First off, I want to thank my breasts. They have really pulled through for me. This makes me feel mildly bad for having great displeasure with their size, but I am guessing that they could be this productive AND be smaller. But all in all I am very pleased with how they are caring for my little girl.
They also get a gold star for being early producers. My milk came in by Wednesday morning after an early Monday morning birth. I don't know how much of that is genetic and how much is thanks to the fact that on Monday I let M suckle for hours and hours and also pumped on Tuesday (unproductively) at the advice of the lactation consultant. This meant that M hardly lost any weight from birth.
All that said, breastfeeding is hard. And it does hurt. Trying to get my infant to learn how to latch on properly was like trying to get my cat's head out of his food bowl when you are trying to fill it. M knows what she wants and she isn't stupid. My breasts would be so dripping that she knew a proper latch was unecessary, and in her book, just a waste of time.
I got to experience engorgement starting the Saturday night of M's first week. Wow does that hurt, and I mean really hurts. I didn't have any advil in the house because I couldn't take it while pregnant. I almost woke my husband up to go get some. My breasts are huge, so engorgement made them even huger and so so painful. I also have some breast tissue in my right armpit. That tissue got pretty swollen during pregnany, very attractive. It also got very engorged too which was really freaking painful.
I used cold packs to help, which inclyded walking around with frozen coffee beans under my arm. And hot showers helped too. It was miserable. M couldn' nurse because my breasts and nipples were rock hard, so she was freaking out. I ended up pumping until they were soft enough to nurse M, but it was hard to get the milk flowing when they were that full. Luckily this only lasted about 18 hours. I have to say that that early Sunday morning has been the hardest part of the pregnany, delivery, and 6 weeks of parenting.
It has taken me a while to figure out how to be comfortable with such large and heavy breasts that hurt. But I think I am mostly there.
It dawned on me about 10 days ago that it doesn't hurt any more. This is going well and I am feeling better. M is better at her part too now that she's bigger and has a bit more control.
I think it really does take about 5 weeks for nursing to settle into a comfort zone even under the best of circumstances. I deeply admire and respect the dedication, love, and perserverance of those women who confront breast feeding challenges. There are some dark moments in breast feeding and I hope all women get warned about this so they go into it emotionally prepared.
Now, if M and I can master some modesty techniques for nursing in public we will be all set!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
birth control
I had my 6 week post-birth OB appointment on Monday. The dr talked to me about birth control. It was a surreal conversation in which I found myself incapable of participating. She gave me a prescription for the pill (progesterone only). I picked it up today from the pharmacy but I don't know about using it.
How do you go from years of IF and yearning for a baby to actively keeping a baby from being made? I have a pretty minimal chance of conceiving without medical intervention but I know that it could theoretically happen. I should consider, I should plan accordingly. But deep down I feel conflicted.
Do I want another baby?
That's a question I'm afraid to ask myself.
I don't want to decide that the answer is "yes" and then spend time and emotional energy trying to make it happen. I don't want to confront IF again. I feel strongly that I should continue to count myself incredibly lucky for what I do have. I would hate to miss enjoying a phase of M's life because I was IF-preoccupied again.
But saying "no" feels wrong. I wanted a baby so deeply that now it feels wrong to say that I don't want another one. I feel like I should take all that I can get. If I could actually get pregnant again I almost feel like I shouldn't squander the opportunity.
Any action or inaction represents a decision, and I really don't want to have to make it.
How do you go from years of IF and yearning for a baby to actively keeping a baby from being made? I have a pretty minimal chance of conceiving without medical intervention but I know that it could theoretically happen. I should consider, I should plan accordingly. But deep down I feel conflicted.
Do I want another baby?
That's a question I'm afraid to ask myself.
I don't want to decide that the answer is "yes" and then spend time and emotional energy trying to make it happen. I don't want to confront IF again. I feel strongly that I should continue to count myself incredibly lucky for what I do have. I would hate to miss enjoying a phase of M's life because I was IF-preoccupied again.
But saying "no" feels wrong. I wanted a baby so deeply that now it feels wrong to say that I don't want another one. I feel like I should take all that I can get. If I could actually get pregnant again I almost feel like I shouldn't squander the opportunity.
Any action or inaction represents a decision, and I really don't want to have to make it.
Monday, April 25, 2011
victory dance
something wonderful: The Easter bunny brought me a baby that slept for 7.5 hours straight on Saturday night. It was as if she heard me finally admitting that the no-sleep thing was really getting to me & didn't want it to seem like she's not the perfect baby... I kept waking up to make sure she was still breathing; it kinda freaked me out. But tonight it looks as though that was a one-off fluke.
somthing sucky: M likes to do a kind of victory dance when she's starting to get satiated during nursing. This dance includes jerking her head back very quickly with my nipple in her mouth. It hurts, a lot. Is it possible for a baby to rip off a nipple?
something philosophica/observationall: A one hour nap during the day is not the same as an extra hour of sleep at night.
somthing sucky: M likes to do a kind of victory dance when she's starting to get satiated during nursing. This dance includes jerking her head back very quickly with my nipple in her mouth. It hurts, a lot. Is it possible for a baby to rip off a nipple?
something philosophica/observationall: A one hour nap during the day is not the same as an extra hour of sleep at night.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Blog crisis
I know that I am not a very good blogger. I write scientific papers fairly well but I lack a flair for the other kind of writing. Despite my lack of innate ability I started this blog as an outlet for sharing emotions that I had to keep bottled up in real life.
