Day 280 - On the twelfth day before Christmas...

My true love gave to me - a cute baby that's not in my belly!

ALEXIS EVELYN STOKER

7 lbs 1 oz 19 in

First off! I'm in love with my little girl. She's beautiful. And, surprisingly, she wasn't as big as everyone thought she was going to be - so that's nice. Really, she is only 3 oz bigger than Jonas (6 lbs 14 oz). And 1/2 inch longer than him. I was pleasantly surprised.

So here's the story: I borrowed my mom's point and shoot camera for these pictures, since I wouldn't be able to take them with my nice camera. Clint took them.

We could hardly sleep because we were excited/anxious to meet our little girl. I woke up at 4:30 to shower and get ready, then Clint did after me. We left our house around 5:45 am and got to the Hospital at 6:15ish am. We registered and then went to our first room to get prepped. This is where they put in my IV, did some paperwork, and met with the anesthesiologist and waited for the doctor to come.

Then we went to the surgery room. This is Clint and I waiting while the doctor's did stuff. It was so cold in the room I was shivering, so they gave me warm blankets while I waited.

I felt like this time they took longer to get her out as opposed to Jonas. The doctor said I had a lot of scar tissue from the previous c-section, so they had to cut through all of that first to get to the uterus.

Then they pulled her out after 10-15 minutes, and the doctor's were saying "she's a fiesty one". I guess she came out kicking and giving them a hard time. Ha! Then they pulled down the sheet that was in front of me just a little to show me a purple crying baby. Then they weighed her - the picture shown below.

Clint said they had to put something down her throat to drain out some gunk that was in her system. But after that, she was fine. Clint held her the rest of the time next to me while they stitched me up. I felt like that took forever. So we took some pics while we all waited.  The doctor found a cyst on one of my ovaries, so hopefully that's nothing to be concerned about.

Then we went back to our recovery room where we stay for a few days. Alexis had her first bath in a different room. Clint was there. I stayed in bed. 

This c-section was a lot different than my last. I was nauseous while they were stitching me up, and I was nauseous when I got back to the room for most of the day. I even threw up once. I was itchy everywhere. The nurses said it was side effects from the medication. I felt like I was out of it during the day. Clint said people would ask me questions and I would just sit there like I didn't hear them. I don't even remember doing that. I remember answering everyone's questions. But there were times I couldn't even talk. Clint said I was high from all the narcotic medications. I probably was. Either way, it's taken a bit longer to recover with this c-section than the last. But it all went well and the baby is healthy and that's all one can ever want with their child, right?