Hadley's Birth Story

I wanted to go ahead and write down Hadley’s birth story in its entirety before I forget any minor details.  First—yes—we had a baby girl!  Her name is Hadley Rose.  She was born on March 14, 2012, Wednesday (nine days late…) at 7:21 PM, weighing 8 pounds, 12.2 ounces, and she was twenty-one inches long.  She is beautiful. J  Let’s plunge right into the story.

My due date (March 5) came and went, with no dilating or contractions for me whatsoever.  On March 7, my doctor gave us an ultrasound to make sure that Hadley still looked healthy.  Everything looked good, so our doctor said that he was fine with waiting to see if she would come on her own.  It was so neat to see her ultrasound at such a late stage of pregnancy—I could see that she had a lot of hair, I could see her nose, lips, fat little cheeks, and all sorts of details.  It was thrilling, and we became more eager than ever to meet her.  After a few days of being late, though, I began to wonder if our little girl was ever going to come at all!

March 12 was when I hit 41 weeks of pregnancy.  Royce came with me to my OB-GYN appointment, since we were going to discuss possibly being induced on that day.  By March 12, Royce and I had decided that we were quite okay with being induced.  It wasn’t at all what we had planned on doing (we dreamed of the 100% natural childbirth), but we were growing more and more worried the longer Hadley stayed in my womb, and we liked the idea of being able to schedule when it would happen and know for sure that our doctor would be able to be there.  So when we went to the appointment, we requested an induction.  My doctor scheduled us to meet him at our hospital at 6 AM (ick!) on March 14.

The night before March 14, Royce and I had everything packed and ready to go for the hospital in plenty of time.  We went out to dinner at Qdoba, our last meal as just the two of us.  We splurged—instead of getting our usual burritos and waters, we got burritos, sodas, and chips and queso. ;)  It was a fun “last meal.”  For my induction, I was not allowed to eat or drink anything, even water, after midnight, so Royce and I went to bed at 8:30 PM.  We had an early morning, and wanted to get plenty of sleep before life got crazy.  I can’t say that I slept well, though.  I had been waking up every hour being very uncomfortable for the whole last couple of weeks of pregnancy, and this night was the same, except I kept on thinking I really had to use the restroom.  I kept walking to the bathroom and trying to do so, with no result (before everyone starts screaming, “Too much info!” at me, I’ll go ahead and spoil some of the story a bit and reveal that I was actually having contractions, which I mistook for needing to use the restroom!).  I was really discouraged.  I couldn’t believe I was about to head to the hospital being constipated, especially since I hadn’t struggled with that the whole pregnancy.

We had to call the hospital that morning to confirm that they had room for us that day.  They said that they did, but insisted that they had no record of me having pre-registered to deliver there.  Then I spelled out my last name, and they changed their tune.  I swear, I don’t know why our last name is so difficult for people!  We got to the hospital at about 5:45 AM.  We got a little bit lost trying to find the labor and delivery area, but still managed to get there in time.  A nurse checked us in, taking my insurance information and putting identification bracelets on us.  We were lead to a room immediately next door to the nurses’ station.  It was a luxuriously large room; Royce and I were quite impressed.  I was given my outfit that I would wear the rest of the day, and I went into the bathroom to change into it.  It was a little bit awkward walking around in the room afterwards, as the gown had a massive cut-out in the back, and I wasn’t allowed to wear underwear.  Oh well.  By the end of the day the entire staff of the hospital saw every last bit of me anyways, so it was good to go ahead and get rid of any modesty issues I was struggling with.  After I was changed, I sat in the bed and Royce and I had to answer a ton of genetic and health questions.  We had to sign papers stating everything that we said about our health history.  And we had to give the nurse a copy of my birth plan—ha!  We should have just gone ahead and thrown that out of the window.  At one point, my dad poked his head into the room to say hi to us.  We were pretty surprised as to how he managed to sneak himself back into that area!  But he, my mom, and sister were all out in the waiting area at 6 AM.  That’s dedication!

Our first nurse went ahead and hooked me up to a monitor to track Hadley’s heartbeat and fetal movements to see how she would respond to contractions.  At one point, I sheepishly admitted that I was quite constipated, and it was decently painful.  The nurse looked at the monitor and back at me, asking, “Are you having pain right now?”  I said yes.  She responded, “OK… you aren’t constipated. You’re having a contraction.”  Ha!  Oops.  I’ve never heard anyone describe labor as feeling like you have to use the bathroom, so that justifies my confusion somewhat.  My doctor came in to say hi to us and see how we were doing.  He checked me out when the nurse told him I was having contractions and told us that I was already three centimeters dilated!  This was quite an accomplishment, considering that at our appointment two days prior I was not dilated at all.  He left shortly thereafter, promising to check on us throughout the day.  I was quite impressed; I have never heard of a doctor checking in on their patient throughout the day, I always just assumed they came in at the last minute when it was time to push.  But my doctor did check in on us several times.

After being connected to monitors, it was time for my IV.  I had to get an IV, as the pitocin for my induction would come through it (even though I was contracting on my own, the pitocin would help to speed it up, too), and I was also Group B Strep positive, so I had to get antibiotics (penicillin) pumped into me throughout labor to keep Hadley from getting infected.  When I was twelve-years-old, I had a horrible IV experience where they tried to give me an IV on the inside of my elbow, missed the vein, and blood poured all over me in a matter of seconds.  I told the nurses this and said I was nervous, but instead of calming my fears, they responded, “Unfortunately, things like that happen sometimes.” Gee, great.  They took my right hand and pricked the outside of it to place the IV there, and oops—couldn’t find the vein.  They pulled the needle out and proceeded to pierce my left hand.  Again, oops, no vein.  The needle was pulled out a second time.  Everyone decided to joke about my tiny veins, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the moment, and my hands were hurting considerably.  Finally, one of the nurses put a warm compress on my arm to make my veins show a bit better, and they found a vein on my right wrist that would work.  Finally, after getting stabbed three times, I had an IV, and was being induced.  Honestly, this whole IV process goes down in the books as my third worst memory of the day.  Also, the penicillin burned quite a bit going into me, so we kept having to call our nurses in to lower the dosages all throughout the day.  At this point, it was still 7:50 AM.

After I was all connected to everything, I definitely began to feel the contractions strengthening.  Royce and I had taken some Lamaze classes and set to work breathing through them.  My back began to ache.  My back had hurt a lot in the last third of pregnancy, and I was not at all happy about it affecting my labor too.  It was really hard to deal with both the contractions and the back pain, but I was determined to tough it out.  My doctor came in to check on me again and asked us if I wanted to go ahead and have my water broken to speed things up some more.  We were happy to do that.  So he went ahead and broke my water at 8 AM—I did not feel a thing, except a slight trickle on my legs.  Then we were told that I no longer had the option of getting up and walking around, now that my water had been broken.  I was devastated—walking around was always my only way of relieving my back pain during pregnancy, and now I would not have that option during my labor.  I began to consider that it might be nice to get an epidural and avoid the back pain entirely.  When we had begun to consider being induced, several sweet ladies had emailed me and told me how much they loved being induced and having epidurals, and I began to think that it would be pretty nice to not be in pain and be able to sleep through the whole thing (especially in light of the fact that I had barely gotten any sleep the previous night).  So Royce and I talked about it and decided to request an epidural the next time a nurse came in our room.

At 9:30, an anesthesiologist came to our room to give me my epidural.  To get an epidural, you must stay perfectly still so that the shot can go in the right area.  This was really tough—I was kind of moving around a lot during contractions, and I knew that staying still would be really hard.  I had to sit on the side of my bed with my head down towards my legs and my back arched in an angry-cat pose.  Royce held me on my right side and my nurse held me on my left.  I just buried my face into Royce’s arm.  It.  was.  horrible.  I always said that I wanted to deliver naturally because I assumed that the pain of an epidural would be far worse than the pain of contractions.  Honestly, it is.  But for most women, at lease the epidural pain is over with quickly, while contractions linger all through labor.  That’s for most women.  For me, I had problems—just like with the IV, for some reason, the epidural was not going to the right spot, despite me being perfectly still.  I could feel it jammed up my back and being pushed around.  Finally, the anesthesiologist pulled it out and then tried again a little higher on my back.  I could feel this one a lot as well.  I remember gasping and squealing several times.  And I remember crying all over Royce’s arm.  I’m pretty sure I was squeezing the life out of him and my nurse.  Finally, the epidural reached its intended destination and they got to stop hurting me.  There was a student present who was studying to be a nurse, and she actually left the room at one point during the epidural.  I don’t know if it was too much for her to handle or what.  But it was horrible.  This easily takes the cake for the worst memory of the day. 

Immediately following the epidural, the nurse student came back in and was allowed to put in my catheter, since I would no longer be able to use the restroom on my own.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about this, since she was just a student, but since I had an epidural and couldn’t feel it anyways, I didn’t say anything.  It seems like she did a fine job, she certainly did not have to try multiple times like with the IV or epidural.  After this whole process, life was grand!  I couldn’t feel a thing.  Royce and I just chatted and hung out.  He kept telling me that I was having contractions (you could see when they were happening on my monitor), and I could not feel them.  I would just smile.  Royce had some snacks and a few Cokes (lucky!) while I got to munch on ice chips, the only thing I was allowed to consume.  Royce’s parents arrived, and we allowed both them and my parents and sister to come back and visit with us for a few minutes.  Oh, I should also say that earlier, before my epidural and before Royce’s parents arrived, we let my parents and sister back to visit with us then as well.  Obviously, this second visit was a bit more pleasant, since I was my normal pain-free self.  After our family went back out to the waiting room, Royce and I slept.  And slept.  And slept.  It was wonderful.  With this being our first child, we did not realize this is the last time we would sleep so well for a very long time. J  Royce did not sleep as much as I did, and he spent a lot of time journaling the whole experience for us and keeping our parents up-to-date via Facebook messages.

By 3 PM, I was 8 centimeters dilated, and I was 90% effaced.  We figured Hadley would surely be with us in a matter of a couple of hours.  By 5 PM, nothing had changed at all, but Hadley was starting to drop slightly, although she was not dropped completely or “locked” in the birth canal yet.  My epidural was beginning to wear off, and I had to start breathing through contractions again, so our nurses sent in another anesthesiologist to up my epidural dosages.  That solved the problem.  I didn’t have to get pricked or anything this time, they just put more fluids in the tubes that were already going into my back.  About this time I began to shiver uncontrollably, and I felt very cold.  I tried to keep my blankets wrapped around me as much as possible.  I also began to throw up- I threw up three times in the 5 – 6 PM timeframe.  Luckily, as I already mentioned, all I was allowed to eat all day was ice chips, so I was just puking water.  Because of the IV, there was no risk of me getting dehydrated, which I was initially worried about.  Our nurse at the time told us that my contractions prevent anything from going into my digestive system, so I should probably slow down on the ice chips.  Sad day!  Needless to say, I was quite thirsty by the time I was able to drink and eat anything (very late that night…). 

At 5:30, our nurse checked my dilation and said that things were still not improving.  She reached up and felt Hadley’s head and told us that she seemed to have turned herself, so instead of her facing down towards the table, she was now facing my leg.  She pointed out that while she wasn’t our doctor, she thought he would make the same observation and we might need to, “evaluate other options.”  Our hearts sunk.  We knew full well that “other options” means a caesarean section.  This was the absolute last thing that we wanted to do.  We hoped that she was wrong.  At 6 PM, our doctor came in to check the progress himself, and he concluded the same thing— at some point during my labor, Hadley had turned.  Furthermore, he observed that her head was quite large, and he said that she would probably not be able to fit through my birth canal because of that.  I was still not dilated more than eight centimeters, and Hadley was not locked into place at all.  Because she was not yet stuck in the birth canal, though, it would actually be a good thing for the c-section, as all the doctor would have to do is push her back up.  But anyway, because of Hadley’s large head and her turning, our doctor recommended that we should, in fact, get a c-section.  He told us that we could wait another couple of hours to see if things would change, but he told us that he doubted very much that I would contract any further than I already had, and even if I was able to push Hadley out, I would probably tear substantially. 

Royce and I were both seriously devastated.  I was scared to death of getting a c-section, and had done very little research on the process of it or recovery from it.  My sister and I used to have a “pregnant Barbie” that had a removable tummy with a baby instead, and I always envisioned c-sections happening the same way as that Barbie- the tummy has a huge circle cut out, it is pulled off, and the baby is pulled out.  Haha!  Needless to say, this is a pretty scary thought, and I definitely did not want this happening to my stomach.  I was also scared of having stitches or staples put in me, and I remembered that I could feel when I had my stitches taken out after my wisdom teeth surgery.  The doctor did not really leave us alone to talk it over, but Royce and I just sort of looked at each other and apprehensively agreed to the c-section.  My doctor left to get ready.  We both began to cry.  It was terrifying.  It was nice to know our little girl would be with us soon (c-sections only take about five minutes), but I could not really think about that at the time over my fearfulness about what was about to happen to me.  You are only supposed to have two visitors come in the room to visit with you at a time, but our nurse told us we could call in our whole family to break the news to them together.  Not to mention, we would need them to take our luggage for us (we could not stay in our labor and delivery room, as c-sections have to be done in a separate, very sterile area, so our parents were to take our luggage with them to the waiting room and then bring it to me in our recovery room).  We thought this was very nice of the hospital to allow, and Royce went to the waiting room to get our parents and my sister.  We broke the news to them together and gave them a brief summary of what had happened in the last couple of hours.  Royce did a good job of holding himself together, but I had a hard time holding back my tears.  My mom and sister seemed almost as torn up about it as I was, and I hated to worry people, but it was very difficult to keep calm.  Hugs were given by all, and then our family departed with our stuff.

A nurse came in and shaved me.  I was then lead out of our cozy room and into the c-section room.  It was even colder in there.  I was shivering a lot.  Royce was not initially allowed to come with me, as they apparently need ten minutes to clean me off and ready me for the surgery before he would be allowed in.  While he was waiting, they gave him some scrubs to wear, a full outfit cover, a mask, a hat, gloves, shoe covers, etc.  You could barely tell the difference between Royce and the doctors!  I was so scared in the room without him.  My doctor came in, along with a few other doctors—I did not count, but perhaps there were three others in addition to him, there were several nurses, and my anesthesiologist.  People kept coming up to me and introducing themselves, telling me they were going to help me.  I tried to thank them, but I surely looked quite pitiful, as I was shivering so uncontrollably and also crying and whimpering non-stop.  A lady from my church, Kimberly, was actually there, as she is a nurse at that hospital.  That was really cool, and a neat surprise.  It was good to see a familiar face besides my doctor, especially once the curtain was put up and I could not see my doctor anymore.  Not to mention, Royce was not yet back.  While everyone was getting me ready, my doctor talked to me a little bit about if I was happy to be ending my pregnancy.  I told him how much I loved my big belly and how beautiful I always think pregnant women are.  I also told him how easy my pregnancy had been.  He was quite impressed, and he told me that he was always impressed with me at my visits because I never seemed miserable like most pregnant women, and I always seemed very grateful.  I felt very honored that he said that about me. 

The anesthesiologist upped my epidural quite a bit so that I would not be able to feel anything from my breasts down.  I could feel my body slowly going numb.  The room was very cold, bright, and white.  After I was all ready, a few of the doctors and nurses lifted me up off of my bed and on to the table.  I was happy that the curtain being draped across my body was really high and really thick, so I knew there was no chance I could see over it or through it.  It was placed right beneath my neck, and my arms were draped out to my sides, so they were all of me that I could see.  Royce got to come back in and sit next to me on my right side.  It was so good to have him there again.

The doctors explained that I would feel some tugs and pressure, but no pain.  After that, they got right to it.  I did not feel any pain, although I did feel some pressure as promised.  I stopped crying, but I was so nervous and breathing so heavily I thought I might hyperventilate, so I started to do my labor breathing techniques with Royce again, and that was a huge help at calming me down.  I am probably the first woman to do breathing exercises in the c-section room!  At one point, the anesthesiologist, who was standing to my left side, explained that I was about to feel a huge pressure running up my chest that would make me feel like my breath was being cut off.  I was really glad that he told me that, otherwise I might have panicked when it happened.  That was really the worst part—overall, the c-section was not a bad experience.  When my doctor first got a good look at Hadley inside of me, he told me that, “She has a full head of hair and some really chubby cheeks!”  What joyful news!

Hadley's first picture.

And then at 7:21 PM, it happened.  I heard a sudden sharp, brief cry.  It was my Hadley’s first sound, and I will never forget it.  I began sobbing.  Poor Royce asked me, “Is that a happy cry?”  “Yes, I’m very happy.”  But after that, I did not hear Hadley make any more noise.  One of the doctors told me to not panic, but Hadley had swallowed some of the fluids from the amniotic sac as well as some of her own waste, and they were trying to get it out of her lungs.  This was actually quite a bit more serious than they made it sound—I found out later that she was given the apgar score of a 3, which is critically low.  But at the time, I trusted the doctors and did not panic.  Soon enough, Hadley was crying normally.  She was lifted to where Royce could see her (I could not), and Royce exclaimed, “Oh, Kasey!  She’s so beautiful!”  Hadley was moved to an area to be cleaned off and taken care of (I still could not see her) and Royce went over there to be with her, take pictures, etc.  During this time, the doctors stitched me back together.  A lot of tape was then placed on my stomach to hold everything together— like, a lot of tape.  The nurses were commenting on how they were having to use way more than usual, and a couple of days later when it was taken off, the doctor complained about how much it was.  My doctor leaned over and told me that Hadley had, in fact, been turned to the side, and in addition to that, her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice and around her body, as well. WOW.  What a great God we serve, that He ordained me to have a c-section.  Had I delivered vaginally, Hadley very easily could have been strangled and died.  Praise the Lord that she was turned and that a c-section was recommended!

Remember how earlier I mentioned that getting the epidural was the worst memory of the day and getting the IV was the third worst?  Well, the second worst memory of the day was definitely my shivering.  After Hadley came out, I began to shiver violently.  The whole thing was so frustrating—I could barely think of anything else, and I honestly felt like I was freezing to death.  Nobody was giving me warm blankets or anything, I guess because of the c-section.  I just kept shivering and shaking.  And I could not even see Hadley, or Royce for that matter.  I tried a couple of times to yell questions at Royce about Hadley, but he only heard me once.  My voice was pretty faint and weak, and the doctors stitching me up and fixing everything were talking about March Madness, so they were probably drowning me out.  But I just sat there miserably, wishing I could see my daughter and husband before I froze to death.

Finally, after what seemed like a half hour (it was probably closer to ten minutes) Hadley had been cleaned up, measured, and all taken care of, so Royce got to bring her over to introduce her to me.  This will make me sound like a horrible, horrible mother, but because of my shivering I honestly cannot remember what the first thing is I thought when I looked at her.  But I remember that she was sobbing, and he was holding her upright to look at me.  She was all wrapped up in a blanket with blue stripes on it, and she had a little pink and purple knit hat on her head.  I asked Royce to move her down towards my right arm so I could touch her.  He did, and I was able to muster the energy to stroke her cheek.  I tried to lean over to kiss her, but couldn’t, so Royce brought her close to my face and I was able to kiss her forehead.  I remember Royce saying, “Oh Hadley, your first kiss!”  She was beautiful.  She had lots of hair, just as I had hoped for and just as the ultrasound made it seem.  Her nose and lips were perfectly cushy, and her little cheeks were chubby as advertised.  She was perfect.  Our doctor, and all the other doctors and nurses, congratulated us on our daughter.  Our doctor said that we had a, “Big Bambino!”  And he also said, “Congratulations… you have a toddler!”  Haha.  They also told us that she was so big they were putting her in size one diapers—crazy!  Fortunately for us, who had bought a ton of newborn size diapers, we’ve been able to put her in those since then.  After the congratulations, everyone cleared out. 

Our first family picture.

Kimberly took us to another room where I was able to hold Hadley on my chest, skin to skin, and bond with her.  This was the first time I got to hold Hadley, and thankfully the epidural was wearing off quickly.  However, I was still shaking as violently as ever, and honestly, I was having a hard time even focusing on Hadley because I was so focused on myself.  By this point, my jaw was aching from my teething clattering together so much and me trying to clench it to fight against the chills.  I felt like a horrible mother.  But after a while, the shivers went away, and I felt wonderful holding my baby girl.  Kimberley walked us through breastfeeding and we got a little lesson on it.  She filled out paperwork on Hadley.  After we had been in the room for about a half hour, a nurse came in and said that our family was inquiring about us and asked what details we wanted to give them.  I was pretty shocked that our families had not been informed of Hadley’s birth yet.  I told the nurse to tell them the answers to whatever questions they asked. 

Finally, it was time to take me to the recovery room and Royce and Hadley to get her first bath and get some tests run on her.  They were saying that they would take Royce and Hadley by the waiting area so that our family could see her briefly.  I was not happy about this, as I wanted to be there with them when our family got to see her.  Thankfully, the nurses agreed to take me out of the way so that we could go out together and I could see their reactions.  It was so weird being wheeled out into the hallway in a bed.  One nurse was wheeling me along, one was wheeling Hadley along in her little hospital bed, and Royce was walking alongside us.  When we got to the main hallway, my dad was already out there, talking on his cell phone.  When he saw us coming, he got off the phone and went into the waiting room and brought out the whole family with him.  By this point, my sister’s fiancé Scott had arrived and was there too.  Everyone came out and ooh-ed and aah-ed.  Hadley just stared up at everyone and they all flashed pictures of her.  My sister started crying.  Hadley kept looking, then her little chin began to quiver, and she let out a little cry.  Everyone responded with, “Aaawwww!”  Scott asked me how I was holding up, which I thought was very sweet, since everyone else was much more interested in the other lady Hall. ;)  After that, Royce and Hadley parted ways from me, and I was taken to the recovery room, which was really nice and spacious.  Our family followed me up there.  By this time, it was 10 PM.  I was able to fill everyone in on everything that had happened and correct some of what they thought—the nurse who passed on Hadley’s information told them that she was seven pounds and twelve ounces, but she was actually eight pounds and twelve ounces.  We spent a long time talking.  A nurse brought me my first food of the day, a purple Blue Bell Popsicle (I ordered maybe a dozen more of these during the rest of my hospital stay) and some jello, and a big pitcher of ice water (which I refilled maybe every two hours at the hospital, no joke!).  Finally, at around 11:30 PM, Royce and Hadley arrived, with Hadley freshly bathed and having been pricked a few times. L  Everyone passed her around and took pictures with and of her.  Then they all left at midnight so that we could be alone.

 So, that is the story of Hadley’s birthday.  Reading over it, it seems like a horrible ordeal, but it really was not—the bad things are just the most interesting to write about, I guess.  I slept for most of the day, and could not feel a bit of the c-section.  In the end, I got a beautiful baby girl.  I would not change a thing. 

I will make the rest of our hospital summary much, much quicker…  That night, nurses came in to check on Hadley and me about every half hour.  We didn’t sleep at all, despite constantly being told to get our rest.  Ha!  How could we possibly?  I kept looking at Hadley, as we had her little bed directly between my bed and Royce’s couch bed.  She was always looking all around the room, not sleeping (or crying) at all.  It was a little weird!  In the morning we felt fine, I guess from all the excitement of everything. 

