The Big Day Revisited

Two weeks ago (has it been that long?) on Tuesday, May 26th, I had another prenatal appointment in the afternoon. I was already dilated and effaced, and the doctor thought that I would be ready to have our baby very soon since I was fullterm. I was admitted to the hospital that night for monitoring into a spacious labor and delivery suite. Shereif spent the night with me on the couch and brought me a delicious sandwich to eat as my "last" meal, and we watched the Cavs game until we fell asleep. I was having contractions throughout the night and did not get much sleep, but by 6am on Wednesday, May 27th the contractions were extremely close together. I wanted to have as natural of a birth as possible (but was not opposed to an epidural :) and experienced the contractions for approximately 4 hours before I felt the need to start pushing. I had just got out of bed to use the physioball to help with the pain when I felt the overwhelming desire to start pushing. The nurses and Shereif helped me back to bed and coached me through the contractions and pushes until Alyssa arrived at 10:27am. Shereif cut the cord and watched as Alyssa was taken to the incubator in our room after being placed on me. She cried a little, and Shereif stayed with her as she was checked and even taken to the nursery for her bath.

It is difficult to remember the exact times of everything that happened since it all happened so fast (relatively speaking). I remember the nurses all giving me high-fives for having a natural birth and accidentally kicking the doctor at one point when my foot fell out of the stirrup. As the doctor was about to break my water, it broke on its own as I yelled out "oh no" too.

After the delivery, I was moved to a postpartum room, which was a very small room in the BirthPlace. Shereif and I spent the next 2 nights there with Alyssa. The nurses constantly commented on how cute Alyssa was and how long her eyelashes are. They were all jealous of them, and I hope she inherited Shereif's long eyelashes. The 2 days spent in the hospital with Alyssa went by extremely fast. We ate surprisingly good hospital food and met with numerous nurses, the lactation consultant, doctors, administrators, and a few of our neighbors who visited. Shereif changed Alyssa's very first dirty diaper, which surprised the nurses. He did a great job even though it was his first diaper change too. We were discharged Friday afternoon on May 29th after Shereif picked my mom up from the airport. It was an emotional welcome as my mom met Alyssa for the first time.

I will never forget leaving the hospital. Volunteers arrive to take the mothers to the parking lot in a wheelchair. We waited about an hour for our pick-up people because they got lost. The 2 volunteers we were assigned were an elderly woman and an even more elderly man. The man pushed me in the wheelchair, which was a scary thought considering we probably weighed more than he did. As he, Alyssa, and I got on the elevator, he forgot to hold the door open for my mom, Shereif, and the other volunteer who was pushing a cart with our belongings. I just sat in the wheelchair holding Alyssa and watching the door close on them. We went down 3 floors when another couple came on the elevator and back up 3 floors to see my mom and Shereif again. Since the elevator was full, we had to go back down and finally met everyone on the first floor since they had taken another elevator. We were dropped off at the entrance of the hospital and Shereif got the car. We had some trouble getting Alyssa into her carseat, but everything worked out in the end. I held her head the whole way home. We were ecstatic to bring her home and were surprised by all the decorations on the house from the neighbors to celebrate Alyssa's arrival.
The first few days were the hardest. Each passing day and week gets better though and we are enamored by how much love we have for another person who has only been with us for 14 days. It feels like Alyssa has been a part of our family for much longer than that, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for all of us.