In so doing I discovered an amazing world of women who were experiencing similar emotions on similar journeys AND who expressed their feelings and experiences with amazing eloquence and style.
I have spent a lot of my life not having a solid sense of who I am. I have a particular clothing and hair style that I like and that seem to be highly socially acceptable, but my personality is much more bland and insecure. I can fake or ignore the insecurity a lot of the time, but I am finding it creeping up when I think about my blogging. I want to keep writing, keep documenting my journey, but I feel like I need a style, a theme to make it work. The fertility treatments and then pregnancy provided a simple framework to follow. But what about now?
So many women shift their blogging beautifully after a baby arrives. But I can't see a cohesive theme, trend or story to my all-over-the-place life right now. Figuring out how to modify my blog gets into an artistic world I left back in college (I went to college intending to be a theater major but once I got there I realized that I wasn't very good compared to most of the others, so I switched career paths dramatically, pun intended).
Since I feel like I need to take baby steps towards getting myself back into a new equilibrium I am going to try something small. Here goes:
The wonderful today: Sharing my baby with new and old friends at an easter party. And mostly, when a dear friend cried with happiness for me.
The sucky today: I am so freaking tired that I don't think quite right. It frightens me, seriously. And today, Dh seems to think that time spent with the baby AND me equals time he covers baby duty FOR me so I can get a break... wtf? I really seriously need more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep sometime soon.
The philosophical observation: Infants have no sense of proportionality.
In so doing I discovered an amazing world of women who were experiencing similar emotions on similar journeys AND who expressed their feelings and experiences with amazing eloquence and style.
I have spent a lot of my life not having a solid sense of who I am. I have a particular clothing and hair style that I like and that seem to be highly socially acceptable, but my personality is much more bland and insecure. I can fake or ignore the insecurity a lot of the time, but I am finding it creeping up when I think about my blogging. I want to keep writing, keep documenting my journey, but I feel like I need a style, a theme to make it work. The fertility treatments and then pregnancy provided a simple framework to follow. But what about now?
So many women shift their blogging beautifully after a baby arrives. But I can't see a cohesive theme, trend or story to my all-over-the-place life right now. Figuring out how to modify my blog gets into an artistic world I left back in college (I went to college intending to be a theater major but once I got there I realized that I wasn't very good compared to most of the others, so I switched career paths dramatically, pun intended).
Since I feel like I need to take baby steps towards getting myself back into a new equilibrium I am going to try something small. Here goes:
The wonderful today: Sharing my baby with new and old friends at an easter party. And mostly, when a dear friend cried with happiness for me.
The sucky today: I am so freaking tired that I don't think quite right. It frightens me, seriously. And today, Dh seems to think that time spent with the baby AND me equals time he covers baby duty FOR me so I can get a break... wtf? I really seriously need more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep sometime soon.
The philosophical observation: Infants have no sense of proportionality.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Bunnies bunnies everywhere
As some of you may remember I developed quite a passion for the rabbits of Watership Down about a year ago. Since then rabbits have been a recurring theme for me. For example:
I was inspired to make my blog theme a rabbit despite all my years as a passionate cat and monkey fan, and general intent to not be too cutesie (which I have likely failed by going with the bunny theme).
I gave birth to a rabbit on the Chinese calendar.
About 90% of the gifts that my year-of-the-rabbit child has received have rabbits on them despite her mother's love of monkeys.
I keep seeing bunnies in the wild... including a little rabbit that now lives next to my mother-in-law's mobile home in the desert that was out and about almost every time we went for a walk.
It sure seems like M's talisman is the rabbit. Or maybe it's just because it's almost easter...
I was inspired to make my blog theme a rabbit despite all my years as a passionate cat and monkey fan, and general intent to not be too cutesie (which I have likely failed by going with the bunny theme).
I gave birth to a rabbit on the Chinese calendar.
About 90% of the gifts that my year-of-the-rabbit child has received have rabbits on them despite her mother's love of monkeys.
I keep seeing bunnies in the wild... including a little rabbit that now lives next to my mother-in-law's mobile home in the desert that was out and about almost every time we went for a walk.
It sure seems like M's talisman is the rabbit. Or maybe it's just because it's almost easter...
Monday, April 18, 2011
5 weeks: updates
I survived the trip to my mother-in-law's. It wasn't anywhere near as bad logistically as I feared, in no small part because my MIL was much more laid back due to her grief. It was a very sad trip, but little M was the one thing that gave everyone some hope and a reason to face forward.
