This is a long one

I never got around to writing about Micah's birth. I never really intended to go into details here (because I know there are things you just can't unread), but I definitely meant to write the story of it down, just so I'd be able to remember it. And then I never did, because Micah's birth was horrible. A lot of things went wrong (starting with pre-term labor at 33 weeks and ending two weeks later with a rather alarming placental abruption and the baby's significantly violent exit), and while I was thrilled with the end result of a living baby (and no C-section), the experience and the aftermath for me personally were Not Good. For a very long time. So although I started to write out Micah's birth story, I never finished it because I didn't want to type out every awful detail. I remember enough, thank you, enough that I spent the last month of this pregnancy scared out of my mind and bracing myself for the inevitable.

But this I WANT to remember.

Last Monday, I went in for my weekly checkup. I went alone, because Todd had first aid training, but I didn't expect that to be a problem. A trip to L&D the previous Friday had confirmed that although I was having periods of intense contractions, they weren't doing much to change anything. And actually, on Monday I'd only dilated a bit more. But then Doc got a Very Serious look on his face. He measured my stomach, and his look got Even More Serious. After a bit of thought he told me I was measuring small, only 33 weeks, but the baby hadn't dropped to where he'd expect from that, and he wanted me to have an ultrasound.

We won't talk about my mental state during the ultrasound, except to say it was extremely fragile. The ultrasound showed a healthy baby, but she was measuring a little over a week behind, with a borderline fluid level. Afterwards, Doc sat down across from me and told me he didn't like that she hadn't grown as expected, that sometimes the placenta will just be all "but I am le tired," and he felt it would be best to go ahead and induce before something like that happened, and how did I feel about having a baby that night?

You'll probably guess my feelings on that subject consisted mostly of four-letter words, none of which I could utter because the oxygen level in the room seemed to have dropped to 0. He must have sensed the panic, because he reassured me that she wasn't in imminent danger - if she were, we'd have been headed next door right then - and he gave me the option of coming in the next morning instead. He even said we could come in later, after we'd dropped Micah off at the daycare. In the end, we agreed that I'd show up at 8 AM on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, we arrived at the hospital at exactly 8, and were ushered back to LDR 4, the smallest delivery room, and one where we'd spent quite a lot of time during Micah's pre-term labor adventures. They started me on the pitocin around 8:45, and my parents showed up not long after that. A few hours later, they moved us to a larger room, and I went ahead and got my epidural. (Sidenote: After Micah's violent and unmedicated exit and the following un-anesthetized million and one stitches ohmygod, I was pretty well aware you don't get a gold star or a bonus check for hurting.) I marveled for a while over the total lack of pain, until things started hurting a bit again. Then I marveled over how not-horrible I still felt, even though I could tell things were moving right along. It was...awesome. I spent a lot of time joking with the nurses, Mary and Tracey.

A while later, I started complaining about feeling some pressure and quite a bit more pain.  None of the nurses checked me (though I'm still not sure why), and instead ordered some more meds for the epidural.  My parents decided to duck out for a quick bite. My mom wanted the cafeteria because she was thinking the baby would come any minute, but my dad convinced her to leave the hospital. 

Boy did he get an earful about ten minutes later, as they were zooming back over in response to Todd's phone call.  Because it turned out my mom was right, and the nurses had completely misjudged my cavalier attitude.

My mom rushed back while my dad stayed out in the waiting room. But immediately after they lifted my feet up, the fresh epidural started climbing up.  I told the nurses I wasn't tracking so well suddenly.  And why can't I breathe?  And HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS, I CAN'T BREATHE.

Turns out I could, kind of, but my diaphragm had checked out from the epidural that was now creeping up to my boobs.  And my brain freaked out and then I hyperventilated, because have you ever tried to breathe without your diaphragm?  It sucks. So the rest is a bit of a blur.  I know my mom and Todd talked me through the high epidural freak out and the three short sets of pushes. And at 1:32 PM, our daughter, Aerin Elizabeth, was born.

My birth experience with Micah was not unlike giving birth to an angry velociraptor (my mother, who has delivered many babies in her time, once told me it looked like a grenade had gone off. It was that bad.) Aerin's was totally, completely different, in the best ways possible. The next day, I actually felt good. Like, so good I wasn't sure it was legal to feel like that after childbirth. Granted, I had the help of my dear friends ibuprofen and percocet, but still. Now, a week out, my back and hips are still pretty sore, but that could be because I walked a good half-mile night before last.

I spent the next two days in the hospital nursing my baby every few hours, playing with my new iPad, and reading the Hunger Games trilogy for the first time. I finished the third book right before we were discharged on Thursday; between that and how well Aerin had taken to nursing, I felt my time had been well-spent.

Thursday was a total cluster. First, despite my intense misgivings, Todd had decided to keep his Thursday morning appointment for an epidural for his herniated disc. That meant he had to be at the spine center at 8 AM and then he'd be out of commission from the anesthesia for half the morning.  I was adamant that I was NOT driving home myself, nor was I interested in anyone else driving his car, nor was I interested in re-installing the carseat in anyone else's car. But as we had no idea when I'd actually be discharged, he wasn't sure if he'd be there when we were released. And then my head exploded because OMFG we are talking about bringing your newborn home, you had better be sure you're there.

Then, Micah came down with viral croup Wednesday night, which of course is something you really want hanging around when you're about to bring home a freshly-hatched newborn.  Because of overcrowing, I was in a tiny postpartum room without the extra bed, so Todd wasn't able to stay at the hospital Tuesday or Wednesday night.  We'd originally planned for Micah to stay at my sister's house, but since Todd was available, Micah stayed home. So at least he had his dad there when he started crouping, as well as his grandmother, the doctor, just down the hall.

Thursday morning, my mom stayed with my sister's two kids while my sister took Micah to our pediatrician, and Todd's mother drove Todd to get his very own epidural. With daycare out of the picture, my parents took over watching Micah for the rest of the day, which meant they couldn't be at the hospital with me and Aerin.

The hospital was chock full of new babies and women in labor, so things in L&D were moving pretty slowly. But in the end, we finally made it home around 3:30 PM.  We arrived to very little fanfare, and I immediately snuck back to Aerin's nursery and fell into a stress and hormone-fueled sobbing fit over how no one loved my poor second baby, all because no one greeted us or put balloons on the mailbox.  Oh, the postpartum brain is a funny thing.

Micah's been fantastic with the baby. He softly strokes her hair and puts his head down on hers. He calls her "Baby Aerin" and wants to see her "tiny hands," feet, and ears. In the hospital, he wanted to share his Cheerios with her and sang her songs. This morning, he brought over his precious Lubby and tucked it in next to her. He seems to have no problem with her at all; his initial ire was reserved mostly for me and Todd. We've dealt with that by trying to spend as much time as possible playing and talking with him. His return to daycare yesterday also helped restore some normalcy. All in all, he's doing much better with the whole situation than I expected.

(Now is where I should have some sort of preshus sibling picture, but I've been focusing more on keeping Micah from hitting Aerin's reset button as he lovingly pats her head, and less on documenting his attempts to hug her and kiss her and squeeze her and call her George. Moving on!)

So, here we are. It's been a week since Aerin was born, and I honestly couldn’t be happier. With Micah, I was exhausted from weeks of worry and lack of sleep, weak from blood loss, and mentally just shot. With Aerin, I've been reasonably well-rested, I feel strong, I don't really hurt, and I'm actually enjoying these first few days. The two experiences are worlds apart, and this is nothing at all like I expected. It is so, so much better.