Maya Kikuye Hendrickson

Maya has just arrived!
...with healthy lungs

Maya Kikuye Hendrickson

Jan. 22, 2009

8:30AM

7 lbs. 4 oz, 20 inches

We had a scheduled repeat c-section and you would think that it would make things easier, but it was impossible to sleep the night before. Wednesday, I had an drs. appointment and had to go to the hospital for blood tests. Tutu watched Kalia, so Erik and I had a little day of appointments with a trip to Sam Sato's for lunch in between. At the drs. appointment, Erik informed me that maybe we shouldn't be having the baby the next day, since I hadn't gained enough weight and maybe the baby needed to grow more. I had been having so many contractions and pressure from the baby, I don't think I could have waited another day. But I thought it was pretty funny that he wanted to let the doctor know that the baby wasn't ready yet. Lunch was great at Sam Sato's and then to the hospital to fill out paper work and blood tests...where they hooked me up to the machine since I was having contractions. They let me go after monitoring me for about 20 minutes. Then to get blood tests. I hate blood tests and of course they let the new girl take my blood or rather butcher my arm. She got a vein, then pressed too hard and went through the vein, so another lady had to do it all over again. Still have bruise on arm from the first one.

Wednesday night Erik and I barely slept. 4:30AM our alarm went off and we got ready to head to the hospital. We went to registration and the lady said to me, "checking in?" I thought that was funny, it sounded like we were staying the weekend at the Marriott. We waited in the postpartum room for about an hour- put my IV in and waited. Then I was taken to the OR recover room and Erik went to put his scrubs on in the waiting room. Then the nurses and anesthesiologist came to ask me questions. I was waiting for the anesthesiologist, when a man came by in an aloha shirt with a brief case. He looked like he was there to fix the copy machine. He looked around at all the patients and said, "kathryn hendrickson?" I waved and he said, "you don't look like you're going to have a baby" and i said, "you don't look like the anesthesiologist". But he was great, explained everything, even during the surgery and really kept my mind off of what was going on. Erik was also amazing and really kept me focused.

The c-section was really quick, erik was brought in at 8:15AM and she was born on 8:30AM. She was absolutely purple/blue. I got to see her for just a little bit, but I could see out of the corner of my eye the nurse and doctor cleaning her up. She immediately peed and had two poops. Then I went to recovery for about an hour and Erik went in with Maya.

After an hour they took me to my shared room and Erik and Maya were waiting for me. She latched on right away, she's quite the barracuda. The day went by fast and soon I could start feeling me legs and then Tutu and Kalia came by at visiting hours. Kalia was really excited to meet her little sister.