Birth Story

We were scheduled for Thursday October 21st at 7:30am, which meant that we had to be at the hospital at 5:30am to start all the prep work shenanigans. We were only 10 minutes late, which I was very proud of considering I only got 3 1/2 hours of sleep that night trying to get everything ready for the baby. I knew a good chunk of the time would be gathering registration information but since I had been there twice during this pregnancy I knew they already had it in their system so 10 minutes late was no big deal.

We arrived and they sent me to change into a gown. I poked my head out and told Mart there wasn't a bag in the bathroom to put my clothes in so he went to go find me one. I put the gown on that was on the back of the door and it happened to be too small so my entire butt hung out and it had no strings on it so I couldn't even tie it up even if it did fit ... so I poked my head back out the door laughing and had Mart go locate me a new gown. He walked out of the room laughing looking for a new gown. After I was finally dressed and laying in my bed they came in to draw blood and give me an iv so they could pump me full of like 4-5 saline bags. Well, little did I know I would spend the next 30 minutes with the girl digging around my arm trying to get the iv in. It was totally ridiculous. She FINALLY was able to get it in my wrist...I'm not even kidding, it probably took a good 30 minutes. Mart walked over at one point and said "if she was a guy, I'd have punched her by now for you". I think I was the only one who that it was funny at that point.

Here I am all super uncomfortable hooked up to a gazillion machines freezing to death. It was so cold in that room that I was shaking uncontrollably. The nurses would come in wearing jackets but when I told them I was shaking they asked me if I was nervous. I told them I was freezing, so they finally brought me a nice hot blanket from the warmer and that helped a lot.


While I was getting all prepped, Mart also had to get all prepped up. Although his preparations didn't require getting stabbed by some incompetent lady with an iv needle for 30 minutes. He just had to put on scrubs, a hairnet and some booties. The mask would come later.



We were ready to go and started to head back to the OR at about 7:45. We got back there and I was still shivering like crazy. I sat on the table and this time they let Mart stay in there while they gave me my spinal. Last time he waited in the hall for a good 20 minutes before they let him in. I knew the second it started to work because from my chest down I was no longer freezing but nice and toasty.

Within minutes of me laying down I started to feel funny and got really dizzy and felt like I was going to faint. I am pretty sure it scared Mart because he couldn't do anything about it and just watched me look like I was going to pass out. The anesthesiologist gave me something which helped and brought me around, but then I started to throw up. I threw up quite a few times and felt bad once again for Mart because the poor thing had to hold the bucket for me. After about the 7th or so time throwing up I was finished for the time being and was just waiting now. At 8:03am Lincoln Xander Neel was born! I heard them tell me they were pulling out his head and I asked Mart if he had hair. He told me yes, but not as much as Ethan did. The next thing I asked him was if he was cute. I had been praying I didn't have an ugly baby for months. He told me that he couldn't see him yet, that just his head was out. A few minutes later though he told me that he was out and very cute.

I know this next picture is a little weird and kind of gross, but it's the only picture of have during the surgery. Mart stuck his head over the sheet and took a picture of Lincoln's foot right after he just came out.


He weighed in at 7lbs 6oz and 20 inches tall.


He didn't like the nurses annoying him so he kept screaming at them, but the second they were finished with him, he was totally content.


They brought him over to meet me and asked me if I wanted to hold him. I did want to hold him, but didn't trust myself because my hand was completely numb from my carpal tunnel and didn't want to drop him so I just looked at him while Mart held him for me to see.


After that, the took the baby to do whatever they do with them and I was left to finish getting stitched up. Dr. Craig kept talking to me during the entire thing and part way through she told me that my hernia was the size of a large grapefruit! She also told me that my bag of water was pretty big which explained why he measured bigger but wasn't actually a big baby. She was really cute and just was chatting the whole time. She walked out into the hall with me and told me she'd come see me later and that my baby was so cute and that I did good.

A few minutes later I was moved into recovery. Everything went so much more smoothly this time I think. The spinal started to wear off HOURS faster than with Ethan. I was able to feel them massaging my stomach while I was still in recovery which gave me hope that I would be able to move my toes later that day.

