.A birth story.

I've been trying to decide how I would go about writing the story of Alice's birth and although I find her presence in our lives inexplicably amazing I'm just at a loss for where to begin and what words to use. It happens to the best of us I suppose. When Amelia was born I brought the laptop with me and updated this blog in almost real time in the middle of the nights while I lay in my hospital bed and my newborn slept on her father's chest. This time the circumstances were a bit different and I ended up not really having the ability to write with the same ease or amount of time. And the more time passed the more difficult it became to mentally write out the story, let alone put it out into the ether. Sigh. And so I'm going to post this as eloquently as possible because my sweet baby deserves that much but I apologize as this is all now being written two weeks into sleep deprivation and baby bliss and after many days of entertaining out-of-town guests and juggling the love of two children at the same time....

When I last left off the plan was for an August 23rd c-section, as you know that did not happen {see also: Amelia's birth and it's total difference from what I had planned}. I suppose the story really begins days before with a phone call to my granny. On August 10th I was on the phone with my grandmother {I like to check in with both grandmas every couple of weeks} and as I was complaining about how much I hated pregnancy and being pregnant in the summer and basically just being a big baby I noticed that my feet and lower legs were horribly swollen. I scratched my calve and noticed that I was retaining so much water that where I had scratched stayed indented in the shape of my fingers. I said this allowed to Granny who was a little bothered and told me to get off the phone and go put my feet up.
For the rest of the night no matter what I did the swelling stayed painful and my feet looked like Fred Flintstone's. I figured that it was just regular swelling that happens in pregnancies {more so in summer pregnancies} and that since it was a pretty common pregnancy ailment for the women in my family that it was simply my turn to deal with a bit of swelling.
After almost a week of guzzling water and putting my feet up I finally had my weekly OB appointment which this time was to include a biophysical profile ultrasound {or BPP test} because at my last appointment I was "measuring small". The ultrasound started off on shaky ground and really only went downhill. In a BPP the ultrasound tech is looking for four elements each worth two points: amniotic fluid level, muscle tone, body movement, and breathing movements at our doctors office if you score less than six of the possible right points then you are sent out for a nonstress test {or NST}. Well, Miss Alice was sound asleep and nothing that we tried in the allotted time would wake her up which means that the body movement and muscle tone sections weren't able to be assessed thus giving us a low score. Add to this the fact that homegirl was underweight {still showing to be about five and a half pounds which would put her in the either percentile}and being just a week short of her planned delivery date and the ultrasound tech had that look that said "you're not making it to the 17th". Cheyenne and I started to get that worried feeling that we were once again going to have a baby sooner then planned and in our talking to each other one of us mentioned my foot and leg swelling, the tech overheard this and pulled my pant legs up for a look then left the room. When she came back she said "I went to tell the doctor about the swelling and the test results and she said that you also had a lot of protein in your urine sample. They're going to send you out for an NST to make sure that the baby is okay and based on that I would say that you're having this baby tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest".
Oh okay, awesome. The doctor came in and confirmed everything that we had already heard and sent us right off to the maternity ward for the NST. We were told that if the NST went "well" then I would be sent home that day and but would need to be back at the hospital at 6:00am for a c-section, if the NST was "borderline" then I would be admitted to the hospital right then and put on an IV and bedrest until they could a c-section first thing the next morning, if the results of the NST were worrisome then I would be taken right in for the c-section. So they hooked me up and I told the baby that she needed to wake up and perform well because we had a much too much to get done before she came. We spent the entire length of the NST calling our parents and Amelia's godparents and making arrangements for the coming weekend. Luckily the NST went really well and it was confirmed that Alice was perfectly healthy but a bit underweight and we were sent home with instructions to be back at 6:00am the next morning.
We had made plans for my dad and our friends David & Abigail {Amelia's godparents} to watch Peanut during the day and overnight while I was in the hospital and decided it would be best for her to have Cheyenne come back to the house each night for dinner, bathtime, and bedtime with Amelia so that her little world wouldn't be thrown totally off kilter.
