eloise fullmer.

our sweet little eloise was born on monday, may 28, 2012 at 2:36pm. 7 pounds 15 ounces (she was 2 weeks early even!) and 21 inches long. its about time i record some of the events of the day while they're still fresh in my mind. 

that morning i had an 8am appointment at the hospital to re-check my fluid levels. i had literally done everything i could to make them increase over the weekend but to my dismay they were still as low as they had been on saturday.  it became clear that was the reason she couldn't turn back and a c-section was going to be the inevitable route.  the doctor gave me the option of doing it today or scheduling it some other day that week- knowing that the risk of her cord being compressed only went up as time went on.  after much prayer and phone calls/texts to family friends who had experienced c-sections (i needed a lot of pep talks!) we decided to go ahead and do it that day.  i'm pretty sure the doctor and nurses were grateful we finally decided since it took us a couple hours and we were taking up space in triage/the doctor really wanted to go home or something.  

almost immediately they sent back the "prep team".  my nurse stuck me like 5 times before she asked someone else to come put my iv in.  i ended up with a golf ball sized hematoma on my hand...ouch.  they gave cody some scrubs and we all walked back to the operating room together.  the nurse and i went in first so the anesthesiologist could insert my spinal while cody waited outside.  it hurt but luckily went pretty fast.  i laid down on the table in the cold operating room while they prepped and we waited for my medicine to kick in.  i wasn't getting as numb as i was hoping for.  at one point the anesthesiologist took a cold cloth on each side of my legs and said i shouldn't feel the cold.  my left side was good and numb but i could definitely feel it on my right.  it freaked me out because the doctor was standing in position and i kept saying "don't cut yet i can feel it!"they rotated the table so that more medicine could get to my right side but even when i was "numb" i could still feel a heck of a lot more touch sensations than i ever wanted to.  no pain though which was the important thing.  the medicine was making me shake pretty bad and the anesthesiologist told me he'd give me something to relax me after the baby was out but meanwhile i just kept asking cody to talk to me to keep my mind off things.

after lots of tugging and pulling (she was lodged way up in my ribs), eloise made her grand entrance with the sweetest, squeakiest cry i'd ever heard.  her right leg was flung up by her head (dancer?) because of how she had been positioned inside.  they took her to the warmer and cody followed.  next thing i knew cody was on the floor?  this must have been when my "relaxing" medicine kicked in because i don't remember much but i was told that cody had gotten light-headed and was taken into the hall and fed juice and crackers. to his credit though he said he didn't feel dizzy from all the blood and guts, he just hadn't eaten all day and the reality had set in that he was a dad!  they finally brought him back in and brought little eloise over so i could meet her.  definitely a surreal moment but one i wish i had a better memory of (those dang drugs!)  it may have possibly been worth it though to not be aware of every tug and pull that was going on while they were stitching me back up.  i guess the drugs made me itch or something because cody said i kept scratching my left eye to death.  turns out it gave me the craziest swollen eye i've ever seen.  i looked like i had been punched in the face and had a serious case of quasimoto eye when i woke up in recovery.

the rest of the day was a dream.  nothing better than getting to know our sweet girl and having lots of friends and family come visit and meet her.  our hospital stay was amazing! it truly felt like a week long vacation (we stayed til the very last possible moment) and we were on such a high.  the nurses were so incredible, the food was actually pretty good, and i could totally get used to being brought cran-grape juice on a whim.  oh and i didn't mind that catheter one bit for those first couple days.  tmi?  probably.  but not having to get up and pee every 20 min like i had during pregnancy?  heaven.  they did make me get up and walk at 10:30pm the first night and 4:30am the next morning.  it hurt pretty bad getting in and out of bed but even through the pain it felt great to move around knowing that it would eventually get easier.  i had staples, which made me feel like frankenstein at first but having them taken out a couple days later didn't hurt at all and my scar looks so good.

all the stress of the past week seemed so worth it when we finally had our healthy baby girl.  she is truly such a sweet, happy baby and her daddy's little mini-me. love that girl so so much!