A little while later they brought me the baby and I was able to hold him in recovery. That was nice, I wasn't able to do that with Ethan either.


My mom also made it and was in recovery to hold him and meet him as well


Another change they implemented since I had Ethan was that they give you the option to have the baby washed in your room so the mom can be a part of it too. After we were moved up to my room and about an hour later the nurse brought him in and gave him a bath on my bed.





After that, we were just free to love on him as much as we wanted ... and we took full advantage of that.




He's such a sweet baby who is totally content. All he wants is to be bundled up super tight and snuggled and loved.






This is Dr. Craig. I really really like her and I am glad I have chosen her twice to deliver my babies. She really watched out for me and I appreciate everything she did for both Lincoln and myself.


Mart left for a while to get some lunch and while he was gone I had a little bit of excitement. Back to the incompetent iv lady...they put my wrist band that identifies Lincoln as mine on my wrist with my iv in it. I don't know why she thought it was a good idea to put the stupid iv in my wrist of all places but my wrist band snagged it and ripped it out and I started bleeding all over. Right as soon as my wrist started dripping all over the place Mart walks back in the door and sees me covered in blood. He looked a little startled but I assured him that everything was okay. :) I called the nurse and had to get it placed ... again. I told the nurse about being a human pin cushion earlier so she called someone who was good at it instead of doing it herself (just in case it took her more than one try) and they didn't have any of the numbing stuff so she just jammed it in my hand. She got it the first try and the one time jamming into my hand hurt a heck of a lot less than 30 minutes of poking in my numb wrist.

Later that day Kace, Ryan and Ber brought Ethan to the hospital to meet Lincoln. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the baby so we didn't push it. I think he was little nervous in the first place because I had an oxygen tube in my nose and I'm sure I didn't look very good all hooked up to machines. The room was weird too so he was intimidated.

That night Mart stayed at the hospital with me. Lincoln kept going crazy because he did not want to sleep in the bed they had for him, so every time I would lay him down he would start screaming. I eventually gave in and let him sleep with me for a little while and he calmed down. I probably only got about 1 1/2 hours of sleep total that night with the nightly vital checks and screamy joe mad about being set down. Needless to say, I was very tired.

The next day we had more visitors and I was able to get my tubes all taken off, take a shower and start to feel like a human again instead of a pin cushion. We had a few visitors and just took it easy the rest of the day.



Ethan came back again that night and had warmed up significantly and even gave Lincoln a hug and a kiss while my Grandma was hold him. Sweet boy!




Mart and Traves then took Ethan and went to the pumpkin walk to give Kace a night off from watching him. Mart stayed home with him that night and I spent our second night there alone, just Lincoln and I. This time I decided I wasn't even going to attempt the stupid baby bed and Linc slept on my chest the entire night and we both actually ended up getting some sleep.

I hadn't heard anything about when I would be discharged so Saturday morning I started asking around. Dr. Armstrong (Linc's pediatrician) cleared him to be discharged that day if it came down to that. I think I wasn't supposed to be discharged until Sunday, but because I had been doing so well and was up and about by myself they were willing to consider letting me go that morning if the doctor cleared it. The o/c doctor came in later and checked everything and told me that if I really wanted to go home, she would let me but I would have to take some blood pressure meds because my blood pressure was still a bit high.

When Mart brought Ethan back that morning to say hi to me before going back to Kacean's house, I told him we could go home and I was just waiting for him to show up so I could have a ride. He was super excited and we started getting everything ready.

While I was gathering everything up Ethan discovered the little clothes cupboard in the corner of the room and climbed inside. He would shut the door and say "Where's Ethan?" until we responded and said "Where's Ethan?" back to him.



Then he would throw the door open and say "There he is!" with a huge grin on his face and the proceed to do it again. What a goof ball.


Here are both of my boys all ready to go home.





I'm so glad that he's here and safe. He's healthy and teeny tiny! When we were discharged from the hospital he weighed in at 6lbs 13oz. He has skinny little legs and arms and all the newborn pants we have for him are giant! He's just a skinny little boy.

I wasn't able to get my hernias repaired at the same time, so I'll have that repair surgery coming up here in the next month or so...then I can start to feel 100% normal again.