Going Home Day!!

It's day 4 and we are going home (ready or not!). 

Going home day always seems to take forever.  You know you have to leave so you're just ready to get on with it but it seems to take forever to be officially discharged.  I have patience issues. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at home, resting.  Meme and Papaw had taken Lily for the day so it was a nice and quiet arrival home.

When they dropped Lily off, they had Kjestine and Whitney with them, who were getting to meet their new cousin for the first time. 

That night, putting Lily to bed was a SERIOUS problem.  She threw probably one of the biggest tantrums I have ever seen.  Screaming her head off.  Crawling out of bed.  It lasted a couple hours when all was said and done.  Oh man.  What are we in for now?

Hospital - Day 3 Tyler Daniel Basham

When I woke up Friday morning, I was ready to commit to a name for our new baby boy.  Whew!

Tyler Daniel Basham

What a relief!

We also had lots of visitors on the third day in the hospital!

Emily and Chris Eadler stopped by.  Chris was educating me on the various pain medicines I was taking.  : )

Stephani and Jason Hoy came in to see the little guy.

Aunt Pam and Uncle Larry also stopped in to meet our new addition to the family.

Papaw Jim finally held Tyler!

And now the not so great part.  With my C-section with Lily, I wound up with a terrible, itchy, yeast infection all along my incision due to the pain pump leaking all over me.  When all was said and done, it was 3 weeks before everything was diagnosed and sorted out and I was back to normal.  So this time, I said, if that pump leaks even ONE DROP, I'm pulling it out.  I can handle increased pain in the hospital for 3 days way more than I can handle itching for 3 weeks.

Of course, it leaked.  The nurse pulled it out the night of the surgery.  She pulled off the all the tape, except the strips over my incision.  Whew, I thought.  Crisis averted.  The nurse was nervous to take out it without doctor permission, but I assured her I had already talked to the doctors about this and they were fine with it.

However, the next morning....I was ITCHING.  NOOOOOOO!!  I had a rash.  It was awful.  I call the nurse and ask her to take a look and told her what happened last time.  She gave me the medicine I needed to treat a yeast infection and we moved on with the day.

Nope, not working.  The doctor looks at it and thinks it's a tape allergy but he doesn't know.  They prescribe an anti-histimine and tell me to put cortisone on it and I'll be fine.

Day 3.  NOT FINE.  It's getting worse and I'm going NUTS.  I had a total meltdown that afternoon, right before we got our influx of visitors.  I was begging and I mean BEGGING, for help and relief and to have this sorted out before I was sent home.

It was not.  :(

Hospital - Day 2

The second day in the hospital was pretty calm.  My baby was deemed ok by the doctors and was no longer under constant watch as of the evening before.  I didn't get much sleep that night...my brain just wouldn't shut down long enough to fall asleep in between the feedings and nurses doing their thing.

I wasn't able to keep any food down after my surgery - hard to imagine being so hungry but unable to keep it in my stomach!  I kept trying to eat, thinking, I was all better.  But I was not.  Anyhow, on day 2, I made up for it.  I was ready to eat!

Mom and Jason came up to visit.

Marie came in that evening to try to take some pictures of the little guy.  It didn't go too well.  Everybody was tired and cranky and hungry.  :)

I had spent a lot of the day trying on different names for my beautiful son.  I was still struggling.  Sigh.....we had it narrowed down to two names but I just couldn't decide.  Nurses kept on asking me if we had a name yet.  The administrator who fills out the Social Security and Birth Certificate stuff stopped by and asked me.  No pressure, but we need a name.  Gah!  Joel and I settled in one direction and I said I wanted to sleep on it one more night. 

Hospital - Day 1

After the doc stitched me all up, I was moved to recovery down the hall where I met up with Joel and my new baby boy.  I was soooo thirsty the first thing I did was ask for a drink of water!  Then we worked on getting baby "hooked up" to get a drink too.  He did ok during his first try at breast feeding but he didn't latch on quite as quickly as his sister.

I'm in love already at this point!

Joel and baby were with me for quite a long time in recovery.  It seemed like last time, they let me try to breastfeed Lily and then they whisked her off immediately to the nursery to be cleaned up.  This time, they let me dictate when I was ready for my baby to be separated from me.  That was a nice change.

