Would you believe that it's 10 months later and I still get choked up every time I drive by your hospital, Lu? I remember everything perfectly.
The day before you were born Daddy and I drove across the valley, at 4 something in the morning, to turn you. After the procedure failed we went to Sweet Tomatoes (our favorite!) and pigged out big time. We spent the day finishing up last minute preparations, while waiting for that darn call, and had a huge corned beef dinner in honor of St. Patty's Day. Dr. O called while we were eating and told us to hurry back to the hospital. I had a quick cry, and then the craziness began: we threw the dishes in the sink, grabbed our bags, emptied the fridge, and dropped the dogs.
We spent hours in triage - even though they were expecting us - because L & D was packed. We finally got a room around 1 am. They put me on a million different monitors, including one very annoying finger monitor (it would sound an alarm every time I took it off, which was quite frequent with all the bathroom trips). I had to put it on Daddy's finger or toe, without waking him, run to the bathroom and then run back to bed before the nurses came in to see what the heck was going on. It makes me laugh just thinking about it.
In the morning we had a huge pancake breakfast, because I had to start fasting shortly after, in case of the c-section. That hospital had some spectacular pancakes, let me tell you. Your Daddy and I were bums all day long, because I was on strict bedrest orders; we napped, watched movies, cuddled in the cramped hospital bed, surfed the internet. We both had the worst anxiety, especially since our time slot in the OR kept getting pushed back (four times). Grammy came to the hospital after work; and the rest of the family began to arrive over the next few hours - our birthing suite became quite cramped.
Dr. O came in around 7 pm. She was amazed by our situation... I had been contracting all day, with minimal to no pain, and was dilated to 5 centimeters. (Most breech pregnancies do not dilate past 1 cm.) The nurses herded all of our visitors to the waiting room, and brought us down the hall to the big silver doors. The rest is history.
The time spent in the Postpartum Unit is my favorite memory. I wish we could go back in time, freeze that moment and live in it forever. Confined in that very small room, with more visitors than we knew what to do with, we were a family for the first time. Everything was about you, Lu. It was stressful, it was new, it was unreal how much love fit in that room.
And now I'm crying.
(And yes, I owe you a 10 Month Birthday Post... Tonight, I promise!)
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