The Hospital

The day before Kinsley was to join us my mom came up and spent the day with me.  We went grocery shopping so the refrigerator would be stocked.  She cooked us a few meals to stick in the fridge and freezer while I washed clothes and cleaned the house.  That was such a huge help.  I can't even begin to let her know how much that meant to me.  Aaron was going to take the following week off of work so we had told the Relief Society sisters that dinners would be more helpful the second week since Aaron would be back at work.  So having meals already cooked and in the freezer made Aaron's life a litter easier.

The kids were at camp that day so we went down to pick them up and then came back up and ate dinner.  I had scheduled one final pregnancy massage before the big day so I said good-bye to the kids and my mom took them down to her house to stay for the next few days.  My massage was amazing, as usual, and when I got home Aaron and I finished packing for the hospital and tried to get some sleep.

We had to be at the hospital at 5:30am.  My c-section was scheduled for 7:15 but my OB had an emergency at his office so we got started a little late.  Kinsley joined us at 7:47 am.  I remember thinking first how scrawny she looked.  I couldn't see an inch of fat.  Her legs were long and lean.  The next thing I noticed was all the hair!  It's funny because before we had any children I expected that all my kids would be born with a head full of dark hair because my hair is so thick and that is how I was born.  Now having had three children with little hair I was completely shocked to see so much hair.  The doctor kept mentioning hair when he would do the ultrasounds and now I realize that he probably kept bringing it up because she had so much of it and maybe it is rare for it to show up on an ultrasound.

 

I have a great shot of her being held up by the doctor that shows how scrawny she looked.  Unfortunately it also shows my c-section in progress and is a little more than I would like to post on the Internet so we will have to settle with this picture. During the surgery the doctor informed me that my ab muscles had previously been attached all to the right side and that I didn't have any muscles down the middle.  I'm not surprised and am pretty sure that is courtesy of the last OB who removed my ectopic pregnancy.  That is all a whole different story that brings up a lot of harsh feelings so I won't go there.  Anyway Dr. Crandall took extra time to fix all the issues I had from my previous surgery (there was actually more than just the ab issue, but again, another story) which took about an hour.  I am so grateful to have found him and would highly recommend him to anyone local who needs an OB.

 

Aaron and Kinsley stayed with me the whole time during the surgery and we all went together to the recovery room.  Since we were going to culture my milk Aaron gave Kinsley her first bottle and she gulped the whole thing down.  The nurses were amazed that she ate the whole two ounces. They called in a NICU doctor to take a look at Kinsley.  He suggested that we do three different tests to check her white blood cell count and to look for any signs of infection.  We quickly went from not wanting her to have any shots in the hospital to giving her more than normal.  We were okay with it though because we really felt like knowing there were no signs of infection would help put us at ease.  After about an hour we went up to our room.  There we met our nurse for the day.  Her name was Jan and she was great.  Everyone was very patient with us and all of our rules about gloves and hand washing.  She gave Kinsley her first bath in the room with us.

 

 

Mid-day I was able to pump and get a tiny bit of colostrum out for the nurse to send off to the lab. Kinsley had some blood drawn and I had my usual blood pressure, temperature, interrupt at inconvenient times, etc. My parents brought the kids down in the evening to meet their new baby sister.  They of course fell in love with her instantly.

 

My parents also fell in love with her.  How can you not??

 

 

On Friday my grandmother was able to come visit us at the hospital.  I was excited for her to come because she was not able to visit us in the hospital when the other kids were born.