All the grandparents were very excited to meet their new grandson as he was wheeled out of recovery!

Proud Grandparents!

Sorry folks....no name picked out.

I had to spend a little more time in recovery.  I had to show I could move my legs and I had to stop requesting morphine for at least 15 minutes.  It's amazing how motivated you can be to lay off the drugs and deal with the pain if it means you get to see your baby again sooner!

Then I was reunited with my baby!

Then it was Meme's turn to get her hands on the little guy!  Papaw's a little too skittish with the babies on their first days of life.  He wasn't ready to hold him yet.

And about that time, Mom comes in with Lily who she just picked up from daycare!

Tentatively touching baby brother

Kisses for Mama

Kisses for Baby Brud-her

Lily holding her baby brother for the first time

Around this time, the nurses are fluttering in an out checking on me and checking on the baby.  My poor little boy is making this very sad whimpering, whining, grunting sound and has been every since he came out of the womb.  Two or three different nurses said, "I really don't like the sound that he's making."  So they whisk him off to the nursery to be checked out by the doctor on call.

Honestly, I wasn't too worried.  This same thing happened with Lily, only it was two days after she was born instead of the day she was born.  Baby boy was having a little bit of a hard time catching his breath.  This is apparently very common in big babies who are not squeezed through the birth canal.  There is excess fluid in their lungs that doesn't get pushed out and it causes them to labor a little when breathing.  While that doesn't sound like great news, I guess I remained calm because I had been through it before.  But I did make sure to voice my opinion VERY LOUD to EVERYONE who would listen, that under no certain terms was my child to be given a bottle in lieu of breastfeeding without my being consulted first (this happened with Lily). 

So it was hard to not see my baby for most of the rest of the day while he was being observed but I busied myself with talking with family and watching Lily open her "big sister" presents!

I hope she doesn't think she always gets a present on her brother's brithday!

Dora!  Could we get her anything else?

We also talked with the grandparents and my sisters about name choices.  We needed some help or outside input or reactions or something.  And by "we," mostly, I mean me.  Joel was over it.  He wanted to pick a name and just move on already.  I just couldn't get there yet with what I thought the right name should be.  We didn't come to any conclusions, but at least I had some other inputs to bounce around in my brain.

Finally, later that evening, they brought my precious boy back to me and we were able to get a family photo on baby's birthday!

I'm looking a little worse for wear at this point in the day and Lily was in major meltdown mode from being over tired, but I was determined to get this picture!

Kisses

Hugs.  Lily was very sweet toward her baby brother!  We'll see how long this lasts!

Baby Boy Basham - Welcome to the World Little Buddy!

The day started like any other day. Get up, get ready, get Lily dressed and get her breakfast and take her to daycare. But then instead of going to work, I came home and tried to keep myself busy and distracted until it was tme to go to the hospital to have this baby! I wasn't feeling too nervous. Mostly I just felt HUNGRY (silly rules about no eating before major surgery....pfff)!  I did some last minute packing, took some pictures with Joel and then it was time to go!





Peanut #1
39 weeks 0 days

Peanut #2
38 weeks 4 days



Once we got to the hospital things moved fast at first but then it was a lot of waiting before the surgery. It was even a lot of waiting before they put the IV in.  With Lily they did that right away. While I was waiting I was starting to get more nervous but more about having surgery than having a baby.

Finally they came to get me and walk me to the OR. Of course I'm just wearing a hospital gown so my butt was hanging out. They draped another gown over my back but everything still felt a little too breezy for public. :)  Having surgery is not a time for modesty!

Once in the OR the anesthesiologist got started on my spinal. It's the strangest thing when you can't feel your legs and even stranger to rely on other people to move you around. Very weird experience.  Once they laid me down on my back I immediately felt nauseated so they stuffed this wedge under my right side to get the weight off of whichever major nerve it is that runs down that side of your body.

At this point the doctor still isn't in the room and neither is Joel.  My shoulders, near my collar bones, started hurting. It felt like something was crushing me.  I remembered feeling that same sensation with Lily.  I just wanted Joel to be there so he could rub my shoulders or do something to take my mind off the major discomfort I was feeling.  I started to cry.  The anesthesiologist thought I was kind of weird ...guess I came up with a complaint he'd never heard before!

