The rest of the morning was torture. I had been told not to eat anything since the night before an I was starving to death. I sent Cody away so he could eat or watch TV or something. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts so I spent the next few hours wandering the halls, and spending a lot of time looking at the new babies in the nursery. Our little girl would be here soon and I felt happy.But right along with happy, I felt a lot of labor pains. I'd been warned that an amnio could send me into labor and sure enough, they were right. The contractions started almost as soon as I was off the U/S bed. They strengthened a lot as the morning went on and I decided that no matter what the test results came back as, this girl was on her way. To my delight they results were good and her lungs were perfectly developed. So I found Cody and we headed to the pre-op room where they took some blood and I changed clothes.
At that moment I felt really giddy and for a while, Cody and I seemed to be like our old selves again. They monitored me and the baby for a while as we waited for Draper to arrive. The contractions got stronger and stronger and at one point we debated whether or not to try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). I know it's all in the past, but there are few days that go by that I don't regret having a second c-section. As it turned out, the baby was in the perfect position and she was very small. I probably could have sneezed her out with our complications. But I was scared of the unknown. For goodness sake, the last several months had been full of nothing BUT the unknown.
So we headed to the O.R. It seemed like a dream. It was all a blur. At first I didn't hear her cry because she had a lot of gunk in her lungs. Then they had to give her a few puffs of oxygen and then she screamed bloody murder. My daughter, my sweet girl...had arrived at 2:05 p.m. She certainly was small. Only 6 pounds 5 ounces and 18 inches long. But she cried and got a bright pink color to her.
Within a few minutes they got her cleaned off and she was brought over for me to see. I turned my head as much as I could to face her. She looked perfect in her tiny white cap. Her eyes were puffy and swollen, but she looked at me and I know that right then, she knew me. What we had been through during those months together...how would I ever be able to explain it to her? And how could I have ever thought the things that I did about her? She was beautiful. Hailey Jane had arrived. And I'd like to say this is where the story ends and that we all lived happily ever after. But in that second, the story had only begun.
