As you know, we had been waiting and waiting for her to make her debut! Once my doctor, Dr. Bertsch, went on vacation when we hit 39 weeks, I really wanted her to wait until her scheduled c-section on August 3, but wasn't convinced that would happen, since Grace and Everly both came before their scheduled dates. But, lo and behold, we woke up at 5:00 am on Friday morning, August 3, 2018 and our sweet baby girl was still snuggled up inside me! I am going to start with bullet points, which - let's be honest here, will probably turn into paragraphs by the time I'm done. But, here we go!
- 5am - wake up!
- 6:15 am - we took one last picture of Vic and I with my last pregnant belly!
- 6:30 am - arrived at the hospital ER to check in for the delivery
- 6:45 am - met our nurse Kelly, changed into my hospital gown, got settled into bed, and got the baby heart rate monitor wrapped around my belly. Her heart rate was going strong.
- 6:55 am - I was hooked up to my IV. Usually, they have to put it on top of my hand because my veins are hard to find and tough to hit the first time. However, this nurse was great and it only took one stick to get my IV in. And, she put it on the side of my wrist. At first, it hurt! And I was worried it would be tough for a few days. But, it turned out the be the best IV spot I've had and never had any problems the entire hospital stay!
- 7:00 am - They put the leg warmer things on my legs (to keep blood flowing for the next 24+ hours while I would be laid up in bed).
- 7:05 - Dr. Bertsch came in! Hooray! She was just as surprised that we hadn't delivered yet. And this is where I get sentimental (for the first of many, many times) because she has delivered each and every one of my babies. She has told me that it rarely happens that she would deliver all of her patient's babies (especially 4!). So, it would be totally normal for any doctor on call to deliver or that she would be out of the office or on vacation when my babies arrive. But, Atticus came on a weekend when she set our induction date because she was on call. Grace came in the middle of the night, but Dr. Bertsch was on call in the night and then by the time we delivered, it was during her regular workday on a Tuesday morning, so she delivered. Everly came at my 38 week appointment with Dr. Bertsch on a Thursday morning. So, it was just nice to have my doctor deliver all of my babies. I trust her and love her and she just always makes me feel comfortable and I have always felt confident in her decisions.
- 7:11 am - I asked for a photo with her. And poor Vic - I thought he would just take the picture of her and me, but then he is walking over and I'm confused and asked him what he was doing and then I realize he gave his phone to the nurse to take the photo and of course, it makes sense we would all 3 be in the photo, but I wasn't thinking and questioned him and then he asked if it was ok if he could also be in the photo, etc. ha! It was just funny!
- 7:30 am - answered a ton of questions for the nurse.
- 7:45 am - Met Lauren, the baby nurse.
- 8:15 am - Dr. Kenney, the anesthesiologist, came in and he also may be my favorite anesthesiologist yet. Usually, they don't visit and they just give me the facts and do their job and that is it. But, he was also very jolly and kind and I liked him! He told me about the spinal block, risks, process, etc.
- 8:30 am - Vic got his OR clothes
- 8:35 am - I got my disgusting shot of liquid to help settle my stomach before surgery.
- 8:40 am - I put on my OR cap, covered myself the best I could from the back (ha!) and walked across the hall to the OR.
- Between 8:40 am and 8:56 am - In the OR, I got up and sat on the side of the table and got the spinal block. This was the toughest spinal block/epidural insertion process I've had. Usually, I remember it being uncomfortable and feeling lots of pressure, and sometimes a little bit of pain but this one took awhile for them to get it in and I felt LOTS of pressure and some pain in my right side. And of course, when thinking about spinal fluid, this made me nervous while I sat there. This is where Dr. Bertsch, and the nurse helping me keep that uncomfortable position (arching your back out while having a giant stomach in front of you), just comforted me and kept me posted on how much longer it should take while Dr. Kenney and his assistant did their job. I am not sure if there was a problem and I didn't ask, but it took a little bit. Finally, as soon as it was in, everything waist down got warm and numb and they quickly laid me down on the table, situated my arms and legs, and covered me with that warm blanket. They put in the catheter. I was hooked up to all kinds of sticky things and a device on my finger to watch my pulse and oxygen in my nose. So much so fast!
- Usually, during my c-sections, once that epidural or spinal block go in, my blood pressure drops a little and I get nauseous. And there is nothing less fun than turning your head to throw up while you can't move or feel anything from chest down and someone else wiping your mouth. With Everly, however, I did NOT get sick and I gave all of the credit to that disgusting shot of liquid they gave me. This time, I just threw that liquid up instead. But, they cooled me off, gave me Zofran in my IV, and the nausea went away.
- 8:56 am - Vic came in ready for the delivery!
- Also - for my memory, here are the people in the room: Dr. Bertsch, Dr. Sanders (another OB who assists), a surgical assistant, my L&D nurse, an assistant for my nurse, the baby nurse, the baby's respiratory therapist, the anesthesiologist, the anesthesiologist's assistant, Vic, and me!
