Annie's arrival!

I was a little nervous about the pre-op stuff at the hospital, but it went really smoothly this time.  They had changed it up since we had been there with Noah, but I kind of think it was even better.  And it was SO much better than Tomball.  The only trickiness was that they could not get any blood out of me for the bloodwork stuff, so they had to call the blood people, whom I am now bffs with.  Of course Josh got his lovely scrubs to put on - you can't tell from the picture but they were pretty funny cause the top was a bit too small - they are those papery ones - I swear if Josh flexed they would have popped at the seams.  I love it!

And of course I got my lovely hairnet.  I was really put at ease when I went into the operating room, too.  We were there a few minutes early, so I got to talk to the nurses for a while, and see all the prep that goes into slicing someone open!  The anesthesiologist was super nice, too, and he made me feel really confident, unlike the last delivery.  The best part I think about this hospital is that they wait to do just about everything until you are numb - not to get into the nitty gritty details, but it is super nice and makes you feel completely at ease! 


A few minutes in Josh got to come into the room, which just made me relax even more.  There were a few times during the surgery I thought I would totally puke, and as soon as I said something Bart (yes, that was the anesthesiologists name!) was right on top of it sticking something in my iv/epidural that made me feel completely better.  To be honest, I still was not completely convinced we were truly going to have a girl, so I was a bit nervous.  Right before they pulled her out Bart tells Josh to get ready, so Josh stands up, but he was really far off cause he was nervous about seeing all the blood and stuff.  So Bart tells Josh, "Get closer!"  Josh told him he didn't want to pass out, so the anesthesiologist seriously rips the camera out of Josh's hands and gets right up in the drs business and starts snapping pics!!!  It was great!!!  I won't share those here cause they a tad bit disturbing, but if you would like to see I will show you!  Bart was great.

Of course the big moment came and this was my first vision of my little angel (please forgive the grossness of it all) - Josh snapped a pic at just the moment they brought her around the screen for me to see.

Pretty disturbing, huh??  But I was just so happy to see she was really a girl and Josh didn't have to freak out!!  My first thought was that she looked really chubby!  She was born at 1:17pm and weighed in at 7 pounds 6 ounces, so I guess she wasn't really chubby at all!

After this point things get a bit fuzzy for me, memory wise.  The one thing I do know is that I just about had a panic attack right there on the operating table.  It wasn't a pain like feeling the scalpel or anything, but just more like someone was just punching all of my internal organs.  I truly started to freak out.  I'm not really sure what all I said or did, but Bart gave me something fantastic, and I don't really remember anything else.  I was nervous about this happening, cause they knocked me out last time, and I missed the first 4 hours of Wyatt's life, but this time I was awake around 10 minutes after the surgery was over.  Bart did a really great job!  Later on I talked to Dr. Samuels about it and she told me that she had her hands inside me feeling around the peritoneum (the sack that goes around all your organs) feeling to make sure everything was OK, and that it is super super sensitive to pressure, and lots of people feel sick from it. 

Now this is the best part of the surgery - Annie got to stay in the operating room with us!  Normally, with a cesarean, they take the baby to the nursery right away, and lots of places keep them for hours.  With both of the boys they were taken for 4 hours before we got to see them or even try nursing.  So I talked with my doc about this and she said that there was only a small chance they would let me see her and nurse.  She told me to get a letter from our pediatrician saying that if room was available we would like to room in immediately following the surgery, instead of me staying in a recovery room for hours.  So I told the nurse when we were getting checked in and ready, and get this - she's just said OK.  She asked if we wanted to keep her in the room the entire time, or if we just wanted to nurse and then let her go to the nursery.  She actually gave me options!!!!!!  It was craziness.  So she just called the nursing desk and let them know we were going to do that and they set me up with a delivery room to nurse and recover in immediately following the surgery.  So instead of her being whisked away 5 minutes after her being born, Josh got to hold her for the entire rest of the surgery.

The nurse snapped this adorable shot of them.  Now, what happened in the delivery/recovery room, well, that's a story for another day!!!!