We officially learned that Finn was breech at 36 weeks. I had a good inclination all along that he was because I had a very hard “knot” sticking out of my upper right side for a good while before that point. I was sure it was his head because it was so hard and just the placement of it, I really didn’t think it could be his butt. So at 36 weeks they did an ultrasound and determined that he was breech. Two days later we checked into the hospital to try to manually turn him, a procedure called an external cephalic version. The procedure was unsuccessful. Finn started to move but then he stopped and put his foot down and so then he was transverse and footling breech meaning he was sideways with his feet down. So our c-section was scheduled for 39 weeks and 3 days.
The day of the birth was really weird to wake up knowing we were headed to the hospital to have a baby! I could barely walk myself into the hospital! Once we got in they hooked me up to monitors, checked the little guy again to verify he was in fact still breech, hooked up an IV, prepped me and then the anesthesiologist came in to hook me up to the epidural. Suddenly I got really nervous and scared and started shaking, turns out I was kind of nervous of being paralyzed by the epidural or that it would hurt having something poking me in the spine. Todd was awesome and held my hands through the whole thing which didn’t take as long as I imagined it would and the anesthesiologist was wonderful walking me through every single step and what it would feel like. I was numb and started getting really emotional with tears streaming down my face and was so nervous as they wheeled me down to the operating room.
Once in, they pulled up the drape so I couldn’t see anything and they started working. I couldn’t feel very much, just some pulling and tugging, which was very weird! Todd was there and he could either sit on a stool next to my head or stand up to look over the curtain to watch. He mostly watched everything and told me what was going on. We have some CRAZY pictures of the giant hole in my belly and of them pulling Finn out! Finn was footling breech and transverse which means he was stretched out from end to end instead of being butt first and balled up. So when they opened the uterus his feet popped right out and then they worked to pull the rest of him out. His head somehow though was stuck and would not come out so they had to make the incision slightly larger. Todd said it was really weird watching them try to get his head out! But out the little man came, and shortly after I could hear him cry. Todd went over to where they were cleaning him off and took a thousand pictures of everything and told me everything that was going on. Evidently he was peeing all over the place!
At this point I was starting to feel really nauseous as they were trying to clean everything out and put it all back together. The anesthesiologist gave me something for the nausea but I was laying there trying my hardest not to vomit and had my head facing away from where Todd was originally standing. I heard my name, turned my head and that’s when I saw the little man for the first time! All wrapped up and staring back at me! Suddenly my nausea went completely away and it was the last thing on my mind! I was of course bawling, as was Todd. It was actually one of the doctors who was holding him for me to look at him and then he handed Finn to Todd and took a bunch of pictures for us of Todd holding him and then of the three of us, which was so sweet and wonderful! I love that man whoever he was! Then they had to take Finn to the recovery room to weigh him and do all kinds of things to him and so Todd went with him while I was getting fixed up. At this point I started to get REALLY sleepy and all I wanted to do was shut my eyes and sleep which I think I did for a little bit.
Once in the recovery room, I got to see the little man again and they told me his stats but that he also had low blood sugar and so they needed to try to feed him a bottle right away to get that back up to where it needed to be. I was laying right there as they were doing everything so I was able to watch. He wouldn’t however latch on to the bottle, had no suck instinct so it wasn’t going down and getting into him and so they said they would have to take him to the nursery for a while to keep working with him and that if in an hour his levels weren’t up they would have to tube feed him. But while they were filling out some paper work before they took him to the nursery, I got to hold him. It was probably for about 15 minutes and his eyes were wide open the whole time just staring back at me! It was the best thing in the whole wide world! So even though I was originally sad about not being able to hold him to my chest right after he was born being all slimy and everything, it really didn’t matter anymore at that point!
After some time in the recovery room they took me up to our hospital room and our families joined us and then they got to go down to the nursery to see Finn! Finn ended up learning to suck and didn’t have to be tube fed and his levels went back up and he was wheeled into our room about 10 minutes after the grandparents left to go get lunch. So the three of us got to get to know each other all alone for a few hours! I can’t even tell you how much I love this little man, we cannot stop staring at him and holding him and just gushing all over him, it is ridiculous!
Finnegan Timothy Lakes: 8:52am, 7 pounds 10 ounces and 21 inches long!
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