Our beautiful second born boy has arrived! Everything went incredibly smoothly for the scheduled c-section on the original date given. I wasn't surprised, I never went into labour on my own for my first born and didn't expect I was going to for this one.
The hospital experience was very well-managed, we felt. Our hospital had a rule of which entry door could be used with screeners at the door as you went in. We walked in, and some construction workers had just entered ahead of us so we were asked to wait in the outer vestibule until they went through the screening process and had moved along. Then, we walked in and were asked questions (any travel in the last 14 days?, any new or worsening cough?, any fever?, any exposure to a known or suspected case of covid-19?). Then, we were each given a mask to wear. We were sent down the hallway to the elevators -- we never saw another patient, barely anyone around at all, and there was one hallway for one direction and a different hall for the other direction. We got in the elevator by ourselves, and up to the maternity floor.
It felt very isolated, we felt we had zero exposure to any possible risks. Our labour & delivery floor is only birthing unit, NICU, and pediatrics and there have been no positive covid-19 cases on this floor at all. We were taken into triage, we had to wear our masks the whole time, and they did my pre-op blood work and monitored the baby. Then we waited and were called in to walk to the operating room (there are two dedicated operating rooms just for labour & delivery).
Mr. Lock was taken to change to scrubs and I went right into the operating room. They sat me on the table while the nurses finished setting up, and then the anesthesiologist came in and got ready to give me my spinal. I felt a little woozy when this was happening, I kept trying to remove my face mask because I felt so hot suddenly, they kept shoving the mask back on, haha. Anyway, it was just anxiety and nerves and the panicked feeling passed and then I was laying down on the table and the rest of the surgery was set up. I felt tugging sensations, and then the most amazing moment happened -- the loud cries of my newborn son!
He will be our last baby, after everything I went through to get to this point we knew this, so I also had my last remaining Fallopian tube removed during this c-section. While my OB finished the surgery, they brought our little one around and let Mr. Lock hold him close to me. When everything was done, I was wheeled to the recovery room for a couple of hours. We got to put the baby on me for skin-to-skin time while there. My OB came in and took Mr. Lock's phone and let us remove our masks for a bit and took family photos of the three of us.
We then were taken to our private room -- which Mr. Lock could not leave at all for the duration of our stay. We only ever saw the nurse on duty, and the food service people when they dropped a tray of hospital food for us three times a day. Everyone was in full masks and PPE. We really felt it was a very secure environment, we don't fear having any exposure risk to the virus.
We were able to be discharged by 6 pm the next day. We headed home to recover there. Our little one is now one week old. He's been eating well, sleeping well, and all systems seem to be good! He's certainly a hearty and healthy baby, like his big brother was. He's very relaxed so far.
We are adjusting well to being a family of four in isolation. All in all, my experience giving birth during this pandemic went very smoothly and while it was sad not to have my family visit, we were luckily not in the hospital very long anyway, so it really was okay. We had one small visit with my parents on Sunday, because we had to go pick our toddler up (he had stayed there for five days). It was wonderful to even get to see my parents once, before we head back into our self-isolation.
Social distancing seems to be working somewhat where we live, so we are hopeful if everyone continues to follow these directions we will be able to return to seeing at least some of our immediate family soon. We will look forward to that day.
Here's a photo of the little man! My rainbow baby, my miracle, my #pandemicbaby.
(For the sake of the blog we will give him the pseudonym "Owen" which was one of the other names we almost gave him).
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