Baby Sunflower Bud is here!

Arriving 8 weeks early, baby Sunflower Bud made his debut on June 6, 2011 at 3:54pm. He weighed 3lbs 5.9oz and was 17 inches long.

That morning I had a level II ultrasound to check cord blood flow again. It didn't take long for the MFM to immediately see that things had worsened dramatically and there was now reverse cord blood flow. This meant immediate delivery that day. It wasn't surprising because my NST's over the weekend were pretty bad. I spent 6 hours on Saturday hooked up to the NST and had to have a BPP done as well to make sure he was okay.

I called my mom, who had already had a bag packed in her car, and told her and she left work right away and headed to the hospital. My doctor was agreeable to waiting for her to arrive so she could be in the room. Thankfully, there was an emergency c-section that bumped me back long enough for her to make it the 3 hour drive and get there in time.

Because I'd been a patient in the hospital for so long, they actually let me choose which nurses I wanted to be in the surgery! That made things a lot better for me because one of my favorite nurses was working. Janine got me all hooked up to my IV and then walked me over to the operating room. She was awesome and held my hand and supported me through the spinal (she had come to learn what a needle wuss I was over the last 4 1/2 weeks) and we all laughed when the anesthesiologist hit a nerve and shot through my leg and I yelled, "What the hell was that?!" Laid back on the table and Dr. F (anesthesiologist) started the procedure of making sure the spinal was taking effect. It took a lot longer than he expected and he kept tilting the table downward to try and get gravity to help the spinal along. Finally, it was set and we were ready to start. I started getting very nauseous and he gave me something to help with that. I had to just focus on breathing instead of what was to come.

My mom and husband came into the room and sat by my head and were very encouraging. Finally, I just asked them to stop talking because I was getting so sick. There was a TON of pulling, shaking and tugging. Baby Sunflower Bud did NOT want to leave his home in there. He was high breech so they had to reach up pretty high to get him out. Finally, they got him out and I panicked because there wasn't crying. It took a bit but they got him cleaned out and ANGRY and boy, did he wail. The NICU doctors were there and they got him all cleaned up and stopped long enough for me to see him and kiss him before they took him to the NICU.

I started feeling a strange pricking sensation and asked Dr. F what was going on. Apparently the spinal was wearing off and I was feeling them stitch me up. Yikes. They said they could give me a local but there were only a few stitches left to go and they'd be done by the time the local would kick in. So I had to endure feeling the rest of the stitching. I won't forget that any time soon.

I went to recovery where I was immediately hooked up to magnesium sulfate. I got a little too cocky because I commented that it wasn't that bad at all and I wasn't feeling sick. Spoke too soon because about 8 hours later, I got very very very sick from it. But I had to stay on it for a minimum of 24 hours to prevent seizures.

It was 6 hours post surgery before I was able to see Baby SB and they wheeled my whole bed into the NICU to see him. That was incredibly hard, waiting so long to see him and not being able to hold him. I couldn't stay for very long because the heat of the NICU and the mag were making me very ill.

He's been doing well in NICU so far. But that's another update for another time. :)

If you made it through all of that, you deserve a baby picture.