The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn and got ready to head for the hospital. Amelia insisted on wearing her sassy sunglasses even though it was 5:00am as we headed to drop her off at the godparents house for the day. I'd like to add a huge thank you here to Abigail Martin who woke up hours and hours before she normally would have just to entertain my child. It's a wonderful thing to have such good friends to take care of you when you need it.
After dropping Amelia off we headed to Good Sam and checked in. Our room was fabulous and the whole maternity floor was so much better than our experience at St Vincent's that it really helped put my mind at ease. I will say that I had a different set of worries this time around than I did when I went in to have Amelia. With my first c-section I honest to goodness never once thought about the surgery as something to be scared of and I had zero worries about it going in - all of my focus was on meeting the baby and finding out the gender and seeing what "it" would look like. This time however, all I could think of was the inherent risks involved with surgery and what would happen in a worst case scenario where Cheyenne would be left alone with two small children. I know it was a dark place to go but I could not get my mind to stop going there - the idea of Amelia without her mommy bothered me deeply and until I heard Alice's first cry it was honestly the only thing I could think of. Obviously I made it through the surgery totally fine and had zero complications.
A few details about the actual birth: the room started off so quiet that as surgery started I could hear the cutting sounds being made and it was so awful to me that I {perhaps a little too loud and a little too maniacally} blurted out "oh god I can hear that cutting noise and it's painting a mental picture of what your doing, can we PLEASE put on some music to drown it out?!" luckily my anesthesiologist {who was a lady that looked to be exactly my age} was Johnny On The Spot and ran over to the speaker system with her Ipod yelling as she went "I'm so sorry I forgot, are you okay with Foster the People?!" so yeah, Amelia's birth was accompanied by Mozart {with whom she shares a birthday} and Alice's birth was set to a hipster anthem...if that's not a "Portland birth playlist": I dont know what is.
After a short while at 9:18am the doctor held up our beautiful second daughter and the nurses sang happy birthday and Cheyenne and I cried and cried as our world went from sepia to vivid technicolor. Baby sister came into the world at 5 pounds & 6 ounces {immediately garnering the nickname "teeny tiny"} and was exactly 19 inches long which made her a half inch shorter than Amelia was at birth but exactly one pound lighter. She had/has a lot of dark brown hair {though not quite as much as her sister had}and she was/is perfection.
Because of her size she had low blood sugar levels right from the start and although we were told over and over that it wasn't a scary thing it would need to be taken care of before we left the hospital so sadly our Teeny Tiny baby had to have her feet poked for bloodwork every few hours Friday-Monday and on Saturday an IV was put into her minuscule arm which was a bit of an ordeal. Also, between her being small and the fact that she has A Negative blood while I have O Negative blood she was at an elevated risk of jaundice and therefore had repeated billirubin checks {the levels were on the high side of average so although she never had to go under the lights or have a billi-blanket she did she bloodwork done often to check her levels}.  All of this contributed to me not updating this blog in the hospital - instead I spent all of my time breastfeeding her to get her as healthy as possible as quickly as possible.
Later that afternoon after we got all settled, Cheyenne went to get Amelia and bring her in to see me and her new baby sister. Cheyenne and I had both prepared for her to at best be indifferent to the situation and at worst be actively bothered by it. Instead our oldest was totally and completely in love with our youngest from the moment she set eyes on her. For the entire length of her visit Amelia insisted that we put "baby sister on Mimi's lap!" and when Cheyenne tried to hold Alice Amelia would tell him no and again insist that she be the only one to hold her. I cannot express how much I love these two girls, I am so happy and lucky to have them - they are my sun and my moon.
On Monday we were finally released and got to bring Miss Alice to her home, the dog and cat went into nursemaid mode and have't left Alice's side since. Amelia is still in love {despite a brief moment that first night when she asked me to quote "put it back"} and we're all very happy though sleep deprived :-)

p.s. I would like to give a huge heartfelt thank you to all of the truly wonderful nurses that I had. Each one was so incredibly loving and kind and they took such excellent care of not just my healing body but of my heart and soul when I had moments of fear and sadness for my baby. Saints on Earth the lot of them.