Babies 1st Outing (Well Sort Of)

My Mom is coming down starting tomorrow to spend the week helping me out with Sophia and around the house. She tried making reservations this morning but for some reason (they said security measures) they could not take her credit card number over the phone. She called me and asked me if we would be so kind to run over to the hotel (a block up the street) and finish her reservation for her. Not a problem I said. So we packed up Sophia and the diaper bag, got in the car, headed over to the Hotel and then got gas on the way back. Sorry, Sophi that your first outing wasn't more exciting. Quite anti-climactic huh? Oh well, there is plenty more to do and so much time to do it in.

Babies 1st Roller Coaster Ride (Not Really)

A friend of mine from work, Brandi, had given me a baby bouncer for my baby shower. She swore by the thing and said it would lull and angry bull to sleep. So we decided to try it. On Day #2 of being home, we put Sophia in the bouncer near the slider. It was open with a fresh breeze coming through. The sun was shinning and coming in right on the carpet in front of her. Bandit decided to curl up right in front of her bouncer and take a nap. So we decided to put her in it and try it out. What do you think? Do you think it works........

Bandit & The Baby

One of the first things we wanted to do when we got home was to get Bandit acclimated to Sophia. We laid her out on the couch and allowed him to come up and sniff her. He started at her diaper and sniffed and then sneezed. How appropriate. These 2 don't know it yet but instead of being Thing 1 and Thing 2 they are going to be Stinky 1 and Stinky 2. He then sniffed her legs and licked them a little. He got down to her feet and started licking between her toes and it just sent her reeling. Either too much stimulation or it tickled one or the other.

A little while later he came back and sniffed her face. He then made his way to her hair and started licking her profusely. He was preening her. Welcome to the pack Sophia. Bandit gives you 2 paws up.

Going Home Day

I was exhausted.Sophia had kept me up all night Thursday night. I had to sleep. I just had to sleep. So I took a nap around 9am and slept till about 11:30am. When I awoke, Dan was sitting at the edge of my bed starring at me. It was kind of creepy. He said are you awake I need to talk to you. I was instantly in a panic. He said Sophia was fine, then I asked about myself and he said I was fine. He said because I was doing so well recovering the Dr. had signed off on my discharge papers the night before and we were supposed to leave the hospital on Friday instead of Saturday. Discharge is at 11:00am everyday. It was now 11:30am. OMG!! Crap!! Pack the bags we've got to go. If we stay the insurance wont cover it. Oh no! Dan said to calm down. That because of the mix up and them not telling us we could take our time getting ready and packing up no big deal. OMG! What a scare. Dan had taken the liberty of packing his car with as much as he knew he could pack. Dan had been driving his car back and forth to and from the hospital since he slept each night at the house. The problem was the car seat was installed properly and was in my car. So while I finished signing paperwork, ordering my prescriptions, packing and cleaning up, Dan went back to the house, dropped off his car and unloaded it, picked up my car and headed back to the hospital. Lunch came and I took the liberty of sitting down to relax and eat. Dan finished packing the car, I packed up Sophia, we went down stairs to the pharmacy in my wheelchair, picked up my prescription, brought the car up from valet, packed ourselves in and headed home to start our new life as a family.......just the 3 of us.

Our Hospital Stay

Our hospital stay was awesome! If I could rate the hospital I would give it an "A+++". All of the nurses and volunteers were so nice and accommodating. They really did cater to our every need. They were so sweet. Given my c-section there is not much I can do about anything. They didn't want me out of bed the first day and a half. Someone had to hand me Sophia to feed her and take her away. Someone had to diaper her. Someone had to change my sheets, bring fresh linens, bring me my food and take my tray away, bring me my medicine and help me shift in bed so as not to have anything fall asleep. I was helpless and for this Type A personality chick this was hell on earth. Thank God for the staff at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance and my husband, they were such angels.



I started out on a clear liquid diet. It kind of sucks. They were afraid I might get sick from all of the anesthesia if I didn't. But eventually I was able to get back on solid foods. The hospital food was great actually. They even had a special celebration dinner for Dan and I. I ordered the Fillet Mignon and Dan ordered the salmon. It came with asparagus and yellow and orange carrots, twice baked potatoes and sparkling apple cider. And then to finish it all off, dessert was 2 tiny little pink cakes topped with white chocolate surrounded in white chocolate that read It's a girl. (This was my favorite part hee, hee!!!)

Poor Dan though, the fold out chair that they had for him pulled out into a twin bed. Our Postpartum room was 1/3 the size of our labor and delivery room and it was a bit cramped. Dan didn't even have the strength the first night to open it up. By the time it came to the second night and opening it up, we decided to send him home in the middle of the night to get some sleep. He would have been no good to me in the morning had we not. Plus, nurses were coming and going every hour on the hour to check my vitals, check Sophia's vitals, take blood, deal with lab results, deal with my I.V., give me my pain medicine (percoset, vicodin, Motrin- I.V. grade, and Demerol). Yeah, serious stuff. Could kill a body like mine- you know me I cut my Tylenol in half. Dan says I was so doped up during labor and delivery and then in the O.R. that I started telling jokes- really bad ones at that. I guess he told me to keep my day job and all the Dr.'s laughed.

