Heavy rain fell on Houston Sunday night and early Monday morning. As Pete has hilariously explained here, Houstonians are skittish about all severe weather this year. Even though we are used to heavy rain, everyone compares big storms to Hurricane Alicia or Tropical Storm Allison. I stayed home from work on Monday and played with Boo Boo and his favorite Leap Frog Table as he tried to fight an ear infection. We leisurely watched the weather on TV from the warm, dry, living room floor. I remembered watching the weather with a great deal more intensity about 9 months ago. That was the week that Hurricane Rita threatened Houston and mass evacuations ensued. Instead of heading up 290 to Austin, however, R and I drove to the Medical Center and camped out for Boo Boo's birthday.
On Thursday, my son turns nine months old. He's been a part of this outside world for a week longer than he was inside me. I never posted his Hurricane Rita birth story because I didn't start my blog until he was about 5 months old. Maybe one day he will want to read the story, and I've been wanting to write it down. So, my handful of faithful blog readers, here you go.
From about the 30th week of my pregnancy on, Boo Boo was in some kind of breach position at each doctor's appointment I went to. He would twist and turn slightly, but was never head down. By about 36 weeks, my doctor wanted to talk about the possibility of a C-section if the baby didn't turn. At 37 weeks, Boo Boo was still breach. We scheduled two more appointments about 4 days apart. If there was no position change, we'd do a scheduled C-section at 39 weeks. My last day of work was Monday, September 19th. On Tuesday, I went to lunch with R's coworkers. They were very sweet, and had brought me presents. R's boss got me a blanket and outfit from Gymboree (I love that store's sale racks!) that had been gift wrapped. If you've ever had that store wrap a present for you, you know that Gymboree puts the present in a box, and then uses a giant circular sticker to tape a piece of ribbon on the box to hold it shut. They have flowers, soccer balls and cookie shaped stickers. R's boss had chosen a globe sticker. She had taken a Sharpie marker and drawn the projected path of Hurricane Rita on the map of the Gulf of Mexico and Texas.
People were beginning to talk about the storm. My law firm had started moving boxes in the hall to interior offices. I was so focused on the baby, though, it didn't really hit me that we might have a hurricane hit Houston in the next few days. I watched the news that night in a daze and got more than a little concerned. R let me take a bubble bath and went to Home Depot. He came back carrying a big plastic container of apple juice, scared. Home Depot was out of batteries and the store was rationing plywood. He stopped at Kroger and they were out of water, so he bought juice instead.
I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday afternoon and we went to Super Target that morning. I had never seen the shelves of canned goods empty. No more battery powered fans. No garbage bags. No flashlights. We just looked at each other, wide-eyed, down the empty linoleum expanse as my cell phone rang. It was my doctor calling to make sure I was still coming to my appointment. Several patients had cancelled because they were evacuating, and he wanted me to come in early so we'd have more time to talk and discuss options. As we headed down to the Medical Center and I checked my Blackberry. My firm was closing on Thursday and Friday, and they were letting people go home on Wednesday to make evacuation arrangements. I suppose the potential severity of the situation still hadn't completely hit me, because the first thing I thought was, "Score! If the firm is closing, that's two days of vacation I don't have to take. Two more days with my baby before I go back to work!"
The doctor's visit was sobering. The baby hadn't turned. The doctor didn't want me to risk going into labor during the middle of the storm and not be able to get a hospital. I would have completed 38 weeks on Thursday, and the doctor recommended a C-section the next morning. He explained that he lived in Pearland, and would be moving to the hospital's on-call room for the next 5 days. He held my hand and said "Whatever this storm brings, we'll go through it together. I'll be there too." He explained that all the nurses were staying with their families at the hosital too. I was scared. I don't like deviating from The Plan. I had The Plan all mapped out in my mind, and had a packed hospital bag with a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting and What to Expect the First Year highlighted with sticky tabs. As you can probably guess, The Plan did not involve a hurricane. So even though I had a million questions, I kept repeating the same one: "But can't we just wait until after the hurricane?" The doctor explained that the safest thing for and the baby was to do it now. "Houston isn't New Orleans, and we know what to do in the Medical Center after Tropical Storm Allison, but I can't have you going into breach labor during a hurricane" he said. So I was set. Go do some blood work downstairs to save time the next day, and report back at 6 am the next morning.
