Life with baby

Being home with the baby is so strange. When I was in the hospital, I couldn't wait to get home, even though all the books told me to take my time and stay as long as I could, because I would be longing for those catered meals soon. I knew that, but I also know my insurance policy makes me pay 20% of the bill, and I'd rather have a lower one, and I also know that my food is better, and that I like being home. I knew my husband would take care of me once he got to feeling better.

I'm still a little annoyed at the husband for being sick when we got home, even though he couldn't help it. It helps that he's as embarrassed as I am annoyed. I just gave birth and am walking around cleaning the house, and he's knocked out by a tummy ache? Ah well, at least he acknowledges that's stupid.

Anyway, being home with the baby is strange. It makes her existence more real to me, because she's in my space, not this unfamiliar place where strangers will come and whisk her away in the middle of the night to do lab work. Yesterday and today I pretty much just sat around staring at the baby, and it was great. I feel no need to do anything else.

On the one hand I know I should be cleaning, and cooking, and working, but on the other I should take a break, I mean if not now when? I made a point to get ahead on work so I could take time off once I had the baby, so why don't I take advantage of that? Instead I'm about to get off the computer, clean the house top to bottom because my husbands cousin is coming to visit, and then get to work. Something is wrong with me, because I just can't stop.

The ride home

Tuesday we were allowed to leave the hospital after the pediatrician looked at the baby, the doctor looked at me, and the photographer came by to take pictures of the baby. Our friends from Atlanta came to visit while we were waiting for the photographer, and then my darling little girl posed for her first modeling gig. She looked fantastic, and we had a good time.

After that came the scary part, checking out of the hospital. We packed everything up, I got ready to go home, my husband loaded up the car, and went by the cashiers office to settle up. The nurse came by with final instructions and a whole bunch of hospital papers and adorable souvenirs, and then it was time for them to wheel me out to the car, and check the babies car seat.

I think my husband drove twenty-miles under the speed limit the whole hour and a half home. It was nerve wracking. I think I died a little inside every time a car merged, but eventually we made it. We took our little girl into her home and introduced her to her nursery. My husband brought everything in from the car, and I settled in on the couch with the baby prepared for some pampering.

Except all the stress and lack of sleep and fast food caught up with my husband now that he could finally relax, and he spent the rest of the night sick to his stomach, and sleepy.

Ah well, welcome home

After Birth

I was given time with the baby right after birth to bond and try to feed. She did a good job with latching and for awhile my husband and I just stared at her. Then it was off to the after delivery room, and the baby was taken to the nursery to be seen by her pediatrician.

I fell asleep promptly, and when I awoke I had a wonderful daughter laying in a bassinet by my bed. We had fun counting all her fingers and toes and talking to her, and I took the time to take stock of the damage done to my body.

My arms, legs, and back were very sore. This puzzled me for some reason (pregnancy stupidity?) and my husband pointed out I'd been exercising those muscles for about two hours straight pushing. Mystery solved, I moved on to my breasts, which didn't feel any different yet, but leaked fluid just about anytime I moved. Now for the scary part... down there. I opted not to look and see the damage, but considering that every time I went to the restroom there was enough blood to provide for three over the top slaughter films, I imagined it was pretty bad.

I'd read in the books that the first time you poop after delivery is a majorly frightening event. Thankfully I had to potty pretty soon after delivery while I was still pretty much out of it. I suffered a moments apprehension but otherwise it was all very uneventful and not painful at all.

Body accounted for, I took a shower, brushed my teeth, and fixed my hair enough to become presentable, and then spent the rest of the day lying in bed with my baby, making small talk with my in-laws.

I know I'm a terrible person, I love my mil, and my little bil, but I really just wanted it to be me and my husband for awhile. My little bil was bored and sleepy and kept complaining about it. (My heart goes out to you kid, really, whine about being tired and having nothing to do one more time, we can see how far I can throw an iv needle) my mil of course wanted to hold the baby and talk. All I wanted to do was hold the baby and stare at it. She was really considerate though, always asked before holding the baby, so she mostly got her during my naps.

Feedings were a minor issue here because they would leave the room, and my husband would feel obligated to go with them and continue small talk in the cafeteria. I wanted him with me. It wasn't an issue for long though, they left that night, after giving us our baby gift. A cute bassinet for home.

