Roz's birth was a little more interesting than the rest of our C-section births. It started off normally - hospital gown, IV, watching "The Price Is Right" - but after a couple of blood tests, the medical people were a bit alarmed at my low level of platelets. They were worried that my blood wouldn't clot, so they made us wait around for a while and think good platelet thoughts before they would perform surgery. Finally they figured that the way to thicken up my blood would be to get me "un-pregnant," so they went ahead. I had also asked my doctor to tie my tubes, because without installing a zipper, there were only so many C-sections I could have. And five kids - really. Hubby gets enough crap at work as it is, and going to the store with five kids and having people ask if they're all mine or if I "know what causes that" (I don't! I really don't!) gets kind of old.
So off we went to the operating room, Roz was born, she was beautiful, we cried, it was great, and then I'm lying there going, OK, let's wrap it up, when I heard the doctor say, "We have a little bleeder here." And you know how casually medical people say things - your arm falls off and they try to tone it down: "Your arm seems to have fallen off." What happened was, when the doctor pulled up my Fallopian tube to tie it, it broke a capillary attached to a major blood vessel - about as big around as my doctor's finger, he said - and it wouldn't stop bleeding. Apparently we didn't think enough good platelet thoughts.
It took a while, but eventually he got me to stop bleeding, and I was totally oblivious that anything different had happened. Later, when my doctor visited me in my room, he said, "That was scary!" and told me what happened. Well, I should say. He told me to tell the nurses that I shouldn't be pushed hard on the right side of my abdomen because this major blood vessel could start bleeding again. I said, "Maybe you should write that on the bandage" - which was less of a bandage and more of a small tarp - and he said, "Hey, that's a good idea." So he wrote, "Do not push hard on this side" on my bandage. Good thing I had my thinking cap on that day or I might not be here typing right now.
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| But enough about me - check out our cute new kid. |
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| "I've got... PREGNANT FACE" |
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| Enjoying that short sweet time in the hospital |
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| Yawn! |
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| Our oldest and youngest |
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| "What's on TV?" |
Bella had fun playing with the hospital bed controls and watching whatever was on the tube
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| Harrison and his little sister |
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| zzzzzzzzz |
It was too much for little Carter - he passed right out.
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| Our very pretty girl, Rosalind Rachel |
We planned to name her Olivia, but we don't like giving our kids popular names, so we watched the birth announcements in the newspaper that summer and dang if there weren't eight new Olivias every week or so. I was really hungry at the beginning of the pregnancy, so we joked that maybe we were going to have twins. We thought of some good twin names - Olivia and Diana so we could call them "Liv" and "Di" and wouldn't that be funny - but then we thought of a favorite TV show, "Frasier," and its two female names - Roz and Daphne.
And we thought, Rosalind is an old-sounding name and a Shakespeare name like Isabella, and it's different, and it's pretty... and we loved the nickname "Roz" for a tiny baby girl, it just sounded clever or something. Rachel is a family name that Hubby and I both love (he loves it so much, he kept calling her "Rachel" during her blessing). That's how she got her name.
Cheesy little Harrison guy
Carter, following in all the big kids' soccer footsteps
Kids on bikes - this was the day Harrison learned how to ride a two-wheel bike.
Bike riding
More bike riding
Carter wasn't much for bike riding at this point, but he sure took to it later.
Baby Rosalind in "her" bed - she slept with us from birth till about six months old, and it was amazing how one tiny girl could force her parents to the sides of their king-size bed.
Our new, necessary huge car
In September, Brennan started 5th grade...
... and Bella started 2nd grade.
