Happy Birth Day, Little Lady!

Our sweet daughter made her first appearance Wednesday, 7 October 2009.
Monday before I started having a lot of Braxton-Hicks and that evening we went over to Thomas' brother's house to have dinner and while I was cooking, the contractions went from just tightening of my stomach muscles to front to back cramping. They continued throughout the night and in the morning they were 15-25 minutes apart, lasting anywhere between 30 and 50 seconds. I called my midwife and she said that since they were still that far apart, and I had an appointment that afternoon at 3.00, just to wait until the appointment, unless they get closer. After lunchtime, we decided that we were going to drop Aiden off at Robbie and Michelle's and Thomas would go with me to the appointment in case they wanted me to stay and monitor me for a little bit. With all the running around of getting a nursing bra, just in case, and dropping Aiden off, my contractions jumped to 7-10 minutes apart.
At my appointment, I was taken back, and had an internal. She said that I definitely had dropped and I was effaced, but hadn't dilated any, but she would talk to the doctor to see what they thought was best. A few minutes later, she comes back into the room and tells us to go to the hospital because I will be having a C-section in two and a half hours.
We rush over to the hospital and get dressed in the flowy gown, we take a "last day pregnant" picture and Thomas gives me a blessing that everything would go well with the delivery and that Mommy and baby would be safe.
We get all ready, and then the nurse comes in and tells us that the doctor called and decided we would have the C-section performed in the morning, instead of that night. She wasn't sure of the reason behind this because she wasn't there when the doctor called, but I suspect it was so it'd be easier to monitor me if I did, in fact, have placenta accreta and have a lot of hemorrhaging. I'd rather be monitored during the day by more nurses and doctors than through the night when staff is at a minimum. So the longest night ever started.
The bed was terrible and plastic and hot. I was strapped up to lots of monitors and couldn't really fidget as much as I wanted and/or needed because it would make the monitors stop working. At 5 a.m. I gave up trying to sleep and just started getting ready for the day.
We got ready and they took me back to the Operating Room. Most everything went fine during the surgery. I threw up, which was a hard and difficult thing to do. I had no stomach muscles to push it out, so it kind of just dripped out of my mouth and down the side of my face the first time. After that, I spit it into the little bowl Thomas was holding for me, but some of it overshot the bowl and got all over Thomas' hand. Oh, the things you do for love.
While they were cutting me open, Cecilia's head was pressed up right against the uterine wall, and they cut her head a little bit. It was very superficial and stopped bleeding with just the pressure of gauze and the little hat's babies get from the hospital.
Afterwards, they took me back to the recovery room and I was able to hold Celia and nurse her right away. She latched on immediately and we were on our way.
The rest of our hospital stay went by fairly quickly. I was in much better shape this C-section than last and was even able to walk to my new room just 12 hours after surgery. It was slow going, but I did it.
I am so grateful our little girl is here and I am excited to finally be able to get to know the person who so tormented me from inside for the past eight and a half months.