The stupid nurse taking my blood scared me. She said she was leaving town that day even though the hospital had asked her to stay and work because there was no way she was going to stay at the hospital with her family in the on-call rooms all weekend. "It's going to be horrible here," she said. Nice. Just what you tell someone about to hunker down in a hospital room for 4 days. She also said I'd have to take off all my jewelry, including my gold bracelet. "No," I thought. "I won't." The first time R said I love you to me, he gave me a gold bracelet. It's a simple chain, but he saved his money for it, he put it on for me, and I hadn't taken it off for over 10 years. It doesn't come off in metal detectors at the airport, when I'm swimming, never. When I told her I wouldn't take it off, the nurse told me they'd cut it off. I couldn't bear for that to happen, so I took it off that night and cried a little. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
My mom had been worried about a c-section since the moment the topic had come up. Our master bedroom is upstairs and she was worried about me climbing the stairs. I was worried about staph infections, staples, and the removal of a uterus. I sat on the couch that Wednesday night and watched R move all our furniture to the middle of the room in piles feeling a bit helpless. My lists were not a comfort to me, just a reminder that I was about to give up a lot of control, and that was worrisome. We live up in Northwest Houston and weren't that concerned about the hurricane force winds, but if it flooded, at least the expensive stereo equipment would be on top of the sofas. We didn't sleep much that night.
I woke up bright and early on Thursday morning, September 22nd, took a shower, and loaded the car. We tried to get out of our house on to 290 and the traffic wasn't moving. It looked like people had been waiting all night on Wednesday night to get out of town. I got scared--what if we didn't make it down there? R took Hempstead Highway for a while and then traffic cleared up inside the 610 loop. Everyone was headed outbound to Austin. We drove to the hospital and checked in. We were there at 5:30 am, and it took us an hour and 10 minutes to go about 25 miles into the city from the suburbs. The nurses told us it would be a while. They were running behind because a lot of people hadn't come to work. I dozed on the couch and listened to my Ipod. At about 10:15, they finally took me back to get prepped for the surgery. I was annoyed that I had to wait for so long, but in pretty good spirits when I saw my doctor. I was tired of being worried. It's my baby's birthday, I thought. I just want to be happy.
The nurse made me change into a gown and then strapped a fetal monitor on me. R got into his scrubs and we just looked at each other silently, and we were both thinking "wow, we are actually going to do this..." When I got my epidural, it hurt for a second and I gripped my nurse tightly. I had been super worried about them putting in too deep and paralyzing me. I was glad that it was just an irrational fear and that it was not a big deal. It just felt like someone was blowing bubbles inside my spine. Ticklish and it made me want to scratch.
Then R came in and stood behind me, holding my hand. I don't remember feeling a whole lot during the c-section. The books say you will feel tugging or stretching like you are being unzipped, but I just felt a poke every now and then. The doctors were all very jolly, and kept begging me to name the baby Rita. I was sort of annoyed that they could joke around when I needed them to focus on my uterus, but then the doctor told R to get the camera ready and I heard a cry. I couldn't see since I had to take my glasses off for the surgery and thought it was very unfair, considering I was the mother and all. R went off to do weighing and measuring and foot print taking while I smelled burning but I couldn't really focus. Every thing was kind of fuzzy and whatever brain waves I had were focused on the cries I was hearing. Finally, they brought over this bundle thing and held it up near my shoulder and said "this is your baby!" And I was all loopy and said, "really?" The nurse told me to kiss my son because they had to take him away for monitoring, so I demanded my glasses and then gave this red faced baby a kiss. I honestly cannot remember much more than that.
I was taken to a recovery room and where I was very, very cold and grateful for the heated blanket they placed on me as it let comforting warmth seep through me. The nurse said I had to cough for her. When I did, she said R could come back to check on me. I kept waiting and waiting, not realizing R and his parents were cooing at Boo Boo in the nursery. R finally came in and said his parents were there and the baby was cutest thing ever. I was mad that he wasn't sitting with me, but apparently, my sense of time was all messed up because he had only been gone from my side for about 15 minutes. There was a big discussion about whether I would get a private room or not as the hospital wasn't sure about how many patients they would have with the Hurricane. I was finally taken to my room.
On Thursday, my son turns nine months old. He's been a part of this outside world for a week longer than he was inside me. I never posted his Hurricane Rita birth story because I didn't start my blog until he was about 5 months old. Maybe one day he will want to read the story, and I've been wanting to write it down. So, my handful of faithful blog readers, here you go.