And little M did great on such a long car trip. We spent two nights along the road to get there and again driving back. So it was a long trip but if we had tried to do it faster M would have driven us and herself completely mad. And it was nice to also get in a quick visit with my great aunt. She was so psyched about M.
M has only been sleeping 2-3 hours a stretch for the last 4 weeks. The times when she wakes and snacks and goes back to sleep within 30 minutes aren't too bad. It is the times when she has a hard time getting back to sleep that are the killer for me. She will fuss and fuss and get herself all worked up. I manage to get her back to sleep about 1.5 hours later but that mans that she wakes up 30-45 minutes later hungry again. I, a former insomniac, has developed quite a talent for falling back asleep at the drop of a hat. Although, I read somewhere that breast feeding hormones help with falling asleep again quickly. Not sure there is any truth to that as I would guess that just about anyone who hadn't slept for more than 2.5 hours in a row for the last 5-6 weeks would fall asleep virtually instantaneously too.
Saturday was the first day I felt kind of bad. Adrenaline had me going really well but I think the sleep deprivation is starting to get to me. I was in a bad mood all day and really needed a break from M. Honestly, I really needed the glass of wine I drank. M has been in kind of a bad mood for a few days now. She isn't colicky at all, but just kind of hard to please.
The lack of interaction is starting to get to me. I was feeling lots of good vibes from the fact that I had managed to keep her alive and feed her so that she is gaining weight like a summo wrestler (10.9 pounds on Friday, yowza). But that is starting to not be enough feedback. I could really use a smile.
Today I am feeling quite a bit better, in no small part due to three things that happened on Sunday:
1) I bought a couple of nursing bras that actually fit properly. It was really starting to get to me to always be so aware of my large, heavy and still somewhat painful breasts all the freaking time.
2) I bought a shirt that is really cute, big enough to cover my breasts, styled appropriately to draw attention away from their girth, and long enough to cover the top of the maternity pants I am still wearing. I am feeling very gross these days; I needed the wardrobe boost.
3) Dh decided he was going to lose it if he couldn't get a good night's sleep so he and the cat moved to the guest bedroom last night. M and I set up shop in my bed which seems to have resulted in a better night's sleep for all four of us. M only woke up twice and went back to sleep quickly. Funny thing though is that I have started to dream about nursing her, so sometimes I am not sure if I did or didn't...
And little M did great on such a long car trip. We spent two nights along the road to get there and again driving back. So it was a long trip but if we had tried to do it faster M would have driven us and herself completely mad. And it was nice to also get in a quick visit with my great aunt. She was so psyched about M.
M has only been sleeping 2-3 hours a stretch for the last 4 weeks. The times when she wakes and snacks and goes back to sleep within 30 minutes aren't too bad. It is the times when she has a hard time getting back to sleep that are the killer for me. She will fuss and fuss and get herself all worked up. I manage to get her back to sleep about 1.5 hours later but that mans that she wakes up 30-45 minutes later hungry again. I, a former insomniac, has developed quite a talent for falling back asleep at the drop of a hat. Although, I read somewhere that breast feeding hormones help with falling asleep again quickly. Not sure there is any truth to that as I would guess that just about anyone who hadn't slept for more than 2.5 hours in a row for the last 5-6 weeks would fall asleep virtually instantaneously too.
Saturday was the first day I felt kind of bad. Adrenaline had me going really well but I think the sleep deprivation is starting to get to me. I was in a bad mood all day and really needed a break from M. Honestly, I really needed the glass of wine I drank. M has been in kind of a bad mood for a few days now. She isn't colicky at all, but just kind of hard to please.
The lack of interaction is starting to get to me. I was feeling lots of good vibes from the fact that I had managed to keep her alive and feed her so that she is gaining weight like a summo wrestler (10.9 pounds on Friday, yowza). But that is starting to not be enough feedback. I could really use a smile.
Today I am feeling quite a bit better, in no small part due to three things that happened on Sunday:
1) I bought a couple of nursing bras that actually fit properly. It was really starting to get to me to always be so aware of my large, heavy and still somewhat painful breasts all the freaking time.
2) I bought a shirt that is really cute, big enough to cover my breasts, styled appropriately to draw attention away from their girth, and long enough to cover the top of the maternity pants I am still wearing. I am feeling very gross these days; I needed the wardrobe boost.
3) Dh decided he was going to lose it if he couldn't get a good night's sleep so he and the cat moved to the guest bedroom last night. M and I set up shop in my bed which seems to have resulted in a better night's sleep for all four of us. M only woke up twice and went back to sleep quickly. Funny thing though is that I have started to dream about nursing her, so sometimes I am not sure if I did or didn't...
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Inappropriate thoughts
1) When my baby nurses it sounds like the audio to a porno flick with all the moaning, sucking, and heavy breathing. Dh and I look at each other and laugh every time.