The whole staff was nice, but getting your bp checked every hour, and having doctors and nurses come by to either take the baby or check on you gets tedious fast. It's like there is a schedule, and I don't know it, so it frustrates me even more. I could plan to say eat when the baby was gone as opposed to eating while holding the baby because I didn't want to let her go.

I was visited by a lactation consultant from the hospital and from a kaiser consultant, so that was very handy. Bella had done a little damage to my right nipple with incorrect latching, but we were now able to fix the problem and nursing was no longer a painful event.

I think at this point I was still in shock that I had a baby, when she was in the room she was all I could look at, when she was gone, it was like she hadn't existed yet? Not in a bad way, and with no negative feelings, but it felt like a dream, not reality. I was still waiting on reality to kick in.

Labor and Delivery

We got ready as fast as we could, it felt very surreal. The bags were already in the car. We just had to grab our phone chargers, deoderant, and tooth brushes and we were good to go. My husband took a quick shower and I debated the wisdom of changing out of my pajamas with leaking water, while calling the doctor.
In the car I sat on a towel in my comfy pajamas as we drove the hour and a half to the hospital. We talked for the first half the trip between calling family
members about how excited we were, and how very nervous we were about becoming parents.

I wasn't in pain. The contractions were growing less comfortable but it wasn't the screaming agony I was familiar with via the television.
Everyone I spoke to advised me to grab food and eat before I got to the hospital because they wouldn't give me anything once I arrived. We debated stopping for food but I really wasn't hungry, we had eaten a very late breakfast and i wasn't keen on waiting any longer to get to the hospital.
My husband kept bragging about how well I was handling the labor and I kept reminding him it wasn't to the bad part yet and he kept telling me it didn't matter he was still so proud.
We got to the hospital, filled out paper work, and checked into my room. I should note that unlike in the completely empty, zombie movie esque ER at 5:00 am, it took 45 minutes to get me in a room, whereas at this very busy metropolitan hospital in the middle of the day it took all of five minutes. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

My midwife and nurse came to introduce themselves, I can't remember the midwives name to save my life but my nurse was named Amy, and they were both amazing. They checked me and said I was at one centimeter and they could touch the babies head. The fact that they could touch the babies head completely blew my mind. It was 1:30, my midwife told me she was getting off at 7:00, so she was just going to watch and see how things progressed since I most likely wouldn't be having a baby on her watch.
They hooked me to a heartrate machine for the baby and a contraction monitor for me and checked in every so often.
For awhile it was really uneventful, we called family members, watched television, and talked. It's so weird, all this hurry to get to the hospital and once we were there it was kind of boring. At 4:00 my contractions started picking up in intensity and they gave me some pain relievers and a hot pad because i was experiencing back labor.
I got a new set of nurses (Lilly) and a new midwife whose name I can't recall at 7:00, and they saw I had made pretty much no progress even though I was in pain. It wasn't terrible pain though, still much better than I had expected.
They had to give me pennicilinn because I was group strep b positive and amniotic fluid to help boost the babies heart rate because hers kept dipping.
Finally they decided to give me cervitex or something to soften the cervex, that would take 12 hours and then they would put me on pitocin, and give me an epidural. They did the cervix thing,
Then gave me a pain reliever cocktail, and ambien to help me sleep.
Since it was getting late they told me I could eat dinner, then rest until morning. My husband got me mcdonalds, of which I ate two bites before deciding I was to sleepy and uncomfortable to eat and went to sleep.
I lost complete track of time after the ambien, I know each contraction woke me and felt like there was no pain killers working at all. I asked the nurse (new one, way too out of it to remember her name) if that was normal since whatever they has given me was supposed to be stronger than the first stuff they'd given me, and she said my doctor would be in soon to check me out.
When the doctor arrived I was in agony feeling a very strong urge to push, surprise surprise i was fully dialated and baby was ready to come out!
I don't actually remember getting the epidural. I think the ambien had me too drowsy to pay attention. I know I got it though, because for awhile the pain stopped. I could feel the need to push, and that was a very uncomfortable pressure, but it wasn't pain. Don't believe them when they say you don't feel anything with an epidural though, that urge to push is weird. It's not pain, but its unbelievably uncomfortable, and agonizing in its own way. It's not like television labor though, I didn't scream or cry, I just kind of wanted it to be over.