From about the 30th week of my pregnancy on, Boo Boo was in some kind of breach position at each doctor's appointment I went to. He would twist and turn slightly, but was never head down. By about 36 weeks, my doctor wanted to talk about the possibility of a C-section if the baby didn't turn. At 37 weeks, Boo Boo was still breach. We scheduled two more appointments about 4 days apart. If there was no position change, we'd do a scheduled C-section at 39 weeks. My last day of work was Monday, September 19th. On Tuesday, I went to lunch with R's coworkers. They were very sweet, and had brought me presents. R's boss got me a blanket and outfit from Gymboree (I love that store's sale racks!) that had been gift wrapped. If you've ever had that store wrap a present for you, you know that Gymboree puts the present in a box, and then uses a giant circular sticker to tape a piece of ribbon on the box to hold it shut. They have flowers, soccer balls and cookie shaped stickers. R's boss had chosen a globe sticker. She had taken a Sharpie marker and drawn the projected path of Hurricane Rita on the map of the Gulf of Mexico and Texas.
People were beginning to talk about the storm. My law firm had started moving boxes in the hall to interior offices. I was so focused on the baby, though, it didn't really hit me that we might have a hurricane hit Houston in the next few days. I watched the news that night in a daze and got more than a little concerned. R let me take a bubble bath and went to Home Depot. He came back carrying a big plastic container of apple juice, scared. Home Depot was out of batteries and the store was rationing plywood. He stopped at Kroger and they were out of water, so he bought juice instead.
I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday afternoon and we went to Super Target that morning. I had never seen the shelves of canned goods empty. No more battery powered fans. No garbage bags. No flashlights. We just looked at each other, wide-eyed, down the empty linoleum expanse as my cell phone rang. It was my doctor calling to make sure I was still coming to my appointment. Several patients had cancelled because they were evacuating, and he wanted me to come in early so we'd have more time to talk and discuss options. As we headed down to the Medical Center and I checked my Blackberry. My firm was closing on Thursday and Friday, and they were letting people go home on Wednesday to make evacuation arrangements. I suppose the potential severity of the situation still hadn't completely hit me, because the first thing I thought was, "Score! If the firm is closing, that's two days of vacation I don't have to take. Two more days with my baby before I go back to work!"
The doctor's visit was sobering. The baby hadn't turned. The doctor didn't want me to risk going into labor during the middle of the storm and not be able to get a hospital. I would have completed 38 weeks on Thursday, and the doctor recommended a C-section the next morning. He explained that he lived in Pearland, and would be moving to the hospital's on-call room for the next 5 days. He held my hand and said "Whatever this storm brings, we'll go through it together. I'll be there too." He explained that all the nurses were staying with their families at the hosital too. I was scared. I don't like deviating from The Plan. I had The Plan all mapped out in my mind, and had a packed hospital bag with a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting and What to Expect the First Year highlighted with sticky tabs. As you can probably guess, The Plan did not involve a hurricane. So even though I had a million questions, I kept repeating the same one: "But can't we just wait until after the hurricane?" The doctor explained that the safest thing for and the baby was to do it now. "Houston isn't New Orleans, and we know what to do in the Medical Center after Tropical Storm Allison, but I can't have you going into breach labor during a hurricane" he said. So I was set. Go do some blood work downstairs to save time the next day, and report back at 6 am the next morning.
The stupid nurse taking my blood scared me. She said she was leaving town that day even though the hospital had asked her to stay and work because there was no way she was going to stay at the hospital with her family in the on-call rooms all weekend. "It's going to be horrible here," she said. Nice. Just what you tell someone about to hunker down in a hospital room for 4 days. She also said I'd have to take off all my jewelry, including my gold bracelet. "No," I thought. "I won't." The first time R said I love you to me, he gave me a gold bracelet. It's a simple chain, but he saved his money for it, he put it on for me, and I hadn't taken it off for over 10 years. It doesn't come off in metal detectors at the airport, when I'm swimming, never. When I told her I wouldn't take it off, the nurse told me they'd cut it off. I couldn't bear for that to happen, so I took it off that night and cried a little. I was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
My mom had been worried about a c-section since the moment the topic had come up. Our master bedroom is upstairs and she was worried about me climbing the stairs. I was worried about staph infections, staples, and the removal of a uterus. I sat on the couch that Wednesday night and watched R move all our furniture to the middle of the room in piles feeling a bit helpless. My lists were not a comfort to me, just a reminder that I was about to give up a lot of control, and that was worrisome. We live up in Northwest Houston and weren't that concerned about the hurricane force winds, but if it flooded, at least the expensive stereo equipment would be on top of the sofas. We didn't sleep much that night.