2) My baby has developed a sad case of baby acne. Sometimes I can't help but think it detracts from her cuteness, but then the next minute I look at her she looks angelic and sweet and I feel really guilty for thinking momentarily that she wasn't cute.
3) When I bend over to wrap my hair in a towel after showering my breasts drip milk, seriously drip milk, and I feel like a cow. A cow with really big boobs.
4) I can't help but worry that I will never lose the last 15 pounds of my pregnancy weight even though I know it takes time. Patience is not one of my virtues and I am really tired of wearing my two pairs of pregnancy pants. It is bad enough that I won't be able to wear any of my pre-pregnancy shirts until I stop breast feeding. You'd think I could at least get a break and get to wear my pre-pregnancy pants sometime soon. (I feel like a big baby writing that, but I can't help feeling it.)
5) I seriously want to have sex again. Do we really need to wait the full 6 weeks after delivery or have some of you "cheated" and done it earlier? What are the implications? I haven't had sex in almost an entire freaking year, since I didn't get to get pregnant the old fashioned way and then we were way too worried about losing the baby to do anything while I was pregnant. I hate to admit this, but it I really need to get it off of my chest by confessing.
2) My baby has developed a sad case of baby acne. Sometimes I can't help but think it detracts from her cuteness, but then the next minute I look at her she looks angelic and sweet and I feel really guilty for thinking momentarily that she wasn't cute.
3) When I bend over to wrap my hair in a towel after showering my breasts drip milk, seriously drip milk, and I feel like a cow. A cow with really big boobs.
4) I can't help but worry that I will never lose the last 15 pounds of my pregnancy weight even though I know it takes time. Patience is not one of my virtues and I am really tired of wearing my two pairs of pregnancy pants. It is bad enough that I won't be able to wear any of my pre-pregnancy shirts until I stop breast feeding. You'd think I could at least get a break and get to wear my pre-pregnancy pants sometime soon. (I feel like a big baby writing that, but I can't help feeling it.)
5) I seriously want to have sex again. Do we really need to wait the full 6 weeks after delivery or have some of you "cheated" and done it earlier? What are the implications? I haven't had sex in almost an entire freaking year, since I didn't get to get pregnant the old fashioned way and then we were way too worried about losing the baby to do anything while I was pregnant. I hate to admit this, but it I really need to get it off of my chest by confessing.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
making contact
M and I are home alone for a few hours while Dh and MIL go to the bank to take care of some of the business of death. It is probably the longest I have been alone with M since she was born and it is really nice. I think we needed some mommy-baby time.
M was laying on the floor on a blanket with a toy on either side for her to check out. At one point I heard all sorts of grunting and heavy breathng. M had managed to get on her side and was reaching out her hand far enough to touch her bunny rabbit. I was so impressed and proud that I started crying! She's too young to have this kind of control and it was likely a fluke that it worked out for her, but still...
I am such a goof ball. I had no idea I would cry over things like that! Hormones are crazy things.
M was laying on the floor on a blanket with a toy on either side for her to check out. At one point I heard all sorts of grunting and heavy breathng. M had managed to get on her side and was reaching out her hand far enough to touch her bunny rabbit. I was so impressed and proud that I started crying! She's too young to have this kind of control and it was likely a fluke that it worked out for her, but still...
I am such a goof ball. I had no idea I would cry over things like that! Hormones are crazy things.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Have you ever noticed that...
Women can accomplish other things while holding a baby but men can't (i.e., laundry, make lunch)?
Babies always wake up and fuss exactly when you sit down to eat?
A brand of the apron-like things you can buy to provide some privacy when you nurse in public is called "hooter hiders"? I kid you not.
Whenever I go through some experience that should win me lots of compassion and baby-ing, my Dh always one-ups me so that I have to suck it up and baby him instead?
My FIL passed away last Tuesday. We are driving down to be with Dh's mom. M is being really good, for a three week old. Because MIL hates when people spend money we can't stay in a hotel when we get there but rather had to pack sleeping bags and towels and all the baby things I thought we might need for a week so that we can stay in one of the empty trailers in this little mobile home community they live in. And I have to stock the kitchen and cook for a week. I have no idea what to expect in terms of cleaning. There really is a price for convenience and ease, which I would gladly pay given little M's age and my inexperience as a mom. But the woman's husband just died, so her dislike of our spending money on "convenience" trumps my new baby.
Oh, and Dh hurt his back getting M's carseat in the car the other day so I have to lift and carry everything, including the baby.
It is going to be a great week, but at least I have a hooter hider to make me laugh while all the old people scowl at me for nursing in public.
Babies always wake up and fuss exactly when you sit down to eat?
A brand of the apron-like things you can buy to provide some privacy when you nurse in public is called "hooter hiders"? I kid you not.
Whenever I go through some experience that should win me lots of compassion and baby-ing, my Dh always one-ups me so that I have to suck it up and baby him instead?