When it was finally time for me to get up and down I was miserable. My belly and abdomen hurt so much. i don't wish this type of pain on my worst enemy. Thank goodness for hospital beds. I would have to incline the bed, use the side railing to roll myself over, lift myself off the bed with my arms, roll my legs off the bed and then sit there for about 5 minutes, until I could actually stand up. And then I would get dizzy and need another 5 before I could go any where. This got better day by day. Eventually I got the knack of it.

For a regular natural birth you get to stay in the hospital for 52 hours. For a c-section you stay for 96 hours. Our original check out was for Saturday but because I was making so much progress so quickly recovering the Dr. signed me off to go home early on Friday.

It's A Girl!!

We were having an emergency c-section whether I liked it or not. And I was terrified. I have never had major surgery like this before let alone being awake for it just boggled my mind.

They rushed me out of the labor and delivery room into the O.R. area for c-sections. I had 5 specialists who were Dr.'s 1 for the c-section, 1 for the anathesia, 1 for N.I.C.U. babies, 1 OBGyn and 1 surgery Dr. Each one of them had an attending Dr. as well and then we had a team of 5 nurses for the baby aftrwards to do the different things that need to be done for a c-section baby. I loved my anathesiologist Dr., Dr. Ingram. He was awesome. He was there for all 17 hours of my labo and delivery. He was the one who took care of my I.V. meds both times, administered the epidural and no he was going to be taking care of my meds duiring and after the c-section while managing my pain at the same time. He walked me through everything he was going to do before he did it, what everyone else was doing since I couldn't see (there was a sterile curtain put up between my face and my belly) and how the procedure was going to go along with blow by blow narration so I could follow along in the process. He was awesome. ( I even took the time to write out a comment card for him and drop it in the box )  After they were done prepping me, they prepped Dan and brought him in to the O.R..

The surgery took what seemed like only moments and then we were done. Dan was over in the corner with the nurses cleaning her up. But she wasn't crying. Why wasn't she crying? Dan got to cut the umbilical cord and wipe her down. He got to be apart of them weighing her, measuring her, dressing her and giving her the heel prick test and her vitamin K shot. Still no crying. I was still on the table getting sown back up when they brought her over to me and let me see her, touch her, smell her. Wow, you can totally tell she's Dan's kid. She looks just like him! They took her back and started doing some other stuff with her and she finally started crying. So at 1:20am on January 24th, 2012, Sophia Roselyn LeBlanc was born. 7 pounds, 9 ounces, 19 inches long, with a 13 inch circumference head. Yup that's right, my baby is going to be a genius with all that beautiful brain she's got. (That is exactly why I could not deliver her. My pelvic opening was 9 inches- my pelvis never seperated, she was way too big. Regardless she was built to be a c-section baby.)

Labor & Delivery

On Monday morning at 4:47 am I had a major contraction. A real one this time. Another one followed at 9:15 and then again at 10 and 10:30am. I called the Dr.'s office and they said just to make sure that my water wasn't leaking rather than breaking. So we packed up like we were going to deliver and headed off to the hospital. Sure enough, we were 2-3 cm dilated and my contractions were about 15 minutes apart. So they admitted me to the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 12pm. They wheeled me into my room and set me up with all of the monitors and started me on potussin (I think that's how you spell it) to induce my labor and get my contractions closer together. Once they were closer together and I was really starting to get into a groove I got some meds via I.V. to help take the edge off. We did this twice over a couple hours period of time. The contractions were right on top of each other and they were hurting like nothing I had ever felt before. So I opted in for the epidural earlier on to make sure I didn't die in vain during this process. LOL We then broke out the birthing bar and I proceeded to push for 6 hours. That's right......... 6 whole freakin' hours with no progress. I was toast. I couldn't do it any more. I was spent and I just wanted this process over with. I started to cry.

The Dr. came in and said we had 2 options: option 1 was to continue to push for a natural child birth (which is what we wanted and that he could use the forceps and vacuum on her head to guide her out. (Problem with option #1: I didn't want to push any  more, it wasn't going to be a natural childbirth any more because I had already taken all the meds and I was so tired and in so much pain that the idea of prolonging this seemed like sheer stupidity on my part). However, the Dr. said, he couldn't guarantee that it didn't turn out to be an emergency c-section if he still couldn't get her out. OK so option #1 didn't sound so good. What was option #2 looking like: emergency c-section now! Holy crap......now????!!! NOW!!!!! He said. My heart rate was going up, Sophia's heart rate was going up, I was starting to panic, I had run out of energy, I was now crying and this would be the fastest quickest way to end all of this. (Problem with option #2: Sophia's head was wedged in my pelvis. She was too low for the Dr. to do a traditional c-section. He thought the incision would have to be higher and much longer and probably still have to do an episiotomy to make sure he had enough space to get her out). BUT....... the Dr. said, he couldn't guarantee this one either.WHAT!!! Wait so you give me 2 options and neither are an option. What the FRACK! He said that it would be messy and not ideal either. The scarring would be bad and if he couldn't un wedge her from where she was would would have real problems. Oh my God I am going to die on the operating table having this baby. Holy Crap! (more tears) I looked at Dan and told him I loved him more than he would ever know. I told him he had to decide, that I had already checked out and was too emotional. That I was in no shape to make decisions and that I just wanted it to stop. Please make it stop I begged him. He opted for the c-section.