I did not throw up this time during my C-section, a dramatic improvement from Oliver's delivery when I hurled some 15 times onto the drape, the floor, my face and hair. Because of the arterial line that was so difficult to place, they were this time better able to gauge my blood pressure, which dropped very low seven times causing nausea. They pushed in medications super-fast so that I didn't have a chance to christen my surroundings with vomit. They rolled me to recovery, where my family came in to see me. I told them Charlie's middle name was Griffith, after my Grandfather. I gave Michael the go-ahead to send out updates. I was recovering.
I had two nurses watching over me, and met with about six physicians who all asked how I was doing. I could hardly stay awake and couldn't feel my body, much less tell them how I was doing. I remember shuddering with chills, and Michael asked if I was cold. My answer: "I dunno." He laughed, but honestly, I couldn't even tell if I was hot or cold. That spinal block anesthesia is some odd stuff. So to answer three cardiologists, two OBs, and an anesthesiologist, my answer was similar. Fine I guess. What I did know, though, was that I was relieved to be done. Until I met a physician who asked how long my son would be in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit).
"You must have the wrong patient," I said. "My son isn't in the NICU, he's doing great."
She apologized and said that she worked with the adult patients, not the babies, so yes, she must have the wrong patient.
But she didn't. A nurse practitioner who did work with the babies came in with a clipboard of papers for me to sign. She explained to me that Charlie was having difficulty keeping the oxygen levels in his blood up, and because of my cardiac history, they wanted to look at him closely in the NICU, just to be on the safe side. Still shaking with chills, I signed papers in confusion. The nurse practitioner was saying something to me about visiting Charlie when I felt better, but he would be in a different building away from me. (Ironically, at Children's, my workplace). She also warned me that in order to transport babies, they need to use special incubators that have emergency equipment stored underneath, and it would look frightening to me. They would be wheeling him in to me before he left.
She left my bedside and I fell to pieces. We had weekly ultrasounds, everything showed up fine. Charlie was not supposed to be the variable; I was. He was completely healthy. I had just minutes to cry and panic before the incubator was wheeled in. Though my body couldn't feel anything, I felt my heart break to a million pieces. Nurses, doctors and family looked on as they wheeled Charlie next to me to say hello and goodbye. "Isn't he so cute? Look at his hair!" People said gently. I nodded but said nothing. I couldn't see him at all. My bed was too low, and his incubator was too high. I said goodbye to a tuft of blond hair.
A half hour later, they decided I was stable enough to wheel me in my bed through the underground tunnel system to the NICU to see Charlie. I was able to sit up a bit more, and as I drifted in and out of consciousness, I watched the familiar corridors go by. How many times had I made this same trip in my day at work, up and down the halls between hospitals. We took the elevators to the NICU, and my ginormous bed was wheeled past rooms with tiny cribs. They moved Charlie's incubator and lined my bed up next to his. The little incubator doors, which look like portholes of a minuscule ship, were opened so I could place my hand inside. I reached over, and for the first time, held his hand.
I kept my hand in his until the neonatologist came in. Charlie, he said, was absolutely fine.
I exhaled.
It turns out that some babies, especially when they are born via scheduled C-section without preceding labor, need some time to get used to breathing the air they are so suddenly introduced to (in medical speak, "transient tachypnea.") In Charlie's case, his oxygen readings were fine in his hands but not picking up well in his feet, so they were worried that something may have been wrong with his heart. But as Murphy's Law goes, this was all resolved even before he arrived to the NICU. All cardiac assessments showed that his heart was perfect. He would be returning to my hospital floor in a few hours.
And while it has its many medical issues, I am keenly aware that my heart, too, functions just fine.
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