My FIL passed away last Tuesday. We are driving down to be with Dh's mom. M is being really good, for a three week old. Because MIL hates when people spend money we can't stay in a hotel when we get there but rather had to pack sleeping bags and towels and all the baby things I thought we might need for a week so that we can stay in one of the empty trailers in this little mobile home community they live in. And I have to stock the kitchen and cook for a week. I have no idea what to expect in terms of cleaning. There really is a price for convenience and ease, which I would gladly pay given little M's age and my inexperience as a mom. But the woman's husband just died, so her dislike of our spending money on "convenience" trumps my new baby.
Oh, and Dh hurt his back getting M's carseat in the car the other day so I have to lift and carry everything, including the baby.
It is going to be a great week, but at least I have a hooter hider to make me laugh while all the old people scowl at me for nursing in public.
Friday, April 1, 2011
270dp2dt = M's birthday!
This post was start on March 18 but finished on April 1. I left it written as I'd started it those two weeks ago...
I hardly know where to begin. But to start with, I am sitting here on my sage green glider with little M passed out across my chest. This is the sweetest feeling in the world, and looking at her contented expression seriously makes me cry.
It was not an easy night though, or few nights, for that matter. While M is the sweetest baby on the planet during the day, she turns into a purple flailing frog at night ever since her first night. I find it amazing that this doesn't actually bother me all that much, just breaks my heart that I can't figure out how to console her. I try everything, including letting her mangle my poor nipples when I still only had meager colostrum and she was starting to get hungry. I honestly haven't slept for more than an hour at a time, or for more than 3 hours in one night since M was born. I am still hyped on adrenaline as this surprisingly hasn't affected me much yet.
Getting here...
On Saturday March 12th Dh worked late, planning on wrapping things up the next day (Sunday) and spending some time with me before we went in for the induction Sunday evening. He had a really hard day given some work issues and finding out that things were not going well with his dad's health. He had a hard time falling asleep and then was kept up by my snoring until about 2:15am (if you set your clock forward at midnight instead of 2am -- this was the night we shifted our clocks for daylight savings). I woke up at exactly 2:30am to the sensation of a trickle in my vagina, then more of a trickle, and the a very sudden huge gush, followed by more gushes. There was absolutely no question as to what happened. My water broke.
This all happened very quickly, and when I told Dh that my water had just broken he said "are you serious?" It was kind of like I had dreamed about.
I managed to get out of bed once I somehow found something to capture the gushing water leaking from me (grateful that I had, for some reason weeks ago, decided to sleep on an extra water absorbent pad for the last month), went to the bathroom and immediately noticed that there was a lot of brown/green meconium. Little M had pooped. I called the Ob and she said that it was time -- come to the hospital immediately even though I hadn't yet started to feel contractions.
We managed to get into the car by 3:10am (dh hadn't packed ahead of time and I just couldn't leave the bed sopping in amniotic fluid and baby poop for who knows how long). It was hard to move without losing more water so I eventually stopped moving around and just went to the car to wait a few minutes for Dh to carrying everything down. Oddly, during our drive we noticed that there were lots of people out -- cars driving weird and people walking around like it was 10pm. Dh cursed quite a bit on the drive, and I tried really hard not to leak excessively.
We got to the hospital and shuffled carefully up to L&D. I was so excited to be there, walking in during the middle of the night. Something about it all just felt so right and so exciting.
I started feeling contractions during the drive over, but they were really mild and erratic at that point. In triage they said they were going to keep me because of the significant amount of meconium even though I was only in the early stage of labor. We moved into L&D room number 23 (an internal room with no windows) and had a great nurse named Tora helping us. She is awesome...
It is about 4am now. I go into a time-warp and have a hard time remembering what happened over the next 30 hours, especially since all of the clocks on the hospital walls hadn't been changed for daylight savings time. (Oh, and it was a constant source of amusement to the staff that my water broke at a time that the hospital computer said didn't exist.)
We tried to rest but my contractions were getting a little stronger. I was at 3cm dilated at some point very early on, but contractions were still irregular and not close enough together. We walked the corridor a bit but that brought on the contractions a lot more strongly and I couldn't do much of it.
Things were moving really slowly so Dh went home to get some of the stuff he forgot, send an email to the dept chair for me in response to one he'd sent me late on Friday about my space problem (I know I know, not really a high priority under the circumstances, but...) A really good friend came over to hang with me while he was gone.
Only about 90 minutes passed but my contractions were getting stronger even though still irregular. I think this was like 10 or 11 am. It hurt like hell. I decided that I wanted to have some positive memories of the birth and that this pain was going to make that impossible, so I had a shot of fentanyl and then an epidural. The anesthesiologist was awesome and really funny. In fact, I was blown away by everyone who helped me deliver M. They were awesome and so freaking supportive every step of the way.
Dh came back just as the anesthesiologist was packing up to leave. I was in a happy place. Everyone laughed and had a merry good time. It was a great epidural as I could still move (on the bed) and feel all of the pressure of the contractions but not the pain.
