Home, exhausted, and loving it!

Maribel is peacefully napping in her swing at the moment so I figured I'd use this time to catch everyone up on the goings-on.

As the post title says - we are home! We were both discharged from the hospital yesterday. I was so surprised and happy that we were both able to go home at the same time. On Friday morning at the 5am feeding the nurse was mentioning how maybe Maribel would get to go home after another day (I'd been dreading being discharged on Friday and her having to stay.) Then at the 8am feeding, the day nurse said they'd dropped her IV level overnight and her blood glucose levels were fine so she was given the ok to stop the IV (this left me feeling hopeful that she'd be getting out soon.) Then on my walk to the NICU for her 10:45am feeding the nurse saw me in the hall and said the doctors had decided to discharge Maribel that day. Oh my god, I was overjoyed!! So Friday was spent waiting for my doctor to discharge me, and watching some mandatory videos for NICU babies on carseat safety, infant CPR and choking, having babies sleep on their back, etc. Around 2pm I got the all-clear from my doctor and called DH to have him come get his girls and bring us home. What a wonderful feeling to leave the hospital as a family and head home. Amazing!

Overall I must say the hospital stay was great. The nurses in the mother-baby unit (taking care of me), the nurses in the NICU (taking care of Maribel), and all of the doctors that checked in on her were great. The nurse we had for our c-section, Jen, was one we had when we were there for our pre-term labor stay in early June. She saw us on the c-section schedule, recognized our names, and swapped with someone else so she could be our nurse for the c-section. We'd really liked her when we had her as our nurse in June so when she walked into our labor room, I was really excited (and even more happy when we learned that she'd swapped with someone else to be with us.)

The c-section itself went fabulously. An emergency had come in so we got bumped. We were originally scheduled for 11am but ended up going into the OR around 12:30pm but that was no big deal for us. When it was our turn, the nurse and anesthesiologist walked me to the OR. During this time, DH had to put on his "spacesuit" (which is super hot and sweaty), his little booties, and his adorable little hat and then had to wait for our nurse to come get him. So while he was getting dressed, I sat on the table and got my spinal. This went fine, especially knowing what to expect after my TAC in January. As my legs got heavy, they hooked me up to all of the different monitors, put my nasal cannula in for oxygen, lightly strapped my arms down, got the curtain hanging up so I couldn't see below my chest, put in my catheter, etc. Once everyone had scrubbed in, they told Jen to go get "Dad".

DH came in and sat next to my head. Afterwards he told me that walking into that room and seeing all of the people, seeing me on the OR table, etc really got him nervous, or as he put it "that's when my heartburn started". As soon as DH sat down, Dr D called out that they were making the incision and called out the time. It was officially underway. Within about 3-4 minutes, he announced "making uterine incision" and called out the time. Oh my god, it was almost time. The pressure and pulling and tugging feeling they warned me of - holy shit that is INTENSE! Two grown men putting tons of weight on your abdomen, pulling in different directions. Wow, it hurt! And it didn't hurt where they were tugging of course, it was like a huge amount of pressure on my upper back and shoulders. Again - wow, it really hurt!

Next thing I know, I hear "head is out". Oh man, I can't believe it. Next I hear, "Dad, stand up and take a look." DH stood, took one look and said "Oh my god, she's beautiful!" And that my friends is when I started crying. And I mean crying! I was sobbing buckets of joyful tears. When I heard her cry, I cried even harder. And when they handed her to Jen who brought her over to the side so I could see her, impossibly, I cried even harder. We'd made it. After all we'd been through over the last few years and all of the waiting these last 9 months, our daughter was here and it was just the most incredible feeling in the world. According to DH, that first look he got of her was of a scrunched up little baby - eyes closed, legs still bent up to chest, having that blue-ish look of having just been pulled out, and seeing all of that gorgeous black hair of hers.
The time it took to get from incision to her arrival was soooo quick it was unbelievable. And from the time I walked into the OR to the time they wheeled me out of recovery, baby in my arms, was less than one hour. It's definitely one hour DH and I will never forget.

So now that we're all home together we're loving our time as a family. DH's parents and sister were here waiting for us in the parking lot of our apartment complex when we arrived home yesterday. They stayed last night but decided to to go home this evening instead of tomorrow. I overdid things a bit this morning as I did housework when I really should have been taking it easy and having others help me with housework. But other than that, we just spent the day with our new favorite routine - feeding, sleeping, changing diapers, repeat. We didn't sleep much last night at all but that's ok. Maribel is an awesome eater and breastfeeding is going great! My milk came in at the hospital early Friday morning and the baby is taking advantage of that. So she was up to eat quite a few times in the night. But waking up and seeing that adorable little face makes it all worthwhile.

One funny story and then I must go. Last night it looked like I had a bug bite below my left eye. It didn't itch but the size and shape looked like a mosquito bite. Really weird! Well, I went to wash my hands before the next feeding (like an hour or so later) and I had a couple more small bumps under that eye and a couple under my right eye too. WTH is going on? Next trip to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and yep, there's more. But now they're merging together and holy shit, these aren't bug bites. We've just witnessed the formation of bags under my eyes. Too freaking funny! With only about 10 hours of sleep since Tuesday and now waking just about once an hour to feed, change, etc took it appears exhaustion took a toll on my face.

Well, the little one is starting to fuss a bit so I think it's time for the boob buffet to open for business. I'll check back in soon and will post more pics in the next couple of days.