12/30/2011: Gil's Birth Story- the really scary day

On the 30th, I woke up and thought to myself, "Whew- we really dodged a bullet!" I was sore- a lot sorer than I had been with Vake's c-section- but willing to chalk it up to the nature of the emergency- there wasn't time to do the spinal (obviously) or to give me the other drugs that, even though they make me pretty nauseated, really cut through the pain of the incision.

So my Mom, sister and my sister's mother-in-law, Lety, had all been able to come and pay me an early morning visit- poor Anne still had to get back to Baltimore and keep on working!- but it was great to see them.

At that point, the nurse came and took Gil back to the nursery for the pediatrician's check up. The pediatrician is great- she's very thorough and very careful. She came back to the room to tell me- and of course this didn't mean anything to me- that she thought that the femoral artery pulses were weak and she was going to order a few more tests.

As the morning passed, the incision pain continued to increase for me until I asked for some morphine. As someone who likes to think that I've got a high threshold for pain, the whole experience of having Gil had been pretty humbling so far- I couldn't tough out natural childbirth and now my incision was hurting. Oh well. So much for being tough.

So, I was basically out to lunch on a mind vacation when the pediatrician called me back to tell me that the results of the study hadn't been normal- she was saying a lot of words that I just couldn't understand. I asked her to call Eric- and she explained it to him- the specialist from mcv would be looking for an abnormality that would mean open heart surgery.

What a long afternoon that was- the nurses gave us updates and every doc in the place it seemed was taking a look at him. There's basically nothing more terrifying in the world than hearing that the cardiologist has called in a NICU consult.

So at the end of this day, the cardiologist (who turned out to be someone that I used to babysit for!!!) brought Gil in and told us that everything was going to be just fine!!!!! Apparently Gil's chunky little thighs had kept the pediatrician from getting the pulses- and then there's still so much going on with newborn hearts that they kept on getting these weird results.

The upshot is that we've got a followup at 6 weeks, but all is well!!!!! Hurray!!!!!