Riley Adam
Born: 10/31/2006 at 11:20am
Weight: 9lbs 10oz
Length: 22 inches
Apgars: 8 to 9 (Whatever that is)
We arrived at the Hospital at 7am for a planned 9am c-section. The morning was filled with poking and prodding and a lot of laughter. We were bumped until 10:30am by another emergency c-section. We were glad that we had chosen to do the procedure instead of getting hours into labor only to realize a c-section was required.
At roughly 10:45am our number was called. Court, a nurse, and I walked to the operating room. The nurse gave me a seat just outside of the O.R. while they prepped Courtney. The chair was uncomfortable and the surroundings were scary. I was sitting outside of an O.R. door by myself in a hallway. The chair was situated outside of a medical closet that had people coming and going from it frequently. I spent about 10 minutes nervously waiting by myself in the hallway.
When they called me into the O.R. Courtney had been prepped. I took my seat next to her head and smiled. She had on an oxygen mask which I knew from our hours of A Baby Story watching that women are given the mask when they react poorly to the anesthesia. Courtney has a violent history of reacting to anesthesia. We had done our best to warn all the doctors and nurses about it so I was confident they had done her up right. I asked Court about it and she said, “Yeah, I had a little freak out. But I’m fine now.” I looked at the nurse and she explained that Courtney had the typical reaction with the spinal tap and was unable to tell if she was breathing. A little oxygen soothes the soul.
The team of doctors and nurses went to work. Within 10 minutes Riley was born into the world. Throughout the entire operation Courtney and I talked and joked with everyone in the room. It was odd but quite easy, honestly. The doctor said there was no way Riley would have come out easily naturally which helped us feel better about it all.
The nurses whisked me away with Riley to the nursery. Once there they started measuring and doing their “thing” with the new baby. They told me I couldn’t go back to see Courtney. I was struck with a gigantic feeling of helplessness. I hadn’t planned to have the first moments of my child’s life to be with just…me. Court knew everything and I planned on just going with the flow. Without her there I realized I had no frickin’ clue what to do with a baby.
I stumbled around a bit. Picked him up, put him down, and finally took him out to meet the grandparents. The nurses assured me Courtney would be wheeled out of the O.R. shortly and then we could bring Riley to her.
After about 45 minutes she hadn’t been brought by. I started to get nervous. I worried about any complications from the surgery. When they did finally bring her out they had snuck her out and into a recovery room. As we had expected she was reacting violently to a sedative given to her after the actual birth. One of the anesthesiologists thought Courtney could use a little “something” to take the edge off. Courtney spent the next 4 hours in a recovery room puking because of it.
Our first day took a minor detour because of the recovery process. What we thought would be filled with friends and family quickly became a quiet resting time for all of us. The happy grandparents left us and it was soon just Courtney, me, and Riley. Courtney laid in her bed sleeping off the narcotics given to her for the pain. I was left to figure out this baby thing on my own.
For the first 20 hours of Riley’s life I was the soul support. I all of the sudden was scared t death. As Riley lay there crying and squirming I wished I had paid a little more attention to all the knowledge Court had tried to impart on me over the last 10 months. I learned to change a diaper from the nurse taking care of Court. Riley also managed to pee on me twice by the time he was 8 hours old. I would have given anything for Courtney and I to figure this stuff out together. I had a hard time dealing with it.
By 6pm Courtney was starting to feel a bit better. She was awake and was able to hold Riles for awhile. She couldn’t get out of bed, nor could she hold down any food. I spent my time taking care of both of them.
By 8pm Riley was starting to realize his place in the world. Typically you hear the first 24 hours of a baby’s life is a quiet time. They are tired from the birth and also not hungry quite yet. They sleep for most of it. Riley was everything but. I always joked that my kid would come out kickin’, screamin’, walkin’, and talkin’. I couldn’t have been more right. By the night Riley was in full “baby” mode. He wanted to eat, held, and changed. The entire cycle would take about an hour. Once done, he’d take a 10 minute break before starting all over again.
That first night we made the tough decision to send him to the nursery. We needed a little sanity time. We didn’t want to feel like we were giving up but we needed just a little time to ourselves to sleep and come to terms with what this whole baby thing was going to take.
