Long time no see! I know sorry :S

He's here!!! My little man was born!

OK so first things first, the diabetes....I was totally able to control with diet and exercise! It really wasn't hard at all.

I actually managed to exercise up to the week before my delivery! I didn't exercise the week of delivery because I was crazy busy and you'll see why next...

So this is how it went down....

I was supposed to deliver on Thursday of my delivery week but it was moved to Wednesday because I had a whole lot of people required for a safe delivery. As I've told you before my perinatologist is very much the "better safe than sorry" type of doctor, which is alright by me! So she decided that we were going to have her practice partner (another perinatologist) present because he's older and much more experienced so we was the perfect wingman. She also talked to the hospitals anesthesiology team because anesthesia is a very tricky thing for people with heart problems, and they recommended she take 2 of their top people for my surgery, and she also wanted a cardiologist present and the NICU team present just in case things went south. As you might imagine scheduling all these people was a huge undertaking. So I was supposed to go in Tuesday night so that they could do all the labwork and set up my anesthesia with plenty of time for my surgery.
On Monday morning I went in for my last Dr's appointment, I sat down for my NST and as the nurse is strapping me in she says "are you excited???" and I nodded with a goofy grin because of course I was on top of the world! Then she says "so are you all packed and ready to go to the hospital tonight?"...yeah TONIGHT!! I felt my jaw drop and asked her "no, it's tomorrow night, my surgery isn't until Wednesday" her brow furrowed and she looked at my file then she said "no we had to move your surgery one more time because of scheduling, your having your baby tomorrow morning!" My hubby gave me a panicked look. So after a number of phone calls to my hubby's work and family and settle them down because everyone was panicking (of course)we had our last ultrasound (and we hardly saw anything b/c my son was engaged and ready to go so he was too low to see his little face but it didn't bother me because I was so excited that I'd finally get to meet him soon! Then my doctor did a rundown of what would happen, had me sign the paperwork for my tubal (b/c in my particular case another kid wold be too risky) and sent me on my merry way.
We rushed home (an hour and a half trip by the way) my hubby ate and got ready to rush to work and my mom, sis and I did laundry and got me all packed and ready to go to the hospital. My hubby got out of work early so that he could take me and in what felt like a blur of time I was at the hospital!
The nurses showed me to my room and then they took blood for labwork and put in my IVs...yeah I had 2 IVs, why? Well the doctors wanted an IV for fluids (which I was on very minimal fluids because in case you don't know too many fluids and heart failure patients don't mix! And the second IV served as a backup and in case I needed an emergency blood transfusion. As I've said before I have HORRIBLE veins so even tho I had spent all day drinking water, finding good veins was still an undertaking, lucky for me I was only stuck three times, two for each IV and once for the bloodwork. I was also hooked up to the usual monitors and then I was left to rest and wait to talk to the anesthesiologist. My mom and sister left to meet up with my dad, grandma and brother (who started driving to El Paso from San Antonio as soon as they heard and I started Facebooking LOL.
After a little while, the anesthesiologist came in and we had a little chat, she said she had spent all afternoon reading my (giant) file and was incredibly impressed with my last echo, she asked about my activity level and diet then she congratulated me and said "I honestly think you have gotten your heart in better shape than a large portion of 'healthy' people!" which made me feel GREAT because she was validating my years of hard work! She asked what kind of anesthetics my cardiologist recommended, I told her that my doctor (and most research on PPCM) suggested and epidural instead of the traditional spinal because there was a lower risk of complications, she agreed and said that it was what she was going to suggest. Then she said that she would be back at 3:30 am to start the epidural because she wanted to add the medication nice and slow in case of complications especially since I'd never had an epidural before.
So my hubby and I went to sleep and tried to get some rest. Despite the IVs and the excitement I was able to fall asleep rather quickly. In the middle of the night the nurse came in and was looking intently at the monitors, I asked if something was wrong and she informed me that I was having contractions every 3 minutes and asked if I had been feeling them. I told her that I thought they were Braxton Hicks so I hadn't been paying attention to them. She gave me a shot of medication to stop the contractions because for c-sections doctors like contractions to be present. Within the hour they were gone and I went right back to sleep. My poor hubby must have had the worst night's sleep because he would wake up every time I stirred. Nevertheless we survived the night. At 3am my parents showed up bright eyed and bushy tailed. I told them about the meeting with the anesthesiologist. At 3:30 as promised the anesthesiologists showed up to set up my epidural, they were able to quickly set me up and start administering the medicine. I began to shake and the doctors said it was because of the adrenaline interacting with the epidural. As we were waiting for me to numb completely the nurse got my hubby all suited up for the delivery. Once we were all set the anesthesiologist looked at me and with a big smile said "OK, this is it! Are you ready to be a mommy?!?" I couldn't help it, tears began to trickle down my cheeks as I nodded she said to cry if I wanted to and all I could choke out was "I'm so happy, relieved" my mom came and held my hand and gave me a kiss on my forehead and told me I'd done so well and to cry it out. They wheeled me out of my room and into the operating room. I'd never seen an operating room so full! My doctor was there waiting for me and despite the mask, I could tell she was as happy and relieved as me. She asked how I was feeling and if I was ready. I smiled and told her "let's do this!" They very quickly prepped me and she asked a nurse to go get my husband. My hubby came in jittery and misty eyed. He held my hand and said "hi beautiful, you ok?" I nodded and the doctor said "look over here so you can see your little man be born" my hubby stood up and squeezed my hand and I felt a little pressure and then I heard my little guy cry. It was the most wonderful sound in the world (the first time anyways LOL), tears began streaming again and all I could choke out was "WOW!!" I saw a nurse rush over to the crib where the NICU nurses were waiting with a little bundle that I knew was him and my hubby, still holding my hand, was stretching to see, so I squeezed his hand and said "go, go!" he kissed my forehead and hurried over to take pictures of our little guy. A nurse brought my baby over and said "here's your baby! Give him a kiss" so I kissed his forehead and they whisked him away to the nursery for weighting, shots, etc. I started feeling funny and I asked the anesthesiologist why I was feeling so funny and she asked if I was sleepy and I said yes and she told me it was because my heart rate had started to race with all the adrenaline so she gave me something to calm me down, but that I could go to sleep. I vaguely remember seeing my mom in the hallway in route to recovery and her saying "He's SO beautiful!!! He's doing great don't worry sleep" I woke up several times while in recovery, fighting the sleep to ask for my baby. After four hours I was finally able to wake up. I asked the nurse about my baby and she said he was doing great in the nursery and that as soon as I got a room they would bring him to me, so I told her to get me a room or I'd get up and go find him, she told me I couldn't do it with numb legs, so I lifted my legs to show that I was no longer numb. Her eyes widened and said "ok, ok don't do anything crazy, I'll go get you a room" so for the record...threats work ;).
I was soon moved to my room and my whole family was waiting there. After 15 minutes of waiting I told my mom "will you please go demand my baby for me please, tell them that if they don't bring him I'll go myself!" she had just left when my hubby came in with our son. I was SO happy to finally meet my baby and to finally be in the same room as my two men again! The nurse told me he had not eaten so I needed to try and feed him ASAP. He attached easily and began trying to eat as much as possible but my milk hadn't come in so he was getting drops.
We got to hang out with our little guy but as as it happens to anyone that hasn't eaten his blood sugar dropped because no one had told us to supplement so he was taken to the NICU. And that my dear friends was a whole other hurdle on my trip down Mommy Lane...

to be continued...