Baby #2 Birth Story

In follow-up to my last post about the impending C-Section, here's the birth story of my second daughter, Dominique.

As mentioned in my last post, Baby #2 was going to be a repeat C-Section due to the fact that he/she was breeched, yet again. I swear I have stubborn kids. I got a call Monday morning (April 21) for an appointment to see the surgeon that afternoon. You can bet I was definitely stressing at this point, as this was not how I wanted things to go. And to make matters worse, Violet picked up on my stress and was just a handful to deal with. Not a good combination. 

The surgeon appointment went well and because it was Easter Monday, he couldn't book the surgery right away, but said that I should get a call tomorrow morning letting me know when the surgery is.

Tuesday morning I go the call from the hospital saying that the surgery was planned for 8am Wednesday morning (April 23). Good thing I had already planned where Violet was going for the next couple nights/days as I knew I'd be in the hospital for minimum 48 hours. 

Violet went to my Mom's place Tuesday evening and would be staying there until Thursday morning. 

I was up at 4:30am Wednesday morning to soak in the tub and hopefully get rid of this stupid cold I had, and also that it would be the last tub I could have for 2 weeks. We arrived at the hospital close to 6am and they started preparing me for surgery. I had a student nurse getting me ready and I informed her that the veins in the back of my hand were crappy and that she might not be able to get an IV in. 20 minutes later and 1 blown vein, we both decided that it would be best to put the IV in my arm. Not the nicest place, but it was the only place they could put it. Of course, it was followed by the dreaded catheter.

One of the nurses informed us that they had a new policy when it came to breech babies. Now they do a bed-side ultrasound to see where baby is and if they have flipped. If baby is still breeched, they go ahead with the C-Section. If baby has flipped, they would either send us home to labour, or induce me. I was praying that Baby flipped and that I could still do this naturally. 

Then we found out that nobody informed my baby doctor that the C-Section was scheduled for today. She was still in Winnipeg. They had gotten a hold of another baby doctor, but in the meantime, had pushed back my surgery while we waited on him. While we were waiting, they did the bedside ultrasound and Baby was still indeed breeched. I started tearing up because I was so hoping that Baby would have flipped. Keith could tell that I was disappointed and just comforted me. 

At this point, one of the nurses saw me grimace in pain and asked me if I was having contractions. I told her that I wouldn't know as I had never been in labour before. She quickly put the monitors on me and said that I was indeed starting labour. Good timing kid! And good thing that we were up next for surgery.

Once it was my turn, Keith went to get changed into his scrubs and they wheeled me into the OR to do the spinal. And a bit more difficulties. Turns out that I had Scoliosis and the anaesthesiologist was having a hard time getting the needles into the proper spots. It took him 30 minutes and multiple needles in order to get the spinal working. And he had to go 1 vertebrae lower than where he was supposed due to the fact that the place he wanted was either scarred or calcified. Great. He said that he was hoping that it would cover it, but if I started to feel anything, to let them know right away and they would have freezing needles on the side. 

Surgery started at 10:45am with Keith by my side, distracting me with conversation and at 11:00am, they pulled out baby. One of the nurses had asked me earlier if we knew what we were having, and we said no, but Violet was asking for a sister. They didn't tell us right away what gender baby was and then we heard them say that big sister was right. I looked at Keith and said "bunk beds?"

Yup, we have another girl! Dominique. And she looks just like Violet did when she was born. Complete with a full head of hair.

They handed her over to Keith and we got to hold her for a while before they had to take her to get weighed and everything. I told Keith to stay with her and I'd see them in the room when I was done. 

They wheeled me out of surgery around 11:30am (really, only 45 minutes!) and into Recovery. And they didn't even keep me very long in there, maybe 30 minutes before bringing me back to our room. It was nice to actually get some skin-to-skin time with Dominique and get breastfeeding established early.

And so far, everything's been great! Dominique is breastfeeding and sleeping like a pro. Violet loves being a big sister and constantly gives her little sister kisses and asks to hold her. She can almost say her name to "Donaneek." And I'm healing pretty good as well. It doesn't hurt as much this time around (mainly because they went through the scar tissue instead of fresh skin), so I should be back to normal in no time.