leigh49137

this does and doesn’t have anything to do with keeping my house clean…. read on and you will understand…

esterday afternoon janie came down with the stomach virus. yes, THE stomach virus. because it was the kind that caused projectile vomiting and head spinning in a 360° circle.

when i picked her up from daycare, we went straight to nana and pop’s house. i went to the back of the car to scoop her up out of her car seat and told her, “let’s go tell nana what happened.” to which her reply was, “tell nana that i bad?”

i about cried. this child seriously thought that because she was sick and throwing up, that she was being bad. it took some explaining, but i made sure that she understood that being sick did not make her bad. she was a sweet, sick little girl.

pout

so janie and i stayed nana and pop last night—which was an event within itself. i haven’t spent the night at my parents’ house in a VERY long time. and now i remember why. my sister’s old bed (which is where janie and i sleep when we do stay there) IS HORRIBLE!!!! it feels like you are laying on a piece of plywood and covering up with sandpaper.

yeah, it’s that bad.

not to mention, i was sleeping next to someone who had to vomit after drinking ANYHTING and who thought she was dying of thirst—because she could not hold anything down. poor chld. she was in tears over not being able to drink. because there came a point that i just had to tell her, “darlin’ i can’t let you keep throwing up like this… no more gingerale.”

you would have thought i put her big toe in a vice grip and pinched it to death from the screams and crys that came out of that child’s mouth.

after 3 different shirts for me, 4 different shirts for her, and 2 sets of pajama bottoms each, we made it through the night.

and i have to finish off with this:

STOMACH VIRUSESSUCK!!

hospital time! we got to mobile infirmary WAY before we were scheduled to be there, but i figured it was better to be early than late. right? the first thing i remember is being taken back to the labor and delivery ward of the hospital. they kept asking me if i needed a wheelchair (with which i eventually got VERY annoyed because i hadn’t been treated like an invalid so far during my pregnancy – so why start now?). when we got to my room it looked like a hotel room. there was a huge television set and a couch and a couple of chairs. the only thing different was the bed (of course it was a hospital-style bed) and the bathroom didn’t have a tub – only a strange looking shower with a chair in it.

anyway. i had to change into one of those beautiful hospital gowns and take my place on the bed. the nurse inserted cervidil to ripen my cervix (because at this point i was not dilated AT ALL). the contractions started IMMEDIATELY thereafter. at first they were only mildly uncomfortable. but it did not take long for them to become harshly unbearable. for the first twelve hours, i went without any pain medication. about every hour the nurse would come in a check me. i was in too much pain to sleep. chris couldn’t sleep because i couldn’t sleep.

around six in the morning on the 19th i was started on pitocin through my IV. the contractions became so strong that i relented and asked for nubain. this helped me for the next 6 hours or so. the contractions were getting stronger and stronger, but i wasn’t dilating hardly at all. i ended up only getting to 2 centimeters in 18 hours of labor. at 11:30 that morning, my nurse (who had spent the past 10 hours with me and was becoming my best friend at that moment) took my hand and said, “darlyn…i know you want to put off having the epidural as long as possible….but you really need to have it done. your contractions are getting harder and harder because of the pitocin and seeing your eyes roll back in your head like that every minute or so is really starting to freak out your husband.”

so i relented again and said okay to the epidural. it took about 20 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get to my room and perform the epidural. it didn’t hurt. amazingly. but i think i was in so much paid with the contractions that it didn’t matter i was having a 20 gauge needle stuck into my spine. it took within minutes and it made ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. no more pain. i could actually have conversations with people that lasted longer than 30 seconds. it was WONDERFUL.

there was a fetal monitor on janie’s head the whole time i was in labor and delivery. they were keeping track of her heart rate, during labor, a baby’s heart rate drops during contractions and then recovers back to the normal rate. at 12:26 the fetal heart monitor showed that janie was in distress. i had a contraction (which i couldn’t even feel then because of the epidural) and janie’s heart rate dropped, but did not recover. (by recover, i mean come back all the way up – her heart was still beating, but at a much slower rate). by the next contraction, her heart rate dropped even lower.

in that moment, i was told that it was time for an emergency c-section.

tears started to flood my eyes. even chris was crying – because he knew how scared i was. i was so glad that i had already had the epidural. because it took about 10 minutes for it to take effect, and now we didn’t have to wait that extra time. janie needed to come out AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. chris and i decided that my mom could be in the operating room with us – for which i am very grateful. because of my mom, i have some wonderful candid photos of janie’s birth (not the surgery) and they turned out beautifully.

janie ann marie was born at 12:36 p.m. on january 19, 2004. she weighed exactly 8 pounds and was 21 inches long. her eyes were dark blue and she didn’t really have that much hair. she mostly looked like a cute little sumo wrestler (i’m sure she will really appreciate that one day). her head was perfectly shaped (since she was born by a c-section, there was no need for forceps or that vacuum-thingy).

because of my gestational diabetes and the insulin dependency, she was born with very low blood sugar. she was kept in the nicu for the first 12 hours of her life on a glucose-iv. that was the ONLY problem with her. actually, that wasn’t even a problem. she was PERFECT.

and most times, she still is.

p.s. the recovery from the c-section wasn’t as bad as i had thought it would be. it wasn’t exactly FUN, but if i have another child, i plan on having another c-section. i promise.

for the next two days, chris and i cleaned house. and i mean CLEANED. we scrubbed the bathroom, did some finishing touches on the nursery, washed the curtains throughout the house. you name it, we cleaned it. we even thought about ripping up the carpet in the nursery because it had been down for so long. but we didn’t end up going that far. i finished packing my bag for the hospital (actually i packed two…one for a regular delivery and one for a c-section – because we would have to stay in the hospital longer with a c-section) by saturday night, i was so exhausted that i fell asleep at about half past seven. the next day was almost BORING. because we were so jittery the day before we had done EVERYTHING we could think of to be ready for the new baby.

we had to be at the hospital on the 18th at 6 o’clock in the evening. we spent the whole day waiting for 4:30 (which is when we decided to leave for the hospital – it’s about an hours drive). i have never watched so much television in one day as i did that day. i was sore from the day before (from over-exerting myself while cleaning) and all i wanted to do was lay in my new recliner that my parents had bought me for Christmas.