She's HERE! Finally.

We left home about 6:45 Wednesday morning. After a sleepless and hungry night, we were VERY anxious to meet our girl! I wasn't supposed to eat after midnight, so I loaded up on cereal at about 11:30 pm the night before. I also had vanilla wafers and water on my way to the hospital. And then I lied to the nurse about it. I'm a rebel like that. I was STARVING and thirsty and I knew they would make me wait at least 12 hours after surgery to eat. Don't tell. We arrived, got checked in, and situated in our room. Daryk discovered that the hospital offers interpreters if you need them. Vietnamese, Russian, Portugese, and Spanish.... we decided we should have asked for a Russian interpreter just to laugh at.
We were scheduled at 9:45 and the anesthesiologist came in about 9:10 to get started. Last time I had one of these epidural things it took all of 3 minutes from start to finish and then I was numb in about 3 minutes. This time it took about 9 million minutes to get it in the right place in my back.... and then about 15 minutes before I was numb! It felt like forever, but Daryk said it was only about 15 minutes total from start to finish. Finally it took and we were off to surgery. My doctor was awesome and talked me through the whole procedure and the nurse anesthetician, Scott, was teaching another CRNA (Natalie--who only had 4 weeks left in school) and he was hysterical. He and Daryk had a great banter back and forth and kept us laughing the whole time. I love my delivery stories and I love that we had fun. :)
10:03 was surgery start time. Elizabeth James was born at 10:11 am on August 10, 2011. She came out screaming and according to Dr. Grogan had her feet/toes latched on to something inside that she did NOT want to let go of. She had to pry those toes off of something before she could get her out of my belly. I got to hold her once she was wrapped up and checked out. She got very quiet when I talked to her, which made me cry like a new mom. She was whisked away for clean up and such. The entire family got to watch her in the nursery and they all love that! According to my mommy Daryk and Sean AND Jeff all were very emotional with each other once they were together after she was in the nursery and they all saw her. I'm sure they will deny it... but they all cried. Mom saw them. Write it down.
Her lungs still had some fluid in them and she was grunting instead of breathing so they took her up to the 'transition nursery' to get that sorted out. She stayed there for about 2-3 hours. I learned last time that 'recovery' from a c-section meant I had to be able to wiggle my toes and move my knees before I got to leave. I was trying to move and wiggle as soon as I knew I was all closed up. PS--hearing your dr say 'okay, we're putting your uterus back in' is just bizarre. I sat in recovery until noon and then got a room upstairs. After visiting with the entire family and finally getting to see my girl I was exhausted. Visitors came in and out all day long. Jeff and Ellie wrapped up our day and left about 10-11 that night.

She's here and pink and healthy and a GREAT eater. She's been sleeping great and we are all in love.