Well, folks, he's here.  Sleeping in a moses basket next to me.  My mom's downstairs on the phone.  LG is at school, probably at lunch.  I don't know that I have the words to characterize the past five days, so I'll try to give you some highlights.


I.  The Birth

Both A and M accompanied me to the hospital on Saturday, and we had a good four hours of levity before the surgery.  But by the time they had me walk back to the operating room, I was, to put it bluntly, an emotional mess.  I found myself thinking a lot about the extra valium Dr. G prescribed after my embryo transfer.  Even the doctor--who was not my doctor, but Dr. Gray Zone--told me they could put "happy medicine" in my IV if I needed it after birth.  At this point, M went to the waiting room, A waited to be allowed in the operating room, and I was taken for a spinal.

Sobbing ensued.  Someone making an observation that the baby was freaking out on the monitor, probably because of my anxiety level.  Someone making a stupid comment about hormones.  The question, again, about why I was on heparin and when I took my last dose.  (Do you know how many times I had to say recurrent pregnancy loss before my son was born?)  More sobbing.  Blood pressure inching higher.  The anesthesiologist, whom M nicknamed Dr. Radio Voice, told an assistant to get the surgeon now, that we were more than ready.

At some point around now A was allowed in.  I kept crying.  A tried to get me to say if the problem was physical or emotional but I just kept crying and she stroked my arm which was, as she said later, pinned down like Jesus.  Turns out that was exactly the right thing to do, even though I couldn't make any words come out of my mouth.  (Have I mentioned I hate IVs, blood pressure cuffs, heart monitors, all the tubes that take me straight back to my D&C?)  The doctor didn't say much during the surgery.  Initially, that I'd healed very well from c-section #1 and then that they were dealing with some scar tissue on my bladder which was making it take longer than usual.  And then she told A to get ready to take pictures.

Whimpery baby noises.  A saying over and over he's okay, he's okay, he's not that small, he's okay.  Rinse and repeat.  And then, friends, it seems I had a son. 

(Well, this has gotten much longer than I anticipated, and it's now 2 hours and a lot of tears later, after my lunch and Tiny Boy's repeated harassment by his grandmother to try to wake him up to nurse, which I will tell you about whenever I find some more time to write...)

For now, I'll leave you with this: