I believe I might have had one of the easiest pregnancy and I felt very lucky. Delivery is where my luck ended.
Although labor with Evelyn lasted awhile, the events of her actual delivery went quickly. Evelyn was born very blue in color, listless, and with the cord wrapped around her neck. Once they placed Evelyn on my chest, Andy and I agreed how beautiful she was, yet we looked at each other and then frantically (and repeatedly) asked if she was going to be okay. Evelyn stayed on my chest for what seemed like a fraction of a second before the nurse rushed her over to the warming crib where we (for a lack of a better term - maybe April can fill me in on the correct term) watched them "rough her up". They rubbed her vigorously, trying to get her to breathe.
Almost at the same instant we heard a little cry and saw a little more "life", I suddenly felt cold. Very, very cold. It turns out I was bleeding heavily and so far they were not able to cease the bleeding. From this point on events become hazy and there are major gaps in time where I don't remember much. Friends and family helped me fill in some of these gaps, but the memories are really their memories, not mine.
I was carted off to a surgery room, not to reappear until hours later. I woke up in an intensive care unit with no real understanding of why I was there, what happened to me and no idea where my baby was. I was surrounded by my parents, sister and husband. All trying to calm my repeated cries for help; to stop the pain, to stop the IV, to stop everything...just to take me home with my baby. Hearing the stories of how I pleaded for my family to help me, made me realize how hard that must have been for them to hear (and not be able to take it all away). I now realize that they were already helping me by trying to calm me, keeping me in my hospital bed, telling me that Evelyn was safe and beautiful.
Once I was more alert, I asked if I could see Evelyn (who was in the nursery on another floor). Due to newborn security issues (thank gosh for those), I had to wait for hospital approval. Once approved, a few nurses and my husband (Andy) pushed Evelyn's crib to my ICU room where mother and daughter finally received a little time to bond (somewhere around 10 hours after Evelyn was born). My time with Evelyn that night was very short, I was still groggy from major surgery. Evelyn was brought to me again the next day, once again for a very short period of time, before I had to go back into the surgery room for a follow-up procedure. During the first 24 hours of Evelyn's life, I was only able to spend about 1 hour with her. Sad and not at all how I imagined my time would be spent after giving birth to my first baby. The good news though...all the thoughts about "poor bonding" that can develop if mother and baby are not together during the first hours appear not to be true with Evelyn and me, or our family in general.
We made it through the Pregnancy Bliss and Delivery Horror to have our Beautiful Gift. We named her Evelyn Kennedy.