Things progressed really slowly for a long time after this and I can't really remember much about what all we did and said during this time. I threw up at some point, and then went into a hypoglycemic blur with lots of heartburn. The nurse gave me something for this, but I just threw it up. Yuck. I did not realize that barfing was a part of the labor thing.
By the time we were approaching 5 or 6 pm and only 5 cm dilated, the doctor and nurse were mentally preparing us for a C-section as M was doing ok but wasn't as active as they would have liked. It was decided to first try pitocin to see if we could get the contractions closer together.
The doctors changed shifts sometime around now. I think this was a saving grace for me in terms if having a vaginal deliver as the new OB was much slower in her philosophy. She kept coming by saying let's wait and see what happens... she didn't even check my cervix for a long time, just kept slowly upping the pitocin to get the contractions closer together.
Around 10pm the nurse who we had when we first came the night before came back on shift. This was fantastic. She took charge of us and did all the right things. By about midnight I was really really exhausted. Dh and I were really getting concerned about M, watching the monitors with excruciating detail as M's heart rate would plummet to 60 at the height of each of my irregular contractions. The nurse turned the monitor sound off, turned off the lights and told me to sleep. Amazingly, I did for about 2 hours. By the time I woke up I felt rested and was fully dilated and M had started to descend. It was time to push!
Dh took one of my feet on his shoulder and the nurse took my other foot and we started. It was amazing. And hard. And felt so weird. It was just like you'd imagine a bowling ball coming through your pelvis would feel like. Weird. Bizarre. And so strange to have my husband so involved with this transformation of my lady parts. He watched it all, gave me play-by-plays and was overall the most ideal friend/person to have through it all. (Desiree -- given the details of how my labor went, a doula would have been in the way, but if you don't get lucky with an awesome OB nurse or situation I could see where one would be nice.). One of the best parts of this labor and delivery thing has been my husband's awe with me, pregnancy, and what I did.
I must confess that even with an epidural the last phases of delivery hurt like hell, especially that last little bit that really stings as you feel tissues that are very sensitive stretching too far. But feeling M be pulled from my body was amazing. 3:49am on Monday morning, March 14, 2011.
I was only partly aware of that she had the cord wrapped around her neck twice and once around her body which is what they were expecting from how she had been responding to the contractions. The OB was amazing in how she handled it.
M was immediately taken over to the "panda" incubator in the same room as there was a big concern that she might inhale meconiun once the umbilical cord was cut. Her first Apgar score was a 5 and the second a 9. After a few minutes Dh carried her over to me and put her on my chest. She was perfect and so beautiful! Somehow she didn't get all mashed up during the delivery. I couldn't see her very well as I was still laying on my back and she was too close to my face for me to focus on properly, but I was so overwhelmed with positive emotions that this overwhelmed the frustration with not being able to really hold or see her well.
I didn't quite grasp what was going on with the OB, but the placenta wasn't coming out. The doctor had to go in manually remove it; I started hemorrhaging and so the OB went back into remove all these large clots and a piece of the placenta that was stuck. Dh said it was a huge amount of blood, and I can tell you that feeling the doctor reaching up into my uterus to scrape around with her hand was a horrid feeling. She kept apologizing. This must be what it was like to be "drawn" (as is drawn and quartered) back in Henry VIII times. Luckily this was all overwhelmed by touching M on my chest. I was just so eager to sit up so that I could see her better that I wasn't at all scared about something that seems kind of scary in hindsight.
What I did not expect at all was what happened next. About an hour or two after M was delivered I started shaking uncontrollably. Seriously shaking. I then started throwing up and then was overwhelmed by cold. I have never been so cold in my life, it was like being naked in the arctic. I really thought that I might not make it through this part, that maybe something really bad was happening, as I had no idea that I might throw up, dry-heave, and shiver so uncontrollably as a normal side-effect of the serious drop in hormones. The nurses were great and told me that this was normal, though they hadn't seen it in a while. I couldn't hold M at all during this time, or talk to family on the phone. Dh called everyone and held M. Just FYI in case this happens to any of you, I was unbelievably overwhelmed with cold shivers every time I stood up for the next 12-18 hours. Weird, seriously weird.
Around 6:30am we were taken up to a recovery room. I was put onto a rolling bed and a large man wheeled me as I held M and cried. I am not sure why I was crying, but we passed a woman on another rolling bed who was screaming out in pain and it sent me over the emotional edge. I was also smiling like crazy at everyone. I vividly remember feeling like I was a bit crazy from the weird simultaneous range of emotions.
We moved upstairs to room 4310, a private room with a wonderful view. We spend the next two nights there snuggled up admiring this amazing little creature we made... enjoying the rain and each other. Time was such a surreal thing through all of this. I still have periods of the day and night where I can't follow how much time has passed, although this is gradually moving back to something more like normal. The time-warp feeling is one I really didn't expect, but one that made the whole experience even more wonderful and surreal.
