I had a premonition that she would arrive before her scheduled date of May 6! We were hoping that she would stay in there until 38 weeks, and she did…by about an hour!
On Saturday, we decided to have a family day at the zoo and the park to celebrate C’s 2nd birthday (more on that this week!). Much to my surprise, I did not experience a single contraction with all of that walking we did. That was really unusual. So what happened later that night shocked me.
At 8:00pm, right after we put C to bed, I started experiencing regular contractions that were 3 minutes apart. They were extremely painful and were accompanied with (TMI alert!) that lovely clear-out-your-system-it’s-go-time diarrhea. Since I’ve had so many regular contractions that end up stopping, I waited until about 9:45pm to call my doctor.
Our lovely babysitter (aka lifesaver!) arrived at 10:30pm to stay with C until my parents were able to get there. They live about two hours from us. Hubster and I headed to the hospital!
We got to the hospital at about 11:00pm. I was 2cm dilated and 60% effaced. Hubster said, “Do you think they’ll send you home?” I looked at him with eyebrows raised and replied, “If this isn’t labor, God help me because I don’t know what is!”
They started prepping me for my c-section at midnight. I started to get a little nervous, remembering my terrible experience last time. They reassured me of some things, like that they wouldn’t put in my catheter until after the anesthesia started to work (last time it was quite painfully done before my epidural kicked in). Unfortunately, I had an interesting little experience during the spinal that made me nervous…
Thankfully, my nurse had my head against her chest and one of her thighs against each of my knees while the anesthesiologist was doing the spinal, because they hit a nerve – twice. Each time, I screamed out and kicked my right leg as I felt what seemed like an electric jolt through my leg. It was so weird, and I started to shake from adrenaline. Apparently it’s relatively common and doesn’t mean I’ll have any effects except for those two jolts; but it was enough to make me a little on edge.
I was more numb during this surgery than my last c-section. Yay! I barely felt a thing except for a little pressure when they were pushing her out. Adrenaline made my teeth chatter throughout the surgery, though. I was freeeeezing. But everything went really well, and my recovery is actually going amazingly better than last time. My entire experience from the moment I arrived at the hospital through my current recovery experience and care has been completely different from last time. It’s so much better that I can’t even compare it!
Baby Deuce, hereby referred to as Baby Jo, was born at 38 weeks on April 28 at 1:13am. She was 6 pounds, 14 ounces and 19 inches long. She is perfectly healthy and so teeny tiny! I think she looks a lot like her brother. 
When I woke up on Saturday morning with the same four-minutes-apart contractions, I went into full on nesting mode. I did the dishes, washed the newborn pacifiers, unloaded the dishwasher, did some more laundry, filed papers that I’ve been neglecting since we moved (a year ago!), changed the sheets, did some more work and completed some other random tasks that I can’t recall. I think the urgency in my eyes motivated Hubster to set up the pack n play in our bedroom and the crib in C’s room. That required rearranging C’s bedroom furniture. Hubster was on a roll, so he also rearranged furniture in our office.
