Feats of Getting Festive & Early Christmas Presents

Getting Festive

So I know I haven't blogged in quite a while & that this latest post is super late, but it will probably be extra long. So here it goes.

The last two weeks have been really eventful for me & my family. On Saturday, the 6th, Nick, Desiree & I went to get our Christmas tree so we could start decorating. Now usually we wouldn't have started so early, but I wanted to be able to help with the decorating (no matter how minimal it was). So, we went up to Safeway to pick the perfect tree, once we decided on one we had to get it tied on to my car (for those of you who don't know, I have a little '89 Mustang, two door, one of which doesn't open) to get the tree home, thank goodness we only live up the road from Safeway. So we finally get home with the tree & poor Nick has to make some 'adjustments' on it so it would actually stand in our tree stand, once that's done we got the tree inside & started putting the lights on it. Once we got the lights on we ran up to Wal-Mart to get some little adhesive hooks so we could hang our stockings. When we got back home we lit up the tree & Desiree & I started putting the ornaments on the tree, she did such a good job (when she wasn't playing with the ornaments), after the tree was all decorated Nick put the hooks on the wall & we put our stockings up, Desiree put her stocking & baby Emily's stocking on the wall just like a big girl. Here are some pictures of the finished product (it's not much).

So that's our festive living room, not much, but Desiree was excited about it (especially the Christmas tree). The days that followed consisted of us getting ready for our new addition. I washed all of her baby clothes & crib bedding so it would be all ready to be worn & slept on when she got home. Nick put together the crib & the changing table in Desiree's room. I also busied myself packing up baby Emily's diaper bag with some clothes for her to wear home from the hospital, & a bag of clothes & other essentials for myself to have too.

The Big Day

So, Thurday got here super quick! Let me tell you, it was by far the wierdest day of my whole life!! I had an appointment to have a baby....how wierd is that?!?! So, it's Thursday morning & Nick & I are getting ready to leave for the hospital. We of course had to get all of my stuff together & wait for Hila & Mom to get to our house so they could watch Desiree while we were in the O.R. When they got here Mom had a HUGE grin on her face (I love you Mom), she's hilarious; I was nervous & so was Nick (he was going to be in the O.R. with me). We got to the hospital & got set up in my room. When we got in there I was told to go in the bathroom & get my gown on after I took a dry bath...haha, that's what it felt like to me anyway (wierd). After I was done with that the nurse came in & hooked me up to a monitor to listen to baby's heartbeat & monitor my contractions. By this point I'm super hungry (I wasn't allowed to eat or drink after midnight on Wednesday night) & thirsty. Nick went out to get the bags out of the car while the nurse started my IV. That was an experience. She started my IV in my arm, but it wasn't working so she had to pull it out & start again, so she put it in my hand instead. She got the needle in, & when she pulled out the needle to leave just the tubing, SPLAT, I leaked quite a bit of blood on the floor (she said that she had found a good vein, but it still wasn't a nice experience). After that I got another nurse (the nurse that was gonna be in the O.R. helping w/ my C-Section). She got me all prepped up for my surgery & brought in the gear Nick had to wear in the operating room, then the Anasthesiologist (spelling?) came in to meet me & tell me exactly what he was going to do & tell Nick where he was going to be sitting for the whole thing. About 10 minutes later it was time to go in to the O.R. Now I was getting really nervous & poor Nick was getting whiter with every step closer to the O.R. We got in there & I sat on the table to get my epidural done (thank goodness I didn't see the needle, Nick said it was HUGE), that didn't feel too good :( I hate needles. After that, they helped me lay down on the table (I couldn't move my legs) & got me all hooked up to the monitors. While they were doing all of this & we were waiting for Dr. McMillan to get in I started freaking out! I did not like the feeling of not being able to move my whole lower body at all, & then it started getting hard for me to breath!!! Talk about scary & uncomfortable. They assured me that all that I was feeling was completely normal, but I still wasn't calming down much (poor Nick, I scared the mess out of him, he was white as a sheet!) I was moving my upper body around a lot, the Anasthesiologist thought I was gonna fling myself off the bed (or table....whichever you prefer) & tried to calm me down. I finally started to calm down & stopped moving, but I still was scared of what I was feeling & was now hot & sweating. Dr. McMillan got in & they got started. First they put the sheet up, then Dr. McMillan said she pinched me super hard to make sure I was good & numb (apparantly I was because I didn't feel a thing), then they got to work on my tummy. Poor Nick was pretty scared & he could hear everything that was going on & being said, I could too, but I could also hear like a fuzz noise (kind of like white noise) & was trying to block it out. I guess I didn't look too good because Nick wanted me to look at him & talk to him to make sure I was doing alright (I had my eyes closed & my hand on my forehead...it helped me stay in the zone to stay calm, helped me feel better). The Anasthesiologist kept checking on me to make sure I was alright & was telling us what was going on (with the baby & what he could see of her), he told Nick that he could look over the sheet to see Emily's head Nick who looked like a ghost by now just gave a scared shake of the head & stammered that he was gonna just sit here with me (I don't blame him). At 12:17 baby Emily was completely out, the minute she hit the air she was screaming & crying (that made it all worth while!) & ready to go into the nursery to be cleaned up. Nick decided that for last part of the surgery he was going to go w/ Emily into the nursery. Here are her very first pictures, taken right after they cleaned her up in the nursery. She was exactly 7 lbs. & 19.7 inches long. when she was born. I'm glad he did because I started feeling nauseated. So the Anasthesiologist gave me something for nausea & then brought me a little basin to get sick, i won't elaborate why i got sick (Tarylyn, you probably know why). They finished getting me all back together & then took me back to the room. It was just me & Nick for an hour after the C-section for my recovery. When I was able to have visitors Hila, Mom & Desiree came up to see me & baby Emily, I still didn't have the use of my legs but all in all felt much better now that I was back in my room. When the nurses came to check on me, they told me that I wasn't warm enough (even though I was burning up) from the surgery so they kept putting warm blankets on me to try to get my temperature back up; they also had to keep pumping fluids into me because I was dehydrated, so even though I felt "fine" (as fine as can be expected after major surgery) I apparantly wasn't doing very well. Thank goodness for all the wonderful nurses that took care of me (& baby Emily) while we were at the hospital, they were absolutely wonderful! Here are our first pictures together.

She's so beautiful!! Don't I loook gorgeous too.....HAHAHA. :) Thursday was a very busy day. We were in the hospital for a total of 3 days. We got discharged on Saturday, & even though we were all expecting me to get discharged in the early afternoon at the latest, the doctor didn't get in todischarge us until like 8 pm!!!



How absurd, he didn't even have a good reason for not discharging me at around 3 pm he was on the labor & delivery wing to see patients at that time, he left to have dinner or something at like 5 pm & still hadn't come to discharge me, while my doctor came in, the day before, on her day off to see me & check my incision. So that was about the whole of my hospital visit. Here are more pictures from our stay at the hospital.