The next day was Thursday, and Royce’s parents spent the morning with us before heading back home after lunch.  They (and Royce) ate at Dairy Queen for lunch (this was the only time Royce left me during my whole stay), and brought me back a Moolatte, which I had been missing a lot during pregnancy due to my cutting out caffeine.  That was so sweet.  Royce’s parents brought us some pink bubble gum cigars to give visitors, and a little pin for Hadley’s clothes that says, “I watch the Wildcats with my daddy!” because it was March Madness time and the University of Kentucky was expected to do well (they won it all, by the way!). My mom and sister came by and spent some time with us, too.  That evening, we began to receive visitors.  All through the day we were frequently visited by nurses, and I was constantly given medicine and readjusted in my bed.  Every day we got visits from a doctor representing my OB-GYN office (it was my doctor twice, including the day I was discharged, which was nice) and visits from a doctor representing Hadley’s pediatric office.  These visits began today.  The doctor from my OB-GYN office took the tape off my stomach.  I had my monitor taken off my arm, but a new one was placed on one of my toes.  I also got my catheter taken out, which was kind of scary since I meant that I now had to get up to go to the bathroom.  Because of the c-section, I literally could not get out of bed or back in bed (or up and down from the toilet, for that matter) without Royce or a nurse’s assistance.  The other highlight from today is that at dinner time I was allowed to start eating solid foods.

On Friday I began to feel tired from the lack of sleep.  I got my IV taken out.  The woman who took it out said that she was surprised that I was a c-section patient, because I did not seem out of it.  That made me feel good!  All through Thursday I had some warm compress things on my legs that were keeping my circulation going, and those were taken off today.  By Friday evening, I had my toe monitor taken off, which meant that I was now a free woman in terms of not being connected to wires anymore.  On Friday morning I was told I should take three walks around the nurse’s station that day (basically just three 100 yard walks).  I still needed help getting in and out of bed, but I could limp around three times fairly easy.  One time I took Hadley with me, pushing her in her little cart.  We continued receiving visitors today.  The nurses stopped needing to monitor my urine output today.  At night I got to take my first shower, which my mom helped me with.  This was the first time I looked at my c-section stitches.  I was surprised to find out that I did not have a full-stomach cut-out like I expected, but rather just a small line (maybe about six inches long?) running horizontally right above my bikini line.  This was really cool, because it is not nearly as easy to see as I thought it would be, and it’s really small.  I also found out that it was sealed with a type of glue, not with traditional stitches or staples, so I don’t have to get anything removed!!!  Yay!  So both of my big c-section worries should not have been worries at all.

On Saturday I became able to get up and down from bed on my own.  I had to walk around the nurses’ station five times.  I was able to go to Hadley to get her myself for nursing or to change her diapers—this was nice, since it meant that Royce did not have to wake up and be involved every time Hadley needed to eat.  Royce’s sister, Lori, and her husband Patrick came in town to meet Hadley, and they (along with Royce’s parents, who got back in town on Friday night after they got off work) stayed at our house and visited us at the hospital all day.  I felt a little bad because we had to constantly kick everybody out so I could nurse, as Hadley and I were struggling a bit with getting used to things and we were constantly needing assistance from nurses and lactation consultants.  That night, my parents, sister, and sister’s fiancé stopped by as well, so we had all of Hadley’s immediate family together.  I remember that it hailed horribly this night, and Royce and I watched it from the window of our room, feeling so removed from the rest of the world in our little hospital room.

Hadley's immediate family.

Finally, it was Sunday, the day we got to go home.  My doctor came to see me one last time.  Our pediatrician came one last time.  The hospital brought us a video on Shaken Baby Syndrome that we had to watch.  Royce’s family came in and we visited for a while while I waited for the lactation consultant to pay us one last visit so that we could be discharged.  She finally came (quite late, as usual- she always had us waiting for hours, but was very helpful once she got there), gave us assistance, and then we were done!  The hospital sent in a bunch of papers for me to sign off on, and then they sent a guy in with a wheelchair.  Hadley and I were dressed and ready to go—it was so weird to be dressed in my own clothes and to have dressed Hadley, too!  Royce’s family gathered up all of our belongings, and we all headed out together.  It was kind of fun to be wheelchair-ed around the hospital.  We got to our car, strapped Hadley into her car seat (which took a while—we probably should have researched a bit more how to buckle a kid in!), and then we were headed home, to embark on life as a family of three.

Heading home and waving!