Birth Story... Part 1

Ok, I've been meaning to do this... just sort of outline how everything went down when our little guy was born. So, here goes....

I called the hospital at 4:25AM to check that we were still on the schedule for that morning. Around 4:40AM my neighbor and friend P came over to stay with our daughter. We then left for the hospital. It took us a little longer than we thought it would so early in the morning so we got there just in time. We were supposed to be there by 5:30 and we got there around 5:25AM. I was aiming for a bit earlier.
Anyways, we got taken to a temporary room because they didn't have a postpartum room available yet (waiting for other women to be released that day). I got hooked up to the monitors and we took care of some paperwork. A nurse came in to put in my IVs... It took him 3 tries to get the IV in my left arm (I warned him I had lousy veins!). He tried once on my right arm and told me he would "do me a favor and let the next shift nurse try rather than poking me any more," because he was coming off a 12 hour shift and had a terrible headache. Yeah, he basically looked asleep on his feet. Didn't give me a whole lot of confidence in the nursing staff! After that I decided to request the anesthesiologist do my other IV because when my daughter was born we had the same problem and several pokes later they finally called anesthesia who got it on the first try. Yeah, this anesthesiologist was apparently not as skilled - it took him 4 tries, but at least he was nice enough to numb each spot before sticking the huge needle in. So, basically 7 pokes later I finally had both IVs in... in the most uncomfortable spot possible, my wrists/hands (sort of the side of the hand where it meets the wrist).

After all that, we were finally ready to go to the OR.... about 2 1/2 hours after arriving at the hospital.