12 hours and counting....

until my new nephew makes his appearance tomorrow morning at 7:30am.

As you might imagine, it's brought about lots of memories of my own birth experience. Like many major life events, it's pretty much a blur. But there are a few highlights that I remember vividly:

1) When they hooked me up to the monitor in the pre-op room, it quickly became clear that I was having pretty regular, fairly strong contractions that I couldn't feel at all. The nurse was shocked that I had no pain, and kept asking me if I wanted a little something. Since I was about to get a spinal, I thought that sounded a little redundant, so I declined. The spinal pretty much took care of everything, immediately.

2) I vomited not once, but twice on the operating table. It was very embarrassing, and if I recall correctly I believe Steve actually laughed at me. The very sexy anesthesiologist kept telling me that I needed to let him know if I felt the least bit sick, because he had super good drugs for that and certainly no reason for me to throw up. That made me kind of angry, despite his cuteness.

I also vomited as they were wheeling me into the recovery room, right in front of the nurses station. It was all those damn ice chips in the OR!

3) I vividly remember Steve leaning down and whispering into my ear, "They have your uterus sitting on top of your stomach right now." I remember wishing I could see it!

4) I attempted to nurse for the first time about 30 minutes post surgery as soon a I was in the recovery room. My friend Amanda was there with her 4 week old baby in a sling, and she was literally manhandling my breast trying to help me get Jenna latched on correctly. I remember feeling like it was the most natural thing in the world. In fact, it was then and there that I decided if I ever needed to, I would be totally comfortable allowing Amanda to nurse Jenna. I'm kind of sad this never happened, actually. In fact, in hindsight, as I was being forced to allow Jenna to take a small amount of formula to help with her 10% weight loss during those first few days, I almost wish I would have called Amanda and had her come back for some nursing sessions. I'm sure my conservative Kansas hospital would have had something to say about that....but there it is.

5) That first walk down the hallway -- O.U.C.H.! If you had a c-section, you know. Complete torture. I really thought my insides were going to spill out of my incision.

6) All those stool softeners. My god I think they handed out about 100 of them during my 4 day stay. I took about 3.

7) The dreaded bili lights. That was the breaking point for Steve. After 3 nights of "sleeping" on the fold out chair, he lost it at the thought of having that bright blue light in our hospital room all night long - with Jenna screaming the majority of the time, because that's what she did 75% of the time we were in the hospital.

Admittedly I was a very neurotic new mom. If I ever have it to do over again, I will be sooooooo much different. Not that I really have any regrets, but I am so much wiser now. I sure hope I have the opportunity at some point to put this wisdom to good use!

I don't know if I can wait 12 more days to go out there!!!