Pushing takes getting used to, you have to wrap your arms behind your knees and kind of bend while bearing down like you're going to the bathroom. My husband and a nice nurse held my legs for me and i pushed for 2 hours. It was hard, I could feel her head the entire time and aparently she was right there for about two hours but kept going in and out. They were concerned because her heart rate kept slowing and speeding up so they cut me a little. I don't remember it but my husband said I cried out when they did. I was just about ready to give up. I was so tired and it was so hard, I think I said something to that effect before trying just one last time and out came her head.
It's funny I remember my husbands reaction, he was so excited he kept saying oh my god! In a really excited voice as the rest of her body slid out. That's what it feels like, after the head it just kind of slides out.
There was a whole team of baby nurses on the other side of the room who whisked her away and gave her the eye droppers and everything she needed before handing her back to me.
I looked at her, my beautiful baby girl, and was just in awe. Everyone says they have the most beautiful baby ever, but I really do. She has a full head of hair, beautiful clear skin, and the most alert variable colored eyes (they shift colors right now) I've ever seen.
At 5:03 am Bella was born weighing 5 pounds 14 ounces and 19.5 inches long. Welcome to the world baby girl.

Panic!

It all started on Saturday night when my husband and I couldn't sleep. It had been a great day. One of those one in a million lazy days. He had been studying all day for his test and had finally baby proofed the closet, and I hadn't really done anything at all. The house was clean, my homework was done, and all was right with the world.

Except we couldn't sleep, but we were in a great mood, we talked all night about silly and random things. We tried to remember eighties theme songs and television commercials. We sang the theme to Ducktales, Growing Pains, Full House, and Sanford and Son, and we laughed and laughed.

Finally we drifted off around 2:30 am.

I woke up around 4:00 in complete agony. I had a severe pain on the lower left side of my back that radiated up the entire left side of my back. I felt like I was being stabbed and set on fire at the same time. It was terrifying and excruciating. Weeping in agony I limped to the rest room in hopes that maybe going to the bathroom would fix things.

It didn't make it worse but it didn't help either. I crawled back to the bed holding back tears. I knew I should call kaiser. Instead I laid down hoping that would help. When it didn't I started to cry and woke up my husband to let him know something was terribly wrong and we needed to go now.

We got ready. My baby is the only reason I had the strength to get dressed and walk to the car. I kept trying to feel the baby move but either she was being still or the pain was to intense to feel through.

We chose the closest hospital instead of our delivery center, I just couldn't make it very far. We arrived at the hospital and spent 45 minutes filling out paperwork before they even looked at me medically. The receptionist was super sweet, but all I wanted was my baby hooked up to a moniter. Sensing my worry she told me not to worry it was most likely labor or a bladder infection.

I tried explaining that it wasn't a contraction an peeing didn't hurt so it was unlikely anything to do with my bladder or kidneys, will you please please check on the baby! At 5:00 am I finally heard that blessed little heart beat. They checked my cervix, closed up tight, noted I was experiencing contractions but wasn't feeling them because of the back pain, and ruled out a ui infection, a kidney stone, and labor.

I was feeling better by now. The pain was coming and going intermittently as opposed to being constant like it had been, and the pain level was down from a 10 to a 3. They decided the baby must have laid on a nerve or the kidney may have been jabbed by my uterus expanding and flattened some sort of tube making fluid back up.

They advised me to tell my doctor soon (I had an appointment booked for Monday morning) and my husband and I got discharge at 10:30.

We ate breakfast, went home and curled up in bed talking about how relieved we were everything was ok. I decided I was going to have the baby Monday. I lived too far from the hospital to play this game. Last night had terrified me, and I wasn't letting that happen again. We were lucky the baby was, because waiting forty-five minutes in the ER was just insane. What if my placent ok a had detached or something or the baby was in danger and needed to be taken out right then! No, I was getting induced, so help them if they said no. I drifted off at 11:00 still thinking of ways to talk my doctor into an induction.

I slept fitfully, I was feeling mild contractions now, you know those Braxton hix things? And it was putting a lot of pressure on my pelvis. That coupled with the backpain promised a long day of poor sleep. 11:30 I was semi conscious debating on whether or not I really needed to get up and pee when I felt a little pee escape.