But before too much longer the doc comes in and asks me if were doing a "tubal." I had no clue what he was talking about. Apparently its not uncommon on a repeat C-section for them to go ahead and tie your tubes "while they're in there."  I said I wasnt ready to say no more babies but told the doc not to ask my husband cause he might have a different answer!

About that time, Joel walks in and things start rolling.  Dr Albers was doing this delivery whereas Dr Davis had delivered Lily.  I didn't know what to expect but things were different with Dr Albers.  For one thing, Dr Albers was using an "electric knife" (his words).  It was evident something was different because I could smell my burning flesh.  Cool, eh?

I think it was also very different this time because this baby wasn't breach.  When Lily was born, she was in there wrong side up and so it took a lot of pushing around on my belly - shoving this way and that way.  I suppose to get all the appendages in order to come out that 6-7 inch incision.  This time, since the baby was head down, it mostly took a couple giant pushes from the nurse and out came baby! 

 All the while, both the doctor and the nurse keep saying, "Oh my this is a big baby. Oh boy, we got a big one. This really IS a BIG baby!" 

Once baby was out, I had to ask, "What is it??"  (Cause it totally didn't go like in the movies where the doctor proclaims the gender right away...)

The doctor and Joel said at the same time, "It's a boy!" 

Then Baby Boy Basham cried.  I cried.  It was beautiful moment.



The doctor said, "A 10 pounder for sure!"

He was right.

Then everyone asks, "Does he have a name?"

Oh sh*t, we were supposed to figure that out, weren't we??  Whoopsie!

More to come on "A Baby Story..."

Crazy Pregnancy Dreams!

Pregnancy dreams are so vivid and real!!  Early this morning, I had a crazy dream. 

In my dream, I had twins.  A girl and a boy.  My dream starts at the point where I get home from the hospital, but I only have the baby girl with me.  A few days later, the baby boy shows up and when he does, he's HUGE (he looks 6 months old).  He's about 2x the size of the baby girl.  Seeing this ginormous boy makes me realize that I have not fed the baby girl even ONCE since she was born!  Not even in the hospital!  I start to panic because

a)  I can't believe that the hospital didn't remind me to feed my baby!
b)  I can't believe this baby girl did not cry or tell me she was hungry and I can't believe I did not remember to feed her!
and
c)  I'm freaking out because I'm worried I missed my window to breastfeed and that my milk will be all dried up!

So I immediately commence trying to breastfeed both babies at the same time and it's all ok because the milk starts flowing and dripping everywhere like a leaky faucet.  Neither baby knows what to do and they are getting milk all over their faces.  Then my 6 month old newborn baby boy looks at me and smiles and has TEETH.  So now I'm really freaking out cause I'm afraid he will bite me and it will hurt.  It doesn't occur to me that my newborn should not have a mouth full of teeth. 

I get both babies to nurse for like a minute and then they are done but I've still got milk spewing out everywhere. 

Then I wake up. 

Let's anlayze:

• Apparently, I'm having a little bit of subconscious anxiety over breastfeeding?  I think the teeth thing comes from my good friend who's baby boy got his first teeth and is using them on his poor mama.
• What's the deal with twins?  I can't explain that one.  This isn't the first time I dreamed I was having twins. 
• The boy twin being 2x the size of the girl twin is probably my brain telling me that this boy that I'm pretty sure I'm having is, in fact, huge and will likely be bigger than Lily was. 
• Why didn't my dream tell me the NAMES of these two babies?!?!!?  Now THAT would have been helpful.  Haha!

Now, while that dream was strange, I have to say it doesn't beat the dream I had very early in my pregnancy (about 8-10 weeks along).  After that dream, I typed it up and emailed it to Mom, Jenny and Katie.  I've decided to republish here for documentation purposes.  And to give everyone a good laugh.

