Jocelyn's birth story part four

My baby girl was finally here!

Now it was time for the placenta to be delivered. The OB/GYN on call had left me with headless baby resident to stitch me up. It was way past shift change, but I think she felt a connection with me or something because she came BACK after assisting a c-section so she could be there for my baby's birth. Even though I told her that she must be tired and to not worry about staying.

Thanks to my epidural, I could barely feel the resident and nurses massaging my belly trying to get my uterus to contract and my placenta delivered in tact. Then I started to realize that everyone kept counting the minutes.

"How many minutes has it been?" the resident asks a nurse.

"Twenty since birth."

Back to pushing on my belly.

I think it was 10 minutes later when another woman (nurse? resident? attending? I have no idea based on the scrubs she was wearing) came in to assist. Again, she kept asking how long it had been since baby's delivery. She worked on me a few minutes before consulting with resident. The resident then made the decision to call the OB/GYN back into the room to see if she could get the placenta delivered.


The attending doctor came back in and started working on me. I think it was another 30 minutes before she was able to get my placenta out, only by manually extracting it. I wisely chose not to look or pay attention to what they were doing to me. Angie and Amy said it was not a pleasant sight. All I could think was that it was a damn good thing that I chose to have an epidural. I've heard manual extractions without drugs is NOT pleasant at all!

My placenta was finally delivered close to an hour after birth. I've heard it didn't look very good at all. Something to do with calcification of the placenta due to its age. I couldn't tell you what it looked like because as soon as it was removed, I pretty much felt myself beginning to pass out.

Supposedly my blood pressure dropped to 80-something over 50-something, which is why I felt so woozy. Someone lowered my bed and put an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. All I could think of during this time is why my daughter Jaina hates nitrous oxide at the dentist. Having the mask on was annoying and it smelled like plastic. Yuck.

I finally started to feel a bit better, so I took off the mask and sat up a bit. I thought maybe I felt so awful because I hadn't eaten in hours. I am never hungry during labor anyway. I asked for some crackers and some juice.

I later regretted that decision when I threw up a few minutes later. Angie got to really play the part of my doula then; she went flying for the kidney shaped basin as fast as any experienced mom would do for their own kid. She also made me feel better with cold compresses to my forehead. I don't know what I would have done without her!

Finally, sometime after 11 PM, I was moved by bed to a room upstairs. My epidural still hadn't worn off and it was weird to watch people have to lift me by blankets to transfer me to the bed. Amy and Angie came up to the room with me to help me get settled. I sent Brian home to the kids to make sure all was well there.

Jocelyn had her sponge bath in the room with me and then Amy rocked her to sleep. She had nursed off and on for two hours and then blessed me with a 4 hour nap.

The next day, the kids came to see their baby sister.

They were pretty enamored with her :)

The rest of the day was spent with lovely visitors. I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends that came to keep us company.

We were told by both OB/GYN and Pediatrician that both baby and I were in perfect health and could go home at any time. But the nurses said that they had a strict 24 hour policy. There was no getting discharged before 9:11 PM that night, even though our discharge orders were prepared hours before.

I had everything packed up and ready to go. Brian told my mom there was no reason to watch the kids, so he just brought Jaina and Jayce up to the hospital at 8:30 to pick us up.

At 9:15 PM, a nurse came in to scan her for jaundice. The little forehead scanner thingy had to read below 7 for us to go home. It read 8.9 instead. That meant that she had to have a heel stick so they could check her for jaundice that way.

It only took 15 minutes to do the test; it took two hours for the results to come back. No jaundice.

We could finally go home!

Our complete family of five walked into our house at 11:30 PM. It felt wonderful to be home.