I hardly know where to begin. But to start with, I am sitting here on my sage green glider with little M passed out across my chest. This is the sweetest feeling in the world, and looking at her contented expression seriously makes me cry.
It was not an easy night though, or few nights, for that matter. While M is the sweetest baby on the planet during the day, she turns into a purple flailing frog at night ever since her first night. I find it amazing that this doesn't actually bother me all that much, just breaks my heart that I can't figure out how to console her. I try everything, including letting her mangle my poor nipples when I still only had meager colostrum and she was starting to get hungry. I honestly haven't slept for more than an hour at a time, or for more than 3 hours in one night since M was born. I am still hyped on adrenaline as this surprisingly hasn't affected me much yet.
Getting here...
On Saturday March 12th Dh worked late, planning on wrapping things up the next day (Sunday) and spending some time with me before we went in for the induction Sunday evening. He had a really hard day given some work issues and finding out that things were not going well with his dad's health. He had a hard time falling asleep and then was kept up by my snoring until about 2:15am (if you set your clock forward at midnight instead of 2am -- this was the night we shifted our clocks for daylight savings). I woke up at exactly 2:30am to the sensation of a trickle in my vagina, then more of a trickle, and the a very sudden huge gush, followed by more gushes. There was absolutely no question as to what happened. My water broke.
This all happened very quickly, and when I told Dh that my water had just broken he said "are you serious?" It was kind of like I had dreamed about.
I managed to get out of bed once I somehow found something to capture the gushing water leaking from me (grateful that I had, for some reason weeks ago, decided to sleep on an extra water absorbent pad for the last month), went to the bathroom and immediately noticed that there was a lot of brown/green meconium. Little M had pooped. I called the Ob and she said that it was time -- come to the hospital immediately even though I hadn't yet started to feel contractions.
We managed to get into the car by 3:10am (dh hadn't packed ahead of time and I just couldn't leave the bed sopping in amniotic fluid and baby poop for who knows how long). It was hard to move without losing more water so I eventually stopped moving around and just went to the car to wait a few minutes for Dh to carrying everything down. Oddly, during our drive we noticed that there were lots of people out -- cars driving weird and people walking around like it was 10pm. Dh cursed quite a bit on the drive, and I tried really hard not to leak excessively.
We got to the hospital and shuffled carefully up to L&D. I was so excited to be there, walking in during the middle of the night. Something about it all just felt so right and so exciting.
I started feeling contractions during the drive over, but they were really mild and erratic at that point. In triage they said they were going to keep me because of the significant amount of meconium even though I was only in the early stage of labor. We moved into L&D room number 23 (an internal room with no windows) and had a great nurse named Tora helping us. She is awesome...
It is about 4am now. I go into a time-warp and have a hard time remembering what happened over the next 30 hours, especially since all of the clocks on the hospital walls hadn't been changed for daylight savings time. (Oh, and it was a constant source of amusement to the staff that my water broke at a time that the hospital computer said didn't exist.)
We tried to rest but my contractions were getting a little stronger. I was at 3cm dilated at some point very early on, but contractions were still irregular and not close enough together. We walked the corridor a bit but that brought on the contractions a lot more strongly and I couldn't do much of it.
Things were moving really slowly so Dh went home to get some of the stuff he forgot, send an email to the dept chair for me in response to one he'd sent me late on Friday about my space problem (I know I know, not really a high priority under the circumstances, but...) A really good friend came over to hang with me while he was gone.
Only about 90 minutes passed but my contractions were getting stronger even though still irregular. I think this was like 10 or 11 am. It hurt like hell. I decided that I wanted to have some positive memories of the birth and that this pain was going to make that impossible, so I had a shot of fentanyl and then an epidural. The anesthesiologist was awesome and really funny. In fact, I was blown away by everyone who helped me deliver M. They were awesome and so freaking supportive every step of the way.
Dh came back just as the anesthesiologist was packing up to leave. I was in a happy place. Everyone laughed and had a merry good time. It was a great epidural as I could still move (on the bed) and feel all of the pressure of the contractions but not the pain.
Things progressed really slowly for a long time after this and I can't really remember much about what all we did and said during this time. I threw up at some point, and then went into a hypoglycemic blur with lots of heartburn. The nurse gave me something for this, but I just threw it up. Yuck. I did not realize that barfing was a part of the labor thing.
By the time we were approaching 5 or 6 pm and only 5 cm dilated, the doctor and nurse were mentally preparing us for a C-section as M was doing ok but wasn't as active as they would have liked. It was decided to first try pitocin to see if we could get the contractions closer together.
The doctors changed shifts sometime around now. I think this was a saving grace for me in terms if having a vaginal deliver as the new OB was much slower in her philosophy. She kept coming by saying let's wait and see what happens... she didn't even check my cervix for a long time, just kept slowly upping the pitocin to get the contractions closer together.