***************************

So in my dream, the three of you [Mom, Jenny, Katie] and Lily, lead by Jenny went to the "Blue Dress Lady Luncheon." I guess this is the equivalent of the Red Hat Ladies only for this group everyone wears fancy blue prom-like dresses. Apparently Jenny joined this group and invited Mom and Katie to go along. And so you all invited me to come to Evansville because you wanted to take Lily with you but you didn't tell me about the Blue Dress Ladies. So somehow you tricked me into giving you Lily so you could take her (in a very fancy blue dress) to this luncheon.
Only once you all come home, dressed up in your fancy blue dresses and done up hair, do I realize that you've all gone somewhere together - without me. I was not welcome. Jenny, specifically, did not want me to wear a blue dress and come along. She told me that I did not belong in the fancy blue dress group and I would ruin everything and so she didn't tell me about. She was so flippant about it. Like I should just KNOW that I am not Blue Dress Lady material. Duh. So I got really mad and I bit her. HAHA!

So then I go after Katie to find out why she didn't tell me about the Blue Dress Lady Luncheon. And she told me to buzz off and get a life, it's just a Blue Dress Lady Luncheon, what's the big deal? I tried to punch her because it really made me mad that she was so nonchalant about the whole thing but she ran away too fast. LOL!

So then I go to Mom, absolutely hysterical, screaming at her, crying wanting to know how she could BETRAY me like this and not tell me about the Blue Dress Ladies. She said that she had too much respect for Jenny's wishes that I not be there and she promised not to tell me. Her hands were tied. Sorry. I didn't try any physical violence with Mom but I did scream and scream and cry hysterically. Mom felt a little bad for me but she still thought she did the right thing.

In addition to me not being invited, I wanted to know how you all thought you could just take MY DAUGHTER to the Blue Dress Ladies Luncheon without my permission. She's MY KID. What nerve you have to think you can take her! You all thought I was being unreasonable and way overreacting.

And then I woke up. Thank god! It was exhausting with all that screaming and crying and punching and biting!

But...then I drifted back off to sleep and entered another dream that had some leftovers of this dream involved. Namely, Jenny was still mad at me. So the timing is "present day" but "present day" is somehow like Christmas time (like it was literally Christmas in February or some nonsense). We were all somewhere strange....the room sort of had aspects like Grandma Fonner's front room (that flower couch) but also had aspects like Grandma Wittgen's kitchen (a fridge with the freezer on the bottom). I can't figure that part out. Anyhow, we've all opened presents and then Jenny tells everyone she's 7 weeks pregnant. I tried to give her a hug but she hugs me like I'm covered in pig sh*t or something and doesn't want to touch me! And then I wake up.

Weird, right???

"Trigger Happy" Tears

I got a call from the doctor's office yesterday morning to inform me of my appointment time for the c-section. Unfortunately the hospital was all booked up on 9/6 and the operating room schedule is a little crazy next week due to the holiday on Monday....soooo....they moved the surgery up to Wednesday 9/5! Ahhhh! I am happy to say that the appointment time is for 12pm and I have to be there at 10am!  I'll take it!  That's so much better than a 5pm surgery time like they gave me with Lily.

Unfortunately, this news sent me in to a full on panic attack and I spent the better part of yesterday trying not to cry while sitting in meetings.  :(  I think having a firm date and surgery time just made it very real and I began to panic about EVERYTHING.  And I really mean everything.  I'm going to blame pregnancy hormones because most of what I was worrying about, I shouldn't have been worrying about.  Jenny helped "talk me down" and I'm bit calmer today (but still a little twitchy and trigger happy with the tears - ha!).

In Lily news (I'll spare you the latest tantrum story....), she has finally started getting out of bed on her own without me telling her she can get up.  She gets out of bed and usually brings Ellie and Dora with her so her hands are full.  Then she stands in front of her bedroom door and yells "Get out?!  Mommy?  Get out?!  Daddy?  Get out?!"  She can open doors, but apparently she's not willing to put Ellie and Dora down so that she has free hands to open the door.  So funny.  We'll have to see how long it takes her to figure out all she has to do is put them down for just a second and then she can free herself. 

In Peanut #2 news....we still don't have names picked out.  Well if it's a girl, we might be ok.  But I'm still pretty sure this is a boy, so I take no comfort in having a girl name somewhat sorted out.  Why is this so hard?!?!?!  No one be surprised if this kid is called "baby" for 24-72 hours after birth.....

On the plus side, I did order diapers today for the new baby!  Yes!  Now I just need to think through all the other things that I need to make sure we take care of this weekend (washing baby clothes, sterilizing pacifiers, what else??).