After nearly 9 months of anticipation, we are proud to welcome our daughter, Riley Paige Hunter, into this big world!
Our (repeat) c-section was scheduled for August 24, 2010 at 12:30. I had to be at the hospital at 10:00am. When we got to Labor & Delivery, Triage was FULL! Of course, I freaked out since private rooms at Plantation General Hospital are on a first come, first serve basis. I thought we would never get one with so many women in labor / delivering that day. The good part about it was that I got to be prepped and wait in a private laboring room, which was nice. 12:30 came and went.....but we were finally given green light to go to the OR around 12:50. I grabbed my IV stand and off we walked to the OR, where I would receive my spinal injection and surgery would begin. Up until that point, the only part of my surgery that I was anxious about was the spinal injection. I remembered the pressure that I felt when the spinal was administered with Tyler. So, not being a fan of needles, I was not excited about this part. Well, the good Lord was on my side that day, in more ways than one, of course. My anesthesiologist was completing her residency at the hospital and I was her "guinea pig". I thought "Oh Joy" when she introduced herself and disclosed this information. BUT, I think that because she was trying to do everything perfect in front of her colleagues, I didn't feel a thing. In fact, when she said "all done, you can lay back now", I thought, "HUH???" Just then my legs started to go numb, and that was the end of that. My Mom and David were in the room this time to witness the whole thing. My doctor let David photograph almost the entire birth, with the exception of the incision. We got some pretty incredible pictures. Some are a little gory, but the memories are fantastic!
CLICK HERE TO SEE RILEY'S "BIRTHDAY" ALBUM. When I finally got to see her, my first reaction was how tiny she was. We had a running bet on what she would weigh and my guess was 8.10. David said 7lbs and my Mom said 8.6. We were all wrong! She weighed 7lbs 11oz and was 20inches long, born at 1:20pm. After being looked over by the doctors, who gave her an Apgar score of 9.9, she was cleaned and brought to me for my first hello and kiss. That is a moment that I will never forget! Not for either of my children!
Daddy and Riley then went down to the nursery and my Mom stayed with me while they stitched me up and took me into recovery. I finally made it to my room (YES, WE GOT A PRIVATE ROOM, PHEW!!!) and they brought her in around 4:30pm where I finally got to hold my baby girl for the first time! And, of course, Big Brother Tyler had to meet her, too!
We [all] fell in love with her instantaneously! She took to nursing on the first attempt and did such a great job that my milk actually came in before I left the hospital. That was a superb accomplishment for me, since it was a 1-week struggle with Tyler before he got the hang of it. My recovery was so easy that my doctor actually wanted to discharge me a day early because I was doing so well, but we decided to stay the extra day so that Riley could get all the monitoring she needed and we could soak up a little more of the pampered lifestyle! Tyler also stayed in the hospital with us so that he could witness everything and share in the memories! He did so well. All of the nurses complimented us on how good of a child he was. We had our very own "slumber party" going on in our room!
Riley is now 2-1/2 weeks old and she's amazing. She's a great baby and we couldn't have asked for a more perfect blessing! More updates to come! And so it goes...
Our first family of 4 photo! Of course, there was so much going on that we didn't get one where we're all paying attention. But, it's still perfect in my book!
