New Year, New Family

As excited and thrilled as I was about being pregnant over the past months, I also found myself at times paralyzed with fear. What if something happened to this baby we so desperately wanted? I was considered AMA, or Advanced Maternal Age, which in the pregnancy world is evidently a high-risk situation. In the beginning of my pregnancy I had to go to a high-risk doctor and was offered (and in some cases accepted) all sorts of additional testing to see if there was anything wrong with the baby. All of this resulted in an extremely high level of anxiety and, even when I got positive results from my testing, I was never fully able to relax about the pregnancy. Therefore, I never felt comfortable with blogging about it - even as excited as I was.
So, a brief synopsis:

I'm pregnant!

It's a girl!

 

 Despite all the worrying I did, those 9 months flew by. Having Max to entertain and take care of really distracted me most of the time from the fact that I was even pregnant. And other than the worrying, I think I had a pretty easy pregnancy (although Chris says that I complained way more than I did when I was pregnant with Max. Well, of course I did; it's way more exhausting to be pregnant when you have a toddler to chase around!)

 

Finally, though, our wait was over. I had really hoped to be able to try to have this baby the "normal way" after having a C-section with Max, but she had other ideas. Since she refused to show up by her due date of December 30th, Dr. Keith agreed to come in after she got off work on December 31st to do my C section. (It's considered much more likely for a uterine rupture or some other adverse outcome to occur when a Mom has previously had a C Section and tries to have the baby the normal way past her due date). Surgery isn't really my idea of a fun plan for New Year's Eve, but Chris was sure happy that we would be getting that tax deduction for 2012!

 

So, after a tearful and fearful goodbye to Max at Mimi and PopPop's, Chris and I headed over to the hospital, and by shortly after 10 AM I was well on my way to baby #2.

With the champagne we gave Dr. Keith as a gift for coming in on her time off to deliver our New Year's Eve baby.

I definitely think that knowing what I was in for made the process a hair less scary this time. Couple that with a nurse who manged to get my IV in in one try rather than the 3 tries it took with Max and it seemed all around to be going much smoother from the get-go. We were scheduled to start at noon, but Dr. Keith was early and we headed back to the OR sometime around 11:30. The C Section itself seemed (to me) to take much longer this time, but Chris says it was about the same. As she was operating, I heard Dr. Keith say "nuchal cord, loosely wrapped", which means that the umbilical cord was wrapped loosely around Tessa's neck. Unfortunately for me, I knew what that meant, so that also made it seem to take longer (even though I knew that usually this doesn't cause problems).

 

Regardless, at 12:08 PM, our family was completed with the birth of our daughter, Tessa Christine Ludwig. She weighed 7 lb 11 oz and was 20.5" long. I heard her first cry before she was even out of my body and this time, a nurse actually brought her around the curtain to show her to me before they cleaned her up. She looked perfect. The first words I heard anyone say about her were "She's beautiful" and I heard it said multiple times. Chris was able to go stand by her side as she was weighed and measured and he came back to show me the first pictures he had taken. My first thought (and comment, which everyone laughed at) was "She's so white!" I have no idea where that came from; in actuality, she's rather dark-complected. Whatever. I was heavily drugged. And deliriously happy.

 

 

one fresh baby burrito

After some time in the recovery room, Mimi showed up with Max. He was pretty much smitten from the get-go. I guess we had done a pretty good job of explaining to him for the months before her birth that Tessa would be coming and that he would be a big brother. He seemed to understand that this was his little sister Tessa and he seemed pretty happy about it. He also was evidently having the time of his life being the center of attention at Mimi and Pop Pop's, so he was more than happy to go back home with them.

 

Our first family picture.



Please note that I am fatter AFTER delivery than before. They pumped so much fluid into me that when I got home I weighed 5 lbs MORE than I did the morning before I had her. Over 3 days at home I lost 17 pounds!!!!

One of the first nurses to take care of us was a familiar face. Michelle had been the main nurse to take care of us when Max was born. The crazy thing is that she remembered us, remembered Chris was from Germany, and even remembered where our room was the first time! She's also a Tiger fan. She gave Tessa her first bath.

Suffice it to say, although I read on Facebook about all the fun and exciting things my friends were doing on New Year's Eve, Chris and I had the best and most exciting New Year's Eve of our lives, as we spent the evening in the hospital, staring at our new angel and watching the Tigers beat LSU in their bowl game...with the newest little Tiger Fan!

So we started the New Year of 2013 as a family of 4. I guess we are really living the American Dream: 2 kids, a boy and a girl, a house and a dog. What more could we want? After all the troubles we had getting pregnant each time, we are feeling especially blessed with our awesome little family!

Ready to go home.