- They put up the blue curtain so we couldn't see things.
- 9:00 am - They got to work and I felt the normal pressure, weight on my chest, tugging and pulling, but no pain. And it was not long, until they pulled her out and we heard her cry!
- 9:12 am - She was born!
- They lowered the curtain so we could see her for a second in Dr. Bertsch's arms and then they handed her over to the baby nurse. Vic took lots of pictures and then he finally brought her to me to see her.
- I cried and cried, because that is what you just do, when you have no control of your emotions.
- She was all wrapped up, red and looking like most newborn babies look.
- And then the L&D nurse came around the corner of the curtain to tell us that our baby was what they call a "miracle baby" because her umbilical cord was wrapped around her leg twice (not a major deal) but also tied into a knot (a bigger deal). While nobody went into details and nobody seemed alarmed (and I guess this is because all was fine with our little girl), we later learned a a little more. Vic googled it later and found out that 1 in 100 babies have a cord knot. But, 1 in 2000 babies have a "true tight knot" in their cord, which means that it is pulled tight and can cut off oxygen and blood. Apparently, this happens early in the pregnancy when baby is little and moving around easily to form that knot. It sounds so scary and there is nothing you can do about it, except monitor fetal kicks and movement towards the end of pregnancy and they would deliver early if needed (once determining through ultrasound that there is a knot). So, thankfully, her knot was not tight and all was well, but what a scary situation that could be!
- While they finished closing me up, they also tied my tubes. This was an easy/hard decision. It was easy because we feel like 4 children completes our family. But, the thought of not EVER having another baby can also make me really sad. But, we feel like this is the right decision for us.
- 10:00 am - Once they were done, I got to put our sweet baby skin-to-skin and they wheeled us back to the recovery room where she nursed and we got to really look at her and hold her. The L&D nurse did the normal recovery stuff for an hour (mashing on my stomach to help my uterus shrink down and check my vitals and putting medicine in my IV, etc.). Then, the baby nurse and neonatologist came in to check on the baby. Then, we had one hour of just me, Vic, and baby time.
- 12:00 pm - they took us all to our postpartum room, number 5, and got us settled in for our stay. At this point, we got to relax and unwrap our little girl and look at her and snuggle her and decide her name.
- 1:00 pm - we chose Hazel Laine Seidel as her name!
- And this is where another fabulous hospital stay and start to my recovery takes place. But, I'll save that for the next post!
Even though the last weeks of my pregnancy were tough with aches and pains and moving slow, I am going to miss carrying this teeny tiny baby!
This is Dr. Bertsch. Side note: I asked her at one of my recent appointments how many babies she had delivered and she said while she had never kept up exactly, she estimated around 3000. 3000!
And she is here!
Finally holding her as they wheeled me out of the OR. There is nothing like holding your baby for the first time. And it is NEVER lost on me that this perfect little person was JUST in my tummy minutes before. God's works are so amazing.
And do we ever give enough credit to that umbilical cord? It kept Hazel and I connected for 9 months so she could grow and grow and get everything she needed (from vegetables to chocolate!).
Finally, Vic, our baby and I are settled into our postpartum room for some quiet...and to come up with her name!
But, first Vic got to change a diaper. Unfortunately, I just could not help since I was stuck in bed for the next 24 hours due to the c-section. Sorry Vic! :)
Look at that dark hair! Although there was not a lot and hair color changes, our other girls have been much lighter.
And, finally about 1:00 pm, we came up with her name. We decided on Hazel Laine Seidel. Oh my goodness - we had a long list of names over the past few months and when we came to the hospital, we still had names such as Sadie, Ruby, Libby, Claire, Paige, Mabry, Violet, Darcy, Kate, Sophie, and more! There are so many beautiful names and when we decided to find out at 20 weeks the gender of our baby, I just knew it would be so fun to pick the name early on. But, it was hard! We just kept changing our minds and nothing fit. So, we decided we would just have to hold her and see her and meet her before we could finalize a name. I will also mention that throughout most of the pregnancy, Atticus came up with the name Kennedy and loved it. And Grace came up with the name FannaMae and loved it. Grace would think of new names every day and they both really did help us think through good names during our pregnancy. It was when we were in the recovery room, that Vic started favoring Hazel the most. And I had loved the name Hazel for awhile too. Vic looked at her and saw her darker hair and her little face, and he said "I think she is a Hazel." We contemplated awhile and got settled into our room and kept checking Hazel against our other names as well. Then, we finalized our middle name. Lain is my dad's middle name and we always liked it for a little boy, but we have only had girls since our Atticus was born. But, it's special and so sweet and after adding an E to make it more feminine, we decided Hazel Laine was our little girl's name. Just like our other girls' names, it is so beautiful and fits her just right.
After that, Vic started texting everyone we knew to announce the arrival of our Hazel Laine Seidel!
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