2am-I woke up shivering. I put on socks, curled up in a ball and tried to sleep.
6am-still shivering, I rolled Mike over and made him cuddle with me. I finally started to feel warm and I slept until 7:00.
7am-got up to use the restroom and instead threw up a couple times. At this point I was having horrible stomach cramps and decided I had the flu. I called my mom to see if she could help with the kids for the morning so I could get a nap.
8am-Mike left for work and my mom arrived. I laid in bed until 10:30.
10:30-I got up and had a few crackers, felt awful. The stomach cramps were getting worse. I went back to bed and texted Mike that I thought it was weird I hadn't felt Lucas move all morning. Typically, I feel him a lot when I lay still.
2:00-realized my stomach pains were growing very intense and coming every 2 minutes. I started to freak out that I hadn't felt Lucas since the night before. When I got up this time there was blood.
I called the doctor and they told me to go straight to the hospital. I called Mike and told him I was in labor. My mom called my in-laws to come over and watch the kids. Divinely, Chris and Cris (Mike's sister and brother in law) were there and came with Mike's dad to take care of them.
3:00-we arrived at the hospital and a couple nurses worked to find Lucas' heartbeat, they couldn't. We had to wait on the doctor to arrive to confirm with an ultrasound that he had passed. At this point I was having pretty severe contractions, which were only magnified by the situation.
3:45-The doctor arrived and confirmed that Lucas' heart was still. Due to the severity of my labor and the bleeding things moved pretty quickly.
4:00-they began prepping me for the c-section, we had to wait an eternity for the labs to come back and they wheeled me into the OR around 5:00.
5:23-Lucas was born. Of course there was no sound, the anesthesiologist leaned down and told me he had been born. He weighed 2 pounds, 11 ounces and was 14 inches long. They wrapped him up and handed him to Mike. I tried to hold him, but couldn't control my crying, between that, the spinal and the surgery I couldn't breathe. I handed him back to Mike and he held him while they sewed me up. Lucas looked like a perfect sleeping baby, I asked the nurse if he was really dead. It didn't seem possible. I asked the doctor if my previous incisions looked okay and she said my insides were beautiful and that more cesareans would not be an issue (one bit of happy news).
6:00-they wheeled me into my recovery room where my parents, Mike's parents, Mike's sister Heather, and my best friend Michelle were waiting for us. Lucas came in a few moments later and I was able to really hold him and look at him. We let other people hold him briefly, but for the most part I held him. He was beautiful, tiny, but by all appearances, perfect. His hands were not clenched tightly like they told be they were, the omphalocele at his belly button was very small and looked more like a fattened cord then a lump of intestines. His ears were set a bit low as is common with t18 and his chin was small. He had the same nose as my other two kids and was amazing and perfect to me.
6:30-I was moved to my room and Cris and my grandparents arrived. I think everyone was able to hold him and love him.
8:00-most people left.
8:15-I asked the nurse to bathe him, she bathed him in the room where I could see and then I dressed him in the outfit I had bought for him. The remainder of the people went home and Mike and I sat with our son. After some time went by we began discussing at what point we say goodbye. We decided it would never feel like the "right" time to say goodbye to our baby. Around 9:00 the nurse said she would be back to check on us in an hour, we decided that when she returned we would do it. We spent these minutes hugging, kissing and cuddling him. I told him all the things I wanted him to know; how much we loved him, how much we wanted him, how sorry we were, how thankful we were for the time we had with him. We told him we would see him again and that we couldn't wait to hold him in Heaven. We told him about his brother and sister and how much they loved him. We told him was a special little boy who would be spending his first Christmas celebrating with Jesus! We took a lot of pictures of him and of us with him. It was difficult to smile, but we tried. There was joy, it was small and pushed aside by a lot of sadness, but we were able to find joy in Lucas just as we find in Andrew and Olivia.
10:15-The nurse returned. I said goodbye and handed Lucas to Mike. He placed him in the bassinet. We were beyond hysterics as the nurse wheeled him out. A piece of us was leaving and we would never see him again. There are no words that even begin to describe all the things we were feeling in those moments. The 5 hours we spent with our son were wonderful, but no where near long enough.
11:30-We calmed down and got ready for bed. Crying hysterically was becoming more and more painful as the spinal wore off and I had to stop and move forward and try to get some sleep.
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