The matter decided I hopped up ready to go to the bathroom and noticed water trickling down my leg. It wasn't acting like pee! It's hard to describe, it wasn't exactly coming from the right place, and I couldn't control the flow.

"Oh no way!" I exclaimed, startled, excited, and annoyed at once.

My poor husband jerked awake and asked me what was wrong.

"My water just broke!"

Discipline

Today I had many occasions to think long and hard about disciplining my future daughter. My day began when I awoke to hear a child screaming and crying at my door step. My husband and I walked to the door and looked out the peephole to see a two year old banging on the door to his apartment crying "mommy please let me in."

I was stunned. This is an apartment complex. Locking your child out of your home in your locked backyard where you can watch them through the window is one thing, and even that's questionable, beyond questionable as young as two, it's plain wrong. But to lock your child out of your apartment? There are three other people who live on this floor, any one of them could snatch that kid in a heart beat. Heck, I was less than two feet away standing at my door! Also, stairwell! Right there. Kid could have fallen down it and broken his neck.

About the time I was seriously trying to figure out what to do (do I mind my own business, do I call the police, do I step outside with the kid until his parents let him in, do I knock on their door?) the kids dad stepped out of the house and asked if his son was ready to behave, swatted him on the bottom, and pushed him inside.

I couldn't help but think I didn't really have any viable options. I couldn't talk to the parents, they speak spanish (I'm assuming he asked if the kid was ready to behave by tone, and response) I don't know them and couldn't even begin to open a dialogue, and what to say? I feel uncomfortable with your child screaming outside my door?

I couldn't wait outside with the kid, that could be misconstrued as something else, and I don't want to teach this kid that when mom and dad are mean run to strangers. I mean I wouldn't do anything to him, but someone else could.

And I couldn't call the police. For all I knew they were watching through their peephole the entire time, it seemed an extreme and stupid punishment to me, but criminal? On the other hand I couldn't walk away and mind my own business because my god, what if something had happened to that kid?

I think I may mention it to the landlord on Monday, not in a whistle blowing child abuse way, because like I said, for all I know he was watching the entire time, and it was fine, but just to give them a heads up over what is surely a liability for the management company. Unattended children in the common areas, also loud unattended children in the common areas. I can't hear the other apartments at all, but this kid woke me up because he was right outside my door. That's not really considerate of the neighbors either. Then if they see it as child endangerment, balls in their court, not mine. I don't know, I feel very conflicted about this.

One thing I don't feel conflicted about is these recent news stories about strangers spanking, or slapping other peoples children. Alright, we've all been there, small child is screaming bloody murder and pitching a fit in the aisles while the mom calmly shops for that perfect apple with no bruises, taking her sweet time. We've maybe all even thought "I'd like to slap that woman," or "that child needs a spanking." But no one actually does it! It's assault! You can't just choose to discipline someone else's kid, that is completely overstepping.

What's more, these people were in stores, grocery stores, and goodwill. What the heck do you expect? I hate going to walmart, who can blame the kid for crying about being there. In the rare instance I've actually grown annoyed enough at children's behavior in public, its been when they were in places they shouldn't be. (Midnight screenings of Terminator: Judgement Day for example, cool movie, not so awesome for the three year old girl who keeps screaming in terror and coughing and sneezing, and whining that she wants to go home. Only in that case I wanted to beat the parent brainless, and rescue the poor child) Or really fancy restaurants running around without a parent, taking food off my plate. Yes, I considered slapping the child's hand, but I didn't! I got my waiters attention, and got a new plate, and walked the child back to its mother with a to go box of the plate it touched and a bill. (What? The kid had been crawling on the floor and chewing on its hand, I don't want to eat that. Something I'm sure I'll get over as a mom, but I really shouldn't have to get over as a random stranger. And no, the mom didn't pay me for the meal, and I didn't demand that she did, restaurant didn't charge me any extra for replacing the food, but I got my message across with no rude discussions, and a gracious smile, as opposed to slapping the child or screaming at the mom.)

Anyway, my point is, you can't slap, spank, or really even touch someone else's kid. It's not appropriate. These people deserve jail time. I don't know what I'm going to do when my child has a melt down in public. I can tell you now that I won't be taking my child to any movies rated more than PG for the first twelve years of her life, and I'll save everything above applebees price range for my date night with my husband (kids don't appreciate it anyway) but yeah, I may be at the mall or grocery store with my kid, and if she pitches a full out fit, I will handle it whichever way works best. I don't know yet if that's spanking, yelling, leaving, or ignoring, I think it varies with every child. But God help me if you so much as lay a finger on my daughter I will end your miserable existence.

