Home and Happy

Tilo (say "TEA-low") and I came home on Thursday. We're both doing beautifully. He's an absolute angel, hardly ever cries (only when he's hungry or having his diaper changed), nurses like a champ, sleeps through all kinds of noise (which his siblings provide in abundance), and makes all those cute little half-asleep baby faces and noises. His father and I are, naturally, over the moon.

The C-Section
The c-section was far better than I'd feared, better even than my best case. I knew exactly what to expect, and even so there were a few good surprises. I'd expected to have to remind everyone Dr. Dietz had said the catheter could be inserted after the spinal, but they all knew. I'd been told the OR is cold, so I expected to be shivering there on the table in my hospital gown, but the staff had heated blankets ready for me and so I was warm throughout. No one talked about shopping or movies or anything other than the operation. One of the staff was present purely to take photos for us from the business side of the curtain, so we've got great shots of Tilo being born.

Tilo cried (best sound in the world) right away. Good lungs! His Apgars were 9, 10, and 10. 2910 grams (6 lbs 6 oz) and 50 cm long (19.5 inches) *. Marco was by him, touching him, as they checked him over, and he got to make the final, symbolic cord cut (the doctor made the "real" cut in the sterile field). Then Marco brought Tilo to me, and I got to touch him and kiss him for several minutes before they had to leave.

The sewing up took an eternity. I started feeling the afterpains (contractions of the uterus) during that time, but didn't feel anything else, thank goodness. Finally they wheeled me into the recovery room, where my temperature and blood pressure were a little low. Staff put an industrial-looking hair dryer under the top layer of blankets to warm me up, and asked if I wanted my husband sent down. Fifteen minutes later he and Tilo came walking in. Another pleasant surprise, as I hadn't expected to be able to see them until I left recovery.

In the meantime upstairs, Tilo had been weighed and Marco had held him against his bare chest, both of them wrapped in heated blankets. Marco opted not to dress Tilo yet, so I could hold him skin to skin when I got to see him again.

Once my temperature and blood pressure were back to normal and I started tingling in my toes, they wheeled me from recovery back up to the maternity ward. Around noon Oma, Opa, and Tilo's big brother and sister got to see him for the first time.

Tilo was grunty and showed no interest in nursing, which had me a little worried. I was reassured that c-section babies often do this (no pressure from contractions and squeezing through the birth canal to press the last amniotic fluid out of their lungs) and that both would resolve within 24 hours. And indeed, by late Monday evening he was breathing without grunting; by Tuesday morning he was rooting for the nipple.

At one hour old he was finger-fed 10 mL of formula because his blood glucose level was too low (another factor that can contribute to grunty babies). That did the trick and though he had to have four more heel pricks to test his glucose level, it stayed high enough and all were content to let him discover the joys of nursing in his own time.

I had no side effects from the c-section: no spinal headache, no nausea, and the incision is healing nicely. Seen purely as a method of giving birth, it was easy--I didn't have to do any work at all and had no pain. Of course, it's not just a method of giving birth; it's also a major operation, and the recovery is much slower and much harder than with my vaginal births. Eight days later I still move slowly; turning over in bed, sitting up, standing and walking all take time and effort, and if I move too quickly I pay for it in searing pain.

It's hard to be so dependent on others. I can do extremely little myself. Fortunately, each day brings a new little milestone: yesterday, for example, I managed to put on my own socks for the first time in a contorted pose not unlike the late-pregnancy sock-putting-on pose. Today I gave Tilo his bath for the first time, and walked down the stairs alternating feet instead of always leading with one foot. Woo hoo!

Mixed Emotions
Throughout the pregnancy people said so often, "You must have such mixed feelings, life and death so close together." I've felt that more strongly since Tilo's birth than at any point before. Sixteen years ago the nursing baby at whom I stared in rapture was my eldest child. All the feelings I have for Tilo, I had for her then. And she's gone.

The hardest thing is my lack of confidence. Before her illness and death, I always assumed things would work out well. They always had. Bad things happened, and of course I knew they could happen to me, but they never did. Now I can't shake a fear that some new catastrophe is lurking around the corner. I fervently hope this doom-and-gloom feeling will pass.

Bliss
I hate to end this post on a blue note, because most of the day is quite sunny. So let me share a feeling I had just before my eldest came back to live with us last April. We knew we were in for a heavy time full of chemotherapy with little chance of success. We knew the physical and mental workload caring for a half-paralyzed, wheelchair-bound cancer patient would take a toll. And yet I had a moment of clarity, one of three or four I've had in my life, when I knew that her coming back would usher in a period of great happiness for us. I didn't know what that meant and I definitely didn't see how that could possibly be so at the time, but now I do.

Sometimes I imagine her standing next to his cradle by the living room window, her blonde hair shining in the filtered sun, one angel smiling at another.


* The first nurse measured him at 46 cm; two days later another nurse measured 50 cm. We had a suspicion, as he barely fit into the preemie size his 47-cm brother wore for weeks.