We're parents! The first two weeks...

Well, it's February, people.  Four days into February in fact.  I seem to be averaging nearly two months in between blog posts!  Seriously, how do you people with MULTIPLE kids (wait, let's pause right there--how do people HAVE multiple kids?  My mind still cannot wrap around this.  The only way I make it through some days is the fact that I can nap when Abby naps, but if you have a toddler running around too, that's not possible.  I recognize that billions of people have done this and in fact plan to do it myself too but it still does not compute to me).  Anyways, what was I saying?  Oh yes--I don't understand how my friends who have multiple children also have time to write entertaining blog posts regularly too.  Kudos to you.

My little Abby has changed so much in two months, too!  It's like she's a whole new creature.  I want to finish up my birthing experience memories first, though, before I get into that.  So without further ado...

We left off right after they put Abby into my arms.  I know a lot of people describe feeling a huge, overwhelming LOVE emotion when that happens.  I did feel love for Abby, but that overwhelming love stuff came later for me, I think.  This is probably because I was just so EXHAUSTED and also still very nauseous.  I was happy to hold Abby and look at her and marvel over how healthy and beautiful she was, but I also felt like I could barely keep my eyes open because I was so tired.  They let me hold her for a while, then they took her to clean her up and weigh her and all that.  Meanwhile, the doctor stitched up the tearing of my perineum (which, incidentally, was very uncomfortable, partially because I could not stop my legs from shaking uncontrollably.)  Then, they gave her back to me and I nursed her for a little bit.  Despite being nauseous, I was also STARVING and asked if I could eat something now.  The doctor said I had to wait an hour, but they did give me apple juice to drink.  (Which I promptly threw back up a few minutes later.)

After a few minutes of nursing, Abby did a little gag thing and the nurse said "is she turning blue??" and whisked her away to the heat lamp, but by the time she got there she was breathing again.  This rather freaked me out, though, especially when it happened again a few minutes later.  The nurse decided it would be good to take her to the nursery where they could suction out her stomach and then observe her while drinking a little formula to see if they could determine the problem.  We agreed that this was a good idea, and they took her away.  Part of me was sad to not get to keep holding her, but a bigger part of me was relieved to have a chance to rest.  I slept for about half an hour or an hour and felt SO much better when I woke up!  Much less nauseous too (although I had trouble eating the meal they brought me still).

After telling me what to do to care for myself and helping me to the bathroom (and *watching* while I used it--I guess they have to make sure the patients void--not that I cared at the time actually, as I was still completely oblivious to modesty).  Then they took me in a wheelchair upstairs to the recovery room.  After a little while in there we decided to walk down to the nursery to look at Abby in the window.  I found that walking down the short hall completely wore me out, though, and we had to turn back before we even figured out which baby was ours!  Right behind us a nurse was wheeling a baby down the hall, which turned out to be OUR baby--she came in our room right behind us.  So then we had some time to cuddle and marvel over our treasure some more.  We called family and spread the news, napped, and had lots of visits from nurses all interspersed.

Abby did some more gagging every now and then, and they ended up suctioning her stomach twice more (if I remember right).  My memories of what happened when that next day are all pretty fuzzy--we were both so tired but could only sleep for an hour or less at a time, between feeding the baby, having my vitals taken, having Abby's vitals taken, etc.  I had intended to have her room-in with us the whole time, but we sent her to the nursery a few times because I wanted someone awake to watch over her all the time because of the whole turning blue stuff.  Looking back, I think I should have had them take her more of the time.  It seemed like it was best for the baby to room-in, but in retrospect, what is best for the baby is for mom to be rested and functioning well!  People told me this beforehand but I didn't really get it until later.

Anyways, they didn't let us go home after one day because they wanted to observe Abby and make sure everything was fine with the gagging issues first.  They did a bunch of tests and stuff and eventually decided it was just reflux (and the large amount of amniotic fluid in her stomach) that was causing the problem.  Despite  our worries over all that, and despite our exhaustion (I think Kevin was at least as exhausted as me!), it was a really special time between me and Kevin as we got to know our new daughter.  I loved watching him hold her--he had so much tenderness, and I was surprised that he seemed so confident in caring for her.

My mom flew in Monday evening (Abby was born on Sunday).  We could only have one guest in my room for the night, so we decided to send Kevin home with strict instructions to SLEEP, and my mom stayed with me to help me that night.  (Of course, Kevin didn't do much sleeping--he decided to deep clean the house instead!  It was sweet, but he really should have slept more.)

All swaddled up at home

Finally about 4pm the next day, they discharged us from the hospital and we brought Abby home.  I was on top of the world--I just felt elation and euphoria and so happy.  After a day or so, though, the euphoria waned and I started really feeling my exhaustion.  I also had some fairy strong baby blues for a while, and I felt weepy and sometimes panicky.  Thank goodness my mom was there to help!!  Part of the problem was that my milk didn't come in for a while, and when it did it was rather scant, so Abby was eating really frequently (and not getting full, so she wouldn't sleep very long in between feedings.)  Sometimes I was feeding her almost continuously.  My nipples were blistered and bleeding (we had latch issues, partially due to a tongue-tie, which they later clipped), and I was just so TIRED.  I'm sure all you mothers out there understand, but with the not sleeping the night before she was born, plus the exhaustion of labor itself, plus not getting much sleep in the hospital (why do they have to wake you up every time you finally fall asleep to check your vitals?  Couldn't they time that a little better?) and then no chance to recover when we got home either--just waking up every two hours round the clock...well, it was rough.  Especially coupled with the crazy hormones raging through my body and making me so emotional.

Wow--you can tell I was exhausted I guess--don't I look awful?

AND, to top matters off, when we took Abby to her checkup the day after we brought her home, they discovered she had a broken collar bone!!  Poor thing!  I do NOT understand how the doctors at the hospital missed this.  At the appointment, they instructed us how to hold her and stuff so to not cause her pain, and I felt so bad because before this I had been picking her up under her arms, etc., and I noticed that she didn't like it but I didn't realize it was because she was in pain!  I was hurting her and not knowing it.  I hate thinking about that.  For a few weeks we kept her swaddled all the time and were really careful about holding her and picking her up.  After 3 or  4 weeks she was all healed up, thankfully.

Abby's first bath

Anyways, so yeah--those first couple of weeks were really rough for me.  We convinced my mom to stay an extra 5 days (thank GOODNESS!  I don't know how I would have done it without her!) and by that time I was feeling a lot better.  The baby blues had faded, and my body was healing and I had more energy.  And, as the lactation consultant/doctor advised us, we had started supplementing Abby with formula which helped her sleep a little better.  (Like feeding every 3-4 hours, instead of 1.5-3).  I did NOT want to feed her formula, but as the lactation consultant said, "the first rule of breastfeeding is: feed the baby!"  I had read my friend Alicia's experiences with being way OVER-supplied and thought, wow--I hope I don't have to go through that!  But, now I find myself wishing I had that problem instead of the undersupply problem.  I guess the grass is always greener...

Whew!  So I guess that gets us through the early newborn stage.  I am going to try to catch up with the blog posts in the coming days, but I promise they won't all be this long!

Oh, P.S.  Halloween was about a week after Abby was born.  We didn't go anywhere or do anything really for Halloween, but we did dress up Abby because she was just too darn cute not too!