Little did I know that I arranged for spy when Emily volunteered to stay with me this morning. She arrived shortly before I was put into a room and stayed until well after the surgery. Thanks Emily for sticking by me while I was poked and prodded and telling me stories to not notice my first IV attempt to be infiltrated. When she would leave the room for preparations was when her undercover work began. She overheard the nurses playing rock, paper, scissors for who would work the 9 am section. She was not sure if win was a true win or a loss but based on my experience and what I have heard, nurses always wanted to work Dr Wise shifts.

A little after 9 am, they wheeled me into th OR. I started to get nervous and convinced them to let Jay stay for my spinal. They worried he might faint but I think the fear in my eyes made that an acceptable risk. Last year, it took an hour to get the epidural in. Everyone said this would be better and it was. It took 5 minutes and I only death gripped Lonnie once. Afterwards, they applauded Jay for being so rock solid.

The spinal did not take the edge off like the epidral but as I started to numb I felt myself relax a bit. It was freezing in the room so the warming effect helped too.

It took them a little longer to reach her as I had some scar tissue. Dr Wise had to work her way through that and at one point she stated that the baby was wiggling. Imagine how that must have been…in a cozy, warm, dark place and all of a sudden this bright crazy light comes on!

When they finally went for her, they said she was head down but her face was looking the wrong way and her shoulders were straight instead of tilted in (maybe?). Apparently a natural birth would have been very difficult, especially given her size.

At 9:31, Mara Danae Hansen was born, weighing 8 lbs 7.5 oz, and 20.5 inches long. Her Apgar score was 8-9.

She had some hair when born. She also had purple fingers and toes. Very purple fingers and toes and had swallowed quite a bit of fluid. After much confirmation to a very worried daddy, she was fine. Apparently purple extremeties are good, it means the oxygen is going to the vital places.

For quite the change of pace, after a quick cleaning (she still had blood on her), she was able to stay with me the entire time I was being sutured up. I was not truly able to hold her for lack of good positioning and my nerves but Jay held her right up to me. I saw tears in Daddy’s eyes at least once. They did some extra work to try to prevent any additional scarring and them stapled me.

I was wheeled into the recovery room with my beautiful baby girl in my arms the entire way.

Pics to come when I get them transferred to the pc.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 1:28 am and is filed under Announcements, Baby, Hansen News, Pregnancy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.