Broken Leg

Well, here's the story:

Yesterday was my niece's birthday. She and her family live about an hour away from us. We went down to celebrate, planning to spend the first part of the day with friends and the second part with family.
At the park, both Gabriel and Lily were having tons of fun running around and being with other kids. Well, Gabriel actually spent a lot of time doing his own thing, but that's how he likes it sometimes.
At one point, he saw a little girl playing on the monkey bars and thought it looked super cool. He decided to try it himself even though he could just barely reach the bars. He also didn't have the strength to hold himself up, so he would drop after only about a second. I was so proud that he was trying something new, picking himself up when he fell, and trying again. Unfortunately, after a few rounds of this, he didn't get a good grip with one hand. So when he fell, he landed badly on his leg and hit his head as well.
Jeff saw first and ran over to check his head. It quickly became clear that his leg was the real problem, and Jeff thought he may have broken it. He rushed to the car with Gabriel in his arms and quickly realized we wouldn't be able to put him in his car seat, so he had me call for an ambulance while he tried to keep our poor injured little boy as calm as possible. My brother-in-law Jon was also a big help with that. I was extremely worried and shaky, but I was able to calmly get the emergency dispatchers the information they needed. Then more family made sure I stayed as calm as possible while seeing and hearing my poor boy in pain.
The paramedics gave Gabriel some pain killers and took him to the closest hospital. My sister took Lily to her house so Jeff and I could focus on him. The hospital took an x-ray and there was some worry that he had also broken his hip, but, fortunately, just confirmed that his femur had been cleanly broken.
The hospital there doesn't have all the necessary stuff to work on children, so he had to be transported to Vally Children's where Jeff's mom happens to work. She got us in a room super quick and got us really great care. We had to wait a long time before they could work on him because he had eaten at the party, but they gave him enough pain killers to help him manage.
He was very sweet to the nurses, wanted to know all their names, and thanked them for everything they did. They loved him, and even gave him a flashy toy that really cheered him up.
When it was finally time to take him to the OR, they gave him medicine to put him to sleep. He fought it REALLY hard and started saying some pretty funny things. It took them forever to get him to sleep, but they did and everything went well.
The cast is huge and he hates it, but we're trying to keep him comfortable and distracted. He really is being one tough, brave little guy.
Lily is with grandparents while we figure out our new routine with Gabriel. It's extra difficult because I'm too pregnant to lift him, especially with a big heavy cast. Fortunately, we have lots of help and support. I'm so grateful for that and for Jeff who was able to take such good care of Gabriel and stay so calm. I can't thank Jon enough for helping during the most frantic part of it all, either. So many people were so great, and I feel really blessed in the midst of this crisis.

Birth Story #1

It feels like I've been pregnant forever and still have forever to go. But since I'll eventually have this baby and have a birth story to tell, I thought it would be nice to have the other stories written down.

When I was pregnant with Gabriel, I was still teaching high school English. I wanted to have as much time with the baby as possible, so I planned on working right up until my due date, which was a Friday. I figured I had a pretty good chance of going into labor after the actual due date, so I thought it worked out perfectly. However, as the time got closer and working got harder, I decided to take off the week before my due date as well. Of course, Gabriel had his own plans.

Friday, February 21 was supposed to be my last day of work, and I had everything all set up. The day before that, I was getting ready for work. I took a shower and started getting dressed, but something wasn't right. I sat down to have my breakfast, thinking I would just wait to see how things went. It became apparent pretty quickly that my water had, in fact, broken. So instead of going into work, I let them know I wouldn't be there and headed to the hospital. By the way, if you want to know the definition of embarrassment, try walking down the hall of a hospital and waiting for a bed after your water has already broken.

For the first hour or so of labor, I was texting with work to let them know what I had planned on teaching that day. Labor was going pretty slow, and we sometimes joke that Gabriel had been playing and accidentally broke my water, but didn't actually want to be born yet and tried to take back what he had done. Obviously a joke, but it fits him.

Because labor was slow and my water had already broken, I was put on pitocin to speed things up. Unfortunately, the pitocin was a little too effective and sped up the contractions so much that they were overlapping. This was making Gabriel hold his breath, which caused his heart rate to drop. After taking me off the pitocin, getting his heart rate back up, and putting me back on pitocin to get labor on track a few separate times, at least five nurses came running into my room. I guess this time his heart rate had dropped dangerously low and they told me I would be needing a C-section. I had prepared myself for this possibility. I wasn't happy about it, but I was okay.

When they got me into the operating room, the doctor looked at everything and said something to the effect of, "Oh, he's fine now, but better safe than sorry." Part of me wanted to protest, but I was scared and wanted to believe that everyone had the best interest of me and my baby in mind. Looking back, I have no idea if that was true or if I should have fought for things to go differently. What I do know is that I have a healthy, happy little boy, so I can't regret or wish away anything about the way things happened.

I've heard about postpartum depression depression, and I've heard that sometimes it can be more difficult for women who had C-sections to feel connected to their babies. I was very fortunate that this was not at all the case for me. The doctor held my baby boy up so that I could see him and I was so overwhelmed with love and joy that I couldn't help but cry. I had wanted this baby so badly and already loved him so much, it was unbelievable to finally see him. He was, and still is, a beautiful little boy full of love and joy himself. I'm so blessed to have him.                      

School!

The day finally came! Gabriel has been wanting to go to school for a long time now, and today was his first day!
He was super excited and a little too literal when I told him to look up for a picture, but we got some good ones. Lily was excited too, so she insisted on taking a picture as well. She was pretty upset when she found out she wasn't also going to school though.
I took her to McDonald's where she played for a while. Then she told me she wanted to go home, but she was NOT happy when we got there. She eventually calmed down and was really excited to see the "school" again when we went to pick up Gabriel.
He had a great first day! I'm told he did very well and was excited about absolutely everything. He told me that he didn't really talk to new friends, just the teacher. That's kind of what expected, but hopefully he'll make friends in time.