We checked into the hospital at 10 am on Thursday, May 15th, with nothing but our camera and baby book in hand. I changed into the lovely standard blue hospital gown that we all know is impossible to close in the back and sat in a recliner for an hour and a half. Unfortunately, instead of getting a pedicure or something fun like that, I spent half an hour hooked up to a baby monitor, answered a million more questions ("When was the last time you ate or drank something?", "Any drug allergies?", etc.), signed more forms attesting that I would not sue the hospital if I died (as if that's even possible), being poked and prodded so that the IV could be placed in my left wrist, and being forced to drink a shot of the nastiest antacid known to mankind, which is just cruel seeing as I was not allowed to have any water afterwards.
At 11:30, the nurse walked me to the freezing operating room (still wearing nothing but the gown that won't close in the back) while Ryan was relegated to the "Daddy Waiting Room". After covering me with a warming blanket since my teeth chattering and severe shivering were preventing the anesthesiologist from administering the epidural, I eventually warmed up enough for the anesthesiologist to do his thing and my legs immediately became numb. They had to help me lie down since I couldn't move my legs at all - kinda scary, but comforting at the same time since the thought of going through a c-section with feeling below the waist is terrifying.
Then came my favorite part: the nurses attached a large circular metal frame on either side of the table right at my rib cage and then flipped the bottom part of my gown over it so that I couldn't see what was going on. So basically, I'm lying there naked from the ribs down with about 15 people roaming about the room. Talk about losing what's left of your dignity after making the walk down the hall with your gown half open in the back.
The nurses did some more prep work, but I can't tell you exactly what they did because 1) the hospital gown drape prevented me from seeing anything, 2) I was numb and just felt some jiggling and 3) Ryan wasn't in the room yet.
With my OB poised to make the first incision, the nurse brought Ryan in the room and he sat/stood right behind my head. After some cutting and then a lot of tugging and pulling, we heard, "I've got the head, here's the torso, and it's a boy!" And what did my precious little boy do? Well, he screamed, of course, but then he peed on me as the doctor held him up for me to see. We have a picture of that, but I'll spare you from all the pee.
He was taken off to the side, cleaned up a bit, weighed and tagged with numerous hospital bracelets and umbilical security tags. While I was being stitched up, a nurse brought him over for a kiss and then whisked him away to the nursery. Ryan went with him and I went to recovery where I stayed for about two hours.
Ryan visited me in recovery where I munched on ice chips (my first "food" since 8 pm the night before) and I laid there staring at my toes willing them to wiggle a bit since that particular movement was my only ticket out of there. As we still hadn't settled on a name, we scrolled through the pictures of our little guy on the digital camera trying to decide who he looked like. We settled on a name but kept it a secret just a bit longer.
I was eventually moved to a private room and our families followed me in, anxiously awaiting the announcement of a name and the arrival of the baby (who was required to spend four hours in the nursery). Once they brought him in, Ryan whispered the baby's name to Sydney who announced it to our families. They were all happy with it, but Sydney declared that she wanted to name him "Dylan Jason" instead. "Too bad," we told her.
We took lots of pictures, opened presents, I ate more ice chips and then our families left for the evening, leaving Ryan and I alone with our newest little addition.
As for his name, we had lists going for both boys and girls seeing as we were unaware of the gender.
Girl names: Alyssa, Allison, Audrey, Callie, Cassidy, Eleni, Elizabeth, Lily, Lillian, Maya, Megan, Meredith, Olivia, Rebecca, Sadie and Tabitha
Boy names: Aaron, Andrew, Brandon, Connor, Evan, Linus, Matthew, Quentin, Seth, Stephen, Travis, Wesley and Zachary
We had already decided on James as the boy middle name and Rose as the girl middle name; both are family names.
By the day he was born we had it narrowed down to Callie, Cassidy and Elizabeth and Connor, Evan and Matthew. We decided that he looked like an Evan. I have a feeling that had he been a girl, he would have been Elizabeth. We really liked the name Lillian (in honor of a relative who recently passed away), but the thought of naming a baby Lillian Rose just sounded too soap-opera like. Or like we lived in 1920.
As for his homecoming and how we are all adjusting, that will have to wait for another day seeing as Evan is now ready to eat, yet again.
I'll just leave you with another picture of our little guy instead:
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