I woke up bright and early on Thursday morning, September 22nd, took a shower, and loaded the car. We tried to get out of our house on to 290 and the traffic wasn't moving. It looked like people had been waiting all night on Wednesday night to get out of town. I got scared--what if we didn't make it down there? R took Hempstead Highway for a while and then traffic cleared up inside the 610 loop. Everyone was headed outbound to Austin. We drove to the hospital and checked in. We were there at 5:30 am, and it took us an hour and 10 minutes to go about 25 miles into the city from the suburbs. The nurses told us it would be a while. They were running behind because a lot of people hadn't come to work. I dozed on the couch and listened to my Ipod. At about 10:15, they finally took me back to get prepped for the surgery. I was annoyed that I had to wait for so long, but in pretty good spirits when I saw my doctor. I was tired of being worried. It's my baby's birthday, I thought. I just want to be happy.
The nurse made me change into a gown and then strapped a fetal monitor on me. R got into his scrubs and we just looked at each other silently, and we were both thinking "wow, we are actually going to do this..." When I got my epidural, it hurt for a second and I gripped my nurse tightly. I had been super worried about them putting in too deep and paralyzing me. I was glad that it was just an irrational fear and that it was not a big deal. It just felt like someone was blowing bubbles inside my spine. Ticklish and it made me want to scratch.
Then R came in and stood behind me, holding my hand. I don't remember feeling a whole lot during the c-section. The books say you will feel tugging or stretching like you are being unzipped, but I just felt a poke every now and then. The doctors were all very jolly, and kept begging me to name the baby Rita. I was sort of annoyed that they could joke around when I needed them to focus on my uterus, but then the doctor told R to get the camera ready and I heard a cry. I couldn't see since I had to take my glasses off for the surgery and thought it was very unfair, considering I was the mother and all. R went off to do weighing and measuring and foot print taking while I smelled burning but I couldn't really focus. Every thing was kind of fuzzy and whatever brain waves I had were focused on the cries I was hearing. Finally, they brought over this bundle thing and held it up near my shoulder and said "this is your baby!" And I was all loopy and said, "really?" The nurse told me to kiss my son because they had to take him away for monitoring, so I demanded my glasses and then gave this red faced baby a kiss. I honestly cannot remember much more than that.
I was taken to a recovery room and where I was very, very cold and grateful for the heated blanket they placed on me as it let comforting warmth seep through me. The nurse said I had to cough for her. When I did, she said R could come back to check on me. I kept waiting and waiting, not realizing R and his parents were cooing at Boo Boo in the nursery. R finally came in and said his parents were there and the baby was cutest thing ever. I was mad that he wasn't sitting with me, but apparently, my sense of time was all messed up because he had only been gone from my side for about 15 minutes. There was a big discussion about whether I would get a private room or not as the hospital wasn't sure about how many patients they would have with the Hurricane. I was finally taken to my room.
A few moments later, my in laws came into the room with the nurses that were wheeling the baby in. My mother in law brought the baby to me. Later I would be pissed that she held the baby first before I really got to. Later I would cry and cry for no reason but post partum hormones. Later I would demand a breast pump. But at that moment when I first held my little Boo Boo, I was amazed by all his dark hair, his long eyelashes, his smooth, pale skin, and how little he was. I couldn't really grasp the idea that he was my baby, and that I was his mother. I didn't feel instant love, but I felt instant maternal protectiveness. His cries were like a kitten's meowing, and his nails were as thin as rice paper but razor sharp and longer than I had expected. At 6 lbs and 10 oz, he was so tiny that the newborn hats I had carefully packed were too big for him. The very first time I held him he gripped my finger tight enough to make me wonder at amazement at his strength. And he turned his face to his father's voice. He really did, even though that sounds like a made-for-TV movie. I was in awe of his awesomeness.
Part II to come.
3 comments:
amazing - can't wait for part II!
cgk
Great story. I remember The Wife trying to get a hold of you from Lubbock after we chickened out...er, evacuated.
Happy birthday Boo-Boo
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