March 26, 2012

March 26, 2012

Taygen Faith Spencer

6 lbs. 1.2 oz.

19.9" long

We arrived at the hospital at 10:30am. I was anxious and nervous and excited and emotional. This was an entirely different experience from my last C-section. I was having a hard time convincing myself this was actually happening and I was having a baby today. It was weird to be feeling completely normal, you know, no labor, no contractions, no panic, no heart failure. I was mostly just super nervous about having surgery, being awake for the whole thing, and of course, really scared of running into any complications, with my heart or otherwise. I was also really nervous about getting the epidural, but, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. It just made me really really shaky. I felt very nervous and stressed out through the whole operation anyway, and so maybe that added to the shakes.
It seemed like it was over quite quickly. The anesthesiologist gave me the epidural, Jason got suited up, they wheeled me into the operation room, and she was born at 12:57pm. The doctors turned the overhead mirror so I could see Taygen and watch the nurses get her cleaned up. (I had no desire to watch the actual operation/delivery in the mirror. I was nervous enough as it was.) She looked so tiny and fragile and messy and gorgeous. I said to Jason, "Look what we made." :)
After she was cleaned up, they handed her to Jason and he brought her over to the operating table by my head so I could get a good look at her. "Beautiful, miraculous, amazing..." was all I could think, well and "I am so so so exhausted."
After I was all stitched up and back in the normal hospital bed, I got to hold my sweet baby girl. This was so unlike my first delivery experience and I was so grateful to be able to hold her and cuddle her right away. In fact, that is pretty much what I did for the entire hospital stay. I just held her and adored her. With Allary, I feel like I hardly got to see her at all until we left the hospital. It was awesome to me just to get to keep Taygen in the room with us any time we wanted. Awesome.
Things went so smoothly and we are so grateful for this miraculous experience.

It was wonderful and amazing and miraculous, and also a very spiritual experience for me. Holding my sweet Taygen, I felt.... not even sure how to put it into words... like the veil was very thin. I felt, not so much like I was meeting her, but more like I had finally found her.

We finally found each other.

Pregnancy

I loved being pregnant. I can hardly look at these photos without getting emotional. During the whole pregnancy, I would often just stare at my belly in the mirror in disbelief. After 6 years of arduous efforts to add another child to our family, I can't even put into words how much being pregnant meant to me. Pregnancy and the creation of a new life is miraculous in and of itself. I feel so blessed and so lucky to have had the amazing opportunity afforded to me to carry this miracle. I spent a lot of time just sitting with my hands on my belly feeling her flutters and movements and hiccups and all-out karate kicks. And even with that, I feel like it went by way too fast and I didn't enjoy it enough. Even now, I am a little sad that the last few months flew by so quickly. The anesthesiologist at the hospital was trying to help calm me down and talk to me as he was giving me the epidural and he said, "Just think, very soon you won't be pregnant anymore." I said, "I knoooooow," and started to cry. I'm sure he thought I was crazy. 

I can not believe how smoothly everything went. Yes, I had complaints and minor pregnancy-related annoying symptoms, but over-all, compared to my last pregnancy, this one was a piece of cake. I had morning sickness for the first about 14-15 weeks. The second trimester was a breeze. I felt like I had some energy and was enjoying my growing belly. The last trimester, I had some morning sickness return, I was extremely tired, and I started to get pretty swollen. But, again, when comparing something to heart failure, it all becomes relatively trivial. 

I worried a lot, but I also felt very safe and very well taken care of by awesome doctors. The fun part, if there is one, about being a high-risk patient is that I got to see my sweet little baby a LOT. I can't even count how many ultrasounds I got to see. 

We did have one scare in the last month of pregnancy where my EKG results came back showing a significant drop in ejection fraction. I had been hovering around 65%, which is awesome, but then my test results the first week of March came back as 45%. We panicked, my cardiologist was out of the country, and we were considering immediate delivery. I went in for another EKG to find that my EF had come back up. We're still not sure what the explanation is for this. Maybe the 45% was a mis-read or the machine messed up, who knows. We calmed down a bit, my cardiologist returned, and both he and my OB said they felt like I was okay to go a bit longer. Even though the doctors said I could maybe have a normal labor and vaginal delivery, we decided to take the safest route and have a scheduled C-section. This seemed like the best option for minimal risks to my heart and minimal risks to the baby, especially since I made it all the way to 39 weeks. 

The whole thing is simply miraculous. Here are some photos of my pregnant self...

32-33 weeks

Allary took these of me. Then she wanted me to take some of her. :)

37 weeks

(I wanted to hurry and take some photos because there was a chance we were delivering sooner than we had originally thought. Now, I'm just glad I have them.) 

38 weeks

Catching Up

Okay so... I am really back-tracking here. I feel the need to catch up on past events and get them blogged somewhat in order. Then, I will come back to the present and post tons of photos of our newest family member and all her sweetness. :)

Preparing for Baby

Back in December/January, when Jason had some time off work, I put him to work here at home putting together the baby's room. 

These last pictures make the colors look weird. The walls are sort of a bright, raspberry-ish pink that I love. I should take a picture of the room now that the walls are decorated. I love how it turned out.

Crazy Hair Day

The first week of March was "Spirit Week" at school. Allary gets really in to these things. Each day of the week is a different themed day (wear red day, crazy hair day, pajama day, etc).
She wanted to have really crazy hair for "Crazy Hair Day." So, I asked my sweet niece Maddy for some wild ideas and she delivered. For this particular do, we stuck a paper cup on top of her head and formed the ponytail around it. Allary loved it.

Ice Skating

We went to a hockey game back in February with a whole big group of Jason's work buddies and their families. Then, after the game, we had special permission from Jason's friend who works on the A/V for the arena to do some ice skating ourselves. Being 8 months pregnant at the time, I opted out, but I did take some pictures.
This was Allary's first time on the ice and she did pretty good as long as she was holding on to someone or something.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a big deal in the world of a 6-year-old girl. Allary really puts a good deal of time and effort into making Valentines for her classmates, friends, parents, grandparents, etc. Here are some photos of our V-day festivities...

We made pink Rice Krispies Treats with chocolate chips.

Here she is working hard on her cards...

All ready for school and her big V-day class party...

She had hearts in her hair-do. Fancy, right?