Around 10pm the nurse who we had when we first came the night before came back on shift. This was fantastic. She took charge of us and did all the right things. By about midnight I was really really exhausted. Dh and I were really getting concerned about M, watching the monitors with excruciating detail as M's heart rate would plummet to 60 at the height of each of my irregular contractions. The nurse turned the monitor sound off, turned off the lights and told me to sleep. Amazingly, I did for about 2 hours. By the time I woke up I felt rested and was fully dilated and M had started to descend. It was time to push!
Dh took one of my feet on his shoulder and the nurse took my other foot and we started. It was amazing. And hard. And felt so weird. It was just like you'd imagine a bowling ball coming through your pelvis would feel like. Weird. Bizarre. And so strange to have my husband so involved with this transformation of my lady parts. He watched it all, gave me play-by-plays and was overall the most ideal friend/person to have through it all. (Desiree -- given the details of how my labor went, a doula would have been in the way, but if you don't get lucky with an awesome OB nurse or situation I could see where one would be nice.). One of the best parts of this labor and delivery thing has been my husband's awe with me, pregnancy, and what I did.
I must confess that even with an epidural the last phases of delivery hurt like hell, especially that last little bit that really stings as you feel tissues that are very sensitive stretching too far. But feeling M be pulled from my body was amazing. 3:49am on Monday morning, March 14, 2011.
I was only partly aware of that she had the cord wrapped around her neck twice and once around her body which is what they were expecting from how she had been responding to the contractions. The OB was amazing in how she handled it.
M was immediately taken over to the "panda" incubator in the same room as there was a big concern that she might inhale meconiun once the umbilical cord was cut. Her first Apgar score was a 5 and the second a 9. After a few minutes Dh carried her over to me and put her on my chest. She was perfect and so beautiful! Somehow she didn't get all mashed up during the delivery. I couldn't see her very well as I was still laying on my back and she was too close to my face for me to focus on properly, but I was so overwhelmed with positive emotions that this overwhelmed the frustration with not being able to really hold or see her well.
I didn't quite grasp what was going on with the OB, but the placenta wasn't coming out. The doctor had to go in manually remove it; I started hemorrhaging and so the OB went back into remove all these large clots and a piece of the placenta that was stuck. Dh said it was a huge amount of blood, and I can tell you that feeling the doctor reaching up into my uterus to scrape around with her hand was a horrid feeling. She kept apologizing. This must be what it was like to be "drawn" (as is drawn and quartered) back in Henry VIII times. Luckily this was all overwhelmed by touching M on my chest. I was just so eager to sit up so that I could see her better that I wasn't at all scared about something that seems kind of scary in hindsight.
What I did not expect at all was what happened next. About an hour or two after M was delivered I started shaking uncontrollably. Seriously shaking. I then started throwing up and then was overwhelmed by cold. I have never been so cold in my life, it was like being naked in the arctic. I really thought that I might not make it through this part, that maybe something really bad was happening, as I had no idea that I might throw up, dry-heave, and shiver so uncontrollably as a normal side-effect of the serious drop in hormones. The nurses were great and told me that this was normal, though they hadn't seen it in a while. I couldn't hold M at all during this time, or talk to family on the phone. Dh called everyone and held M. Just FYI in case this happens to any of you, I was unbelievably overwhelmed with cold shivers every time I stood up for the next 12-18 hours. Weird, seriously weird.
Around 6:30am we were taken up to a recovery room. I was put onto a rolling bed and a large man wheeled me as I held M and cried. I am not sure why I was crying, but we passed a woman on another rolling bed who was screaming out in pain and it sent me over the emotional edge. I was also smiling like crazy at everyone. I vividly remember feeling like I was a bit crazy from the weird simultaneous range of emotions.
We moved upstairs to room 4310, a private room with a wonderful view. We spend the next two nights there snuggled up admiring this amazing little creature we made... enjoying the rain and each other. Time was such a surreal thing through all of this. I still have periods of the day and night where I can't follow how much time has passed, although this is gradually moving back to something more like normal. The time-warp feeling is one I really didn't expect, but one that made the whole experience even more wonderful and surreal.
milky M
I just fed M breastmilk from a bottle for the first time. She's 2 weeks and almost 5 days old. Since she is gaining weight like a sumo wrestler (8lbs 13oz from a birth weight of 7lbs 3oz! is that too fast?!), her pediatrician said it'd be fine to give my cracked nipple a break. Ans what a nice break! The pump is so much gentler than my little frog baby.
She drank 3oz like a frat boy with a keg all to himself, all that I had pumped, in a matter of minutes. Minutes I tell you. Should I be worried about the voraciousness? Now she is in milky baby mode and I am hoping she won't be hungry again in 5 minutes like she often does with the breast. Maybe I am vastly overfeeding my little girl with these 34G's.
She drank 3oz like a frat boy with a keg all to himself, all that I had pumped, in a matter of minutes. Minutes I tell you. Should I be worried about the voraciousness? Now she is in milky baby mode and I am hoping she won't be hungry again in 5 minutes like she often does with the breast. Maybe I am vastly overfeeding my little girl with these 34G's.
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