Today our little girl was born at 11:37am, weighing 3.245kg, 47 cm long and head circumference 33.5cm.
She is chubby and has a head full of black hair. Cheeks are chubby, lips are full, nose is small, eyebrows faint like mums.
The cesarean section went well but it wasn’t much fun. Lots of tugging and pulling and I could see from the reflection on the overhead light the ob sometimes had her whole hand inside… doing stuff… 9 layers of muscle, skin, organs were cut and stitched together. Apparently the uterus was “tissue thin” in parts, perhaps due to the first c-section or just the way my uterus stretches. But the ob Henny recommended waiting a while before the next baby. A while thankfully means forever for me. Def no babies. Scary to think there was a real chance of uterine rupture if I had gone through labour.
One thing that went really well was having them put the baby on me right away. They lowered the curtain and I watched as they pulled Jett out of my body. Amazing, exciting, crazy, bewildering, surprising… lots of emotions as I watched her being born.
Then she was handed to a midwife who had scrubbed up, and she put Jett on my chest. I could look at her closely while they spent the next 45 mins doing stuff to me. At one stage a nurse put most of his body weight on me to squeeze out the amniotic fluid.
I don’t remember Riley’s birth being as traumatic or exciting.
Jett has rolls of fat already, which is comforting to me, hopefully she won’t loose much weight and breastfeed easily.
In the recovery room we got her on the boob and she latched well and sucked vigorously. It felt so right, having her gooey and bloody on me on exiting the womb, then for her to mouth around and guide her to he nipple within an hour. I felt sad that I didn’t have that with Riley.
Up at the maternity ward, I am placed in a shared room. The other side was empty but just in last half hour become occupied. Lady with first baby, vaginal birth.
Jett has breastfed 3-4 times and seems to know what she’s doing. She’s lying right now on my chest, skin to skin, face squished against the boob and fast asleep.
So gorgeous. Totally worth all the crap along the way.
