food troubles We have concluded that nothing comes easy for this body of mine when it comes to all aspects of childbearing. I have been fighting a not very fun infection since we got home from the hospital and trying to get rid of it without having to take antibiotics, but that didn't seem to be happening and I have only been getting worse this week so I finally took them yesterday. This meant that I needed to stop breastfeeding Aneliese till they worked through my system. I pumped before I started taking them, plus I still have lots of milk in the freezer from when I was pumping to get ready for our other baby. Aneliese however, hated the bottle. We coughed and choked through the first feeding and while we got the hang of it, she never seemed full. She never really cried just kind of fussed and whimpered. This morning when I nursed her, she ate so much and was so content. Now she has lots of smiles and the world is a happy place.
2008-05-07 (baby has arrived)
Baby joys We are starting to get into a routine now that we have been home for a few days even though we have had tons of visitors. Aneliese has spent very little time anywhere but in someone's arms during the day. She is wonderful at night and only wakes up to eat so far and I even can lay her back down awake and she just falls back to sleep. Which brings me to a question. Should she be eating more than once in the night at this stage do you think? She only wakes up to eat once in the middle of the night. She eats alot then and seems content so I think it is fine but I'm not entirely sure.
Also a recommendation for the Ergo carrier for anyone who is interested. We are so happy with it so far, it works great for both of Dan and I to use, it is easy to get on and off, and Aneliese is completely happy in it.
I am feeling good and am healing fast. Getting back to normal physically pretty quick. I find evenings most difficult, probably because I am pretty tired by then. I start to feel pretty weird and detached which scares me a little. We realized though that, it helps incredibly for me to spend that time outside so for the last two days we have spent the evenings outside.
Finally I just love my little girl so much and am so blessed.
2008-05-05 (baby has arrived)
My little girl My long awaited child is lying on my lap as I type this, awake and making faces with an occassional pussy cat yawn. I am so incredibly blessed. My gyn/ob told me after I had delivered Aneliese that he had not thought that he would ever be helping me deliver my baby. God is so gracious.
Well for those of you who want "the story" here it is. I had been having contractions on and off all week but on Sunday, I felt like it was time. . 2:00 am monday my contractions were strong and five minutes apart so we waited until morning and went to the hospital, was barely dilated and the contractions lessened some so we went and got a hotel room. We walked a little, tried to sleep (I couldn't) and tried to just wait it out. Middle of the night, very strong contractions a minute apart so back to the hospital. Still not dilating and I foolishly, in my zombie tired state, let them convince me to take a very small amount of morphine and gravol that they said would let me get a little rest. so not true and made me worse then drunk. Finally on tuesday afternoon as I was getting more and more tired and more unable to deal with the contractions (all prelabour mind you) we went to see my family dr (my gyn/ob was out of town) who no longer does maternity to see if he could help us. We were told to go back to the hospital and not leave until we saw a dr (we hadn't to this point). Anyway, we got there and the nurse wanted to send us home again, but who happens to be walking by but Dr Wroz (gyn/ob), who had just gotten back. When I told him that I had been in labor for 33 hours he said it was time to do something so much to the displeasure of the nurse he broke my water. I was so relieved and then started the most painful experience of my life. Before I go into any of that though, I will say that Dan was an amazing labor coach, I can hardly believe how well he did at doing things to ease my labor, hip squeezing, pushing my tail bone, helping me breath, encouraging, he was so wonderful.
My contractions got so strong with pretty much no breaks, occasionally about 30 seconds. I didn't tough it out for very long, I let them give me the oxygen stuff that I could control, it did absolutely nothing except that breathing through the pipe helped me remember my breathing stuff. Part way through I let them give me some Fentanyl because I felt like I just couldn't do it any more and I was so so tired.
During the evening shift the nurses switched and we ended having an older nurse who was so good. She got me on a ball and gave Dan more help and ideas. After she came I was able to even doze for a few seconds at a time which was a huge help.
Anyway, by about 10, I started really needing to push so we took a shower to try to delay it a little but that wasn't happening, but in the shower I finally dilated all the way so we could get down to business. FINALLY! By the time we got already for me to start pushing, I had changed my mind, it hurt too much and I just wanted to go to sleep, I even told the nurse that I wished someone else could do it for me. Once Dr Wroz was there he got me to snap out of it and to start pushing hard. Once I got going, the pain was so secondary to trying to push the baby out that it hardly mattered any more (though I can't believe that my mother willingly went through that nine times). I watched in a mirror as I pushed until the baby's head crowned and then slither, plop! she was out and then on my chest. So amazing!! We were in a different world, laughing and crying with such love and thankfulness. We prayed and praised for the gift of Aneliese in those first seconds.
We had more to be thankful for as they realized that there was a snug knot in the cord that if it tightened any more, we would have lost our little one. The cord was also very flimsily attached to the placenta.
Dan cut the cord and went to help weigh her etc, while the dr finished up with me and then while I got stitched up Aneliese had her very first meal outside the womb.
Well that is the long winded version and doesn't include our times of Aneliese needing to have testing done on her heart and getting an infection. Not everything went exactly as I planned or hoped, especially using drugs which I still think would have been the best to have gone without but I also don't think that after everything prior to my water being broken left me strong enough to go through it without anything (at least not with the option there). I am thankful that I was able to let them know what I didn't want and controlled how much I got. We asked God to give us wisdom in that area when they were offering the drugs and encouraging an epidural and I am confident that he protected me and the baby, even using the drugs in a positive way. Most importantly Aneliese is here, we are home and she is strong and healthy.
