naomi comes home

Naomi turned 4 days old this morning, and we came home from the hospital today. We were at Northwestern's new Prentice Women's Hospital, which opened up just this past fall. Nice digs. I liked the fact that they had private recovery rooms as compared to the small one before with just curtains separating all the patients and babies. And the rooms were nice, too...42 inch plasma screen TVs in all the rooms, complete with cable, movies, internet, and games. I liked that you could order meals when you wanted to eat, instead of having a tray of food dropped off when they wanted to you eat. And I lucked out with a lot of nice nurses--they make a huge difference on the experience that you have.

Not having to labor this time and having my c-section scheduled made a huge difference on my whole experience. Not that the past two were necessarily bad, but not having to labor for 16 and 12 hours, respectively, before having c-sections made me appreciate the planned one that much more. And I was glad that Naomi decided to wait instead of coming earlier like Nicholas and Sophia. I was a lot more aware of what was going on in the operating room and afterwards. For example, I always got nauseous and threw up in recovery from the anesthesia, so this time, I made sure that they gave me a little Zofran along the way to keep me from getting sick. I also became a lot more cognizant this time of the fact that a c-section is not a delicate process--I mean, they literally push this baby out of a 4 inch incision--there is a lot of tugging and pulling involved.

I have to admit that the idea of having 3 children has not quite caught up with me yet. I mean, fundamentally, life is VERY different. But at the same time, having two other children at home means that life continues much in the way it did before. Anyway, at the end of the day, I did end up with another completely adorable little being with chubby cheeks like her siblings and who confirms for me, in my now brief moments of lucidity, that the weeks of swollen legs and being uncomfortable and even the delivery process itself is absolutely worth the result.