I believe that Agnes is going to write about her experience with the delivery as well, but she’s sleeping right now and I thought I would give it a go.
Our C-section was scheduled for 12:30 in the afternoon, which was good because it allowed us to take our time with getting ready to go into the hospital. Agnes had to stop eating at midnight the night before, but since I figured I would be missing lunch, I ate a pretty big breakfast and packed a couple of granola bars. I hope Agnes didn’t mind watching me eat.
Everything was pretty much packed already, with the exception of our Double Snap n Go. We hadn’t tried the Snap n Go since we received our car seats, and since we had time, we gave it a try. It was very easy. The spring-loaded clip on the Graco Snugride seats hooks into one bar, and then a belt holds down the rest of the seat against another bar. It seems pretty secure. I know we’ll spend quite a long time adjusting everything when we finally try leaving the hospital, but at least we know how it’s supposed to work.
After we got to the hospital, we checked in and a nurse hooked up Agnes to a fetal monitor and started asking Agnes a series of questions (are you allergic to anything, etc.). Agnes had given me some scrubs to change into so that I wouldn’t need to wear the paper scrubs that they give to dads. Agnes, though, had to wear a robe which was quite open in back. The anesthesiologist came in and described to Agnes what he would do. The anesthesia would be injected into Agnes’ spinal cord and numb her from that point down. She would be awake for the C-section. The funny thing is that Agnes predicted that our anesthesiologist would either be a middle-aged East Asian man, or an Indian woman. Our anesthesiologist was a middle-aged Vietnamese man. We sat around for a little bit while they prepared the operating room. Then, our OB arrived and we walked over.
I wasn’t allowed into the operating room while Agnes’ anesthesia was being administered. Our OB scrubbed in, and I met the doctor who was assisting the surgery. While I waited, I put on paper shoe covers. After a little bit, a nurse asked me to come in. They had everything prepared, and were about to start. I could only see Agnes’ head and shoulders. Everything below that was hidden behind a drape to keep the area sterile. I was told that I shouldn’t take pictures over the drape. I suppose blinding a surgeon with the camera flash would be a bad idea. I held Agnes’ hand and talked to her while the OBs got started.
Between five and ten minutes after they started, they had one baby out. They brought the baby over to the side where they wiped and suctioned her and do whatever it is that neonatologists do with babies when they are born. A minute later (literally — their birth dates are officially just one minute apart), the second baby was out. They had clamped the umbilical cords and cut them from the placenta, but about five inches remained. I was asked to squeeze one clamp shut close to the first baby’s belly and cut the cord near it. Even though I had been warned, it’s tougher to cut than you would think. I cut the second baby’s cord after that. Our babies were watched for a minute or two more so that they could be given their five minute Apgar score, and then they were brought to Agnes. I took a couple of pictures and then we had to leave for the nursery. A few days earlier, Agnes had told me that she wanted me to follow the babies to the nursery rather than stay with her in the OR.
We went to the nursery and each baby was weighed and measured for length. They were put under a warmer to bring their body temperature up, and they were given a bit of sucrose, a few shots and eye ointment. The sucrose calms them down and helps to counteract the pain from the shots. It certainly worked on the calming part — they both stopped crying and started looking around. I watched the babies for a while (taking a number of pictures), and then I saw the assisting OB doctor and the anesthesiologist walk by. They said that Agnes had been moved to a recovery room. The babies were just sleeping at this point. They were going to get a bath in about a half hour and then warmed some more. Then they could be moved to the post-partum room to join Agnes. I went to join Agnes first.
Agnes seemed to be doing well. She kept talking about how strange the whole thing felt. She could move her feet already, which was good, and after a while she could move her legs. After a bit more, we moved to the post-partum room. On the way, we passed the nursery and Agnes got to see both girls. One of them was getting her bath. I made sure Agnes was settled in and then went to the waiting room to call our families with the news. As I came back from the waiting room, I passed the nursery again and found that the girls were ready to go. I showed up back at our post-partum room with the two girls.
Our room’s pretty nice. We don’t share it with anyone else. It has its own bathroom (but no shower), and I get a bed that is just like Agnes’ that I can sleep in. The room is large enough to hold the two bassinets that our girls sleep in as well.
Our nurse helped Agnes get the first baby latched on to start breast feeding. Agnes’ milk probably won’t come in until the two days after the delivery, but right at the start she should be producing colostrum, which is good for the baby. The nurse made it look easy in getting the baby latched on correctly. Because of the C-section, Agnes could not sit up and had to nurse lying on her side. It’s a hard position to nurse in because Agnes can’t see anything besides the top of the baby’s head. She can’t see the baby’s face at all. The other downside to this position is that Agnes cannot nurse both babies at the same time. Our breastfeeding instructor recommended feeding both at the same time so that Agnes doesn’t end up needing to feed one baby after the other twe,nty four hours a day, but this will have to wait for her recovery to proceed further.
Our first guest was Dr. McIntyre, the head of the Neurology Department where Agnes works. He happens to live less than a mile away from this hospital (which is not where Agnes works, by the way). He said he would be the first one to visit, and he was. Agnes’ dad came next. He looked in on us and then went out to get me some dinner while we waited for Agnes’ mom and Max to show up. They arrived just before 8pm and stayed for a little while, getting to know the girls. A little bit later, they left, and the night nurse took the girls away to the nursery. She said that she would bring them back about every three hours to be fed. What happened that night, we’ll go into another time.