A Day of Stress

Tuesday, my husband and I stayed overnight with friends in Atlanta, in preperation for a very busy day of errands. I'd been nervous about Wednesday for awhile because I've had so much trouble sleeping, I wasn't sure how I'd be able to cope a full day without cat naps. I preperation I woke early on Tuesday morning, after a very fitfull night of attempted sleep, and refused to nap all day, so I'd be sleepy Tuesday night.

I had a busy day on Tuesday anyway, no time to nap. I had to clean the house, pack our bags, take the car to get the tires changed, aligned, rotated, and balanced, and drive with my husband to Atlanta.

Visiting my friends was great! They are also pregnant, but they aren't due until February. They just found out their baby is a girl, and are in the midst of decorating their nursery in a Dr. Seuss theme. I brought all my pregnancy books (I've finished them all, and really don't want to re-read the labor parts) and now have extra space on my bookshelf. We talked about being pregnant, and our plans for our babies, and just got caught up in general.

Then it was bedtime. I was pleasently surprised to find that I was actually tired. So I promptly dropped off to sleep while my husband watched youtube on his phone in our very nice guest room. Between 10:00 and 12:30 my husband woke me up every two minutes to let me know I was snoring... loudly. I switched positions, moved the pillows, blew my nose, and everything I could think of to stop, but once I dropped back to sleep, the snoring would start again without fail. I asked him to stop waking me up, since he was awake watching tv anyway, and it wasn't helping, so he switched to bed kicks every time I snored to loudly. Around 11:00 I not so nicely asked him to stop kicking the bed, and stop waking me up. I couldn't help that I was snoring, when he gains 20 pounds in his chest and abdomin, deals with facial, hand and feet swelling, can only sleep on his side, and suffers from prenatal rhinititis, he'll understand.

He tried to sleep, until about 12:30, when he woke me again and asked me to please stop snoring, he couldn't sleep. Then I snapped. I have been pregnant with his child for nine months, I haven't slept through the night in three months, I cannot help that I am snoring, but he can deal with one sleepless night if I can deal with it every night. He pointed out that he doesn't sleep much either because he has class early every morning and studies until midnight every night. I pointed out he was in control of that, and that was why every other night I went to the living room and read instead of tossing and turning and selfishly keeping him up at night when I couldn't sleep. Because he did have somewhere to be. Tommorow would be busy for both of us, so it stood to reason that it was equally important for us to sleep, so stop waking me up. He kept whining that it wasn't fair, I was keeping him up, ect. I finally stormed off to the bathroom and read in there for awhile, since I couldn't really go anywhere else in the house. I had to get away from him, I was to angry.

When I went back to bed, he was already asleep. I tried to sleep, but was way to wired and angry to do it, so I bought Frostbitten, by Kelley Armstrong, and resolved to read that until I was sleepy. Dwelling on the situation would only make me angrier and would make it harder to sleep. So I read, the book was great, I finished at about 5:00 am, and still wasn't feeling sleepy when I finished. So I lay there, listening to my husband snore (yep) and getting annoyed that we had to wake up at 7:00. At 6:30 I finally felt sleepy, and burst into tears at the unfairness of that.

My crying woke him up, and he pretty much felt like scum. His pregnant wife had stayed up all night because of his selfishness, and was now crying because she was so tired, but had to wake up in half an hour. He felt bad enough to take me out to breakfast, and then we drove to court.

Court went well, it was over very quickly, then we went to the doctors office, where they again teased me with talk of induction, but said I was doing well enough to send home today. *Sigh* Though they did comment that I looked pale and sleepy, and should try to get more rest. I basked in the look on my husbands face, and we went out to lunch, and then went to pick up some pottery from a fellow shop owner and friend. We talked to her for awhile, just about business, and employees, and mutual people we knew.

Then it was time to go home. We drove home, and upon arrival I went straight to bed, and slept from 3:00 to 10:00 am. Today I am a happy camper, because I'm very well rested, and my husband still feels like a jerk, so is still trying to make everything up to me. All is well with the world.