5 weeks

Posted on by babymamatoo

One month has come and gone, we are five weeks old now! Lil’ man is growing like a weed and, as of the LC appointment last week, weighs 10lbs 5.5 oz! He is up 3lbs in a month, holy moly! He has pretty much outgrown newborn sizes and we are down to the last few newborn diapers. We will be transitioning to cloth very soon.

I have been struggling with milk supply. Not because my supply is not there but because our big eater is demanding more than is available. By most standards I have plenty of milk just not quite enough for M. At the suggestion of the LC, I have started on an herbal supplement to help boost my supply and am going to be trying a recipe for lactation boosting cookies a friend passed on to me. In the mean time I have been eating oatmeal with brewers yeast and spinach to help. I have felt fuller since adding these in and get more milk when pumping, hopefully the cookies will pit me over the top and I will be able to start freezing more milk for future use.

C is doing very well with little brother and all the upheaval in her world. She us still a toddler and when there are typical toddler behaviors to deal with but all in all she is handling it very well.

Two weeks

Posted on by babymamatoo

We have been home from the hospital just over two weeks now. Things are going about as well as one could expect. Little M is becoming a champion nurser (after some rough days that facilitated a visit to our lactation NP) and gaining lots of weight. C adores her brother even if she is being a typical two year old and defying us at every turn, testing every boundary and throwing massive tantrums. I wouldn’t expect anything else.

We are attempting to find our rhythm and S returned to work this week, though i have yet to be hime by myself with both kids for more than a couple hours since my grandmother is in town I have been going to my Mom’s on days C is not in school.

We are sleep deprived and cranky but otherwise doing wonderful.

Birth Story

Posted on by babymamatoo

I am finally getting a moment (while pumping) to sit down and give you all a fairly a detailed run down of the birth. Some things are pretty hazy still and will probably always be, everything happened so fast, as you will see, that I did not have time to really soak it all in.

Last Sunday was our city’s annual Pride Festival in a local park, we had not planned to go until the induction was definitely on the books. We set out for the park and spent several hours enjoying the company of good friends and listening to music from the main stage performers. As always, C was the life of the party and had everyone wrapped around her tiny fingers. We left with several jelly type pride bracelets and many stands of Mardi Gras type beads, all handed over to with very little effort on her part!

We took C to my Mom’s and headed home to finish packing last minute items and relax until I was to call the hospital at 6PM for a check in time. We stopped for St@rbucks and snacks on the way. My phone rang as we pulled into the parking lot, it was the hospital. They had questions about who my OB was (the MFM was listed instead) and why the induction was being scheduled and told me to call at 6:30 for a check in time. We continued home, ate dinner, showered and finished packing. I called in at the appointed time and was given 7:30 as check in.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:30 and made our way up to L&D. After getting settled in and hooked up, we waited for the OB to come in. Of course it was the one OB in the practice that I did not want at my delivery, the one that brought up a C-section during S’s labor and unsuccessfully attempted to place an internal monitor then could not remove said monitor. Yeah, I was not thrilled about her being on but figured I would only have to deal with her for the initial check and placement of the Cerv@dril, after all it wasn’t to start labor only prime my cervix…

The OB arrived and pronounced me still at 1 cm dilated and said she was being generous to call it 80% effaced. The Cerv@dril was placed at 9pm, the nursed placed an IV port and drew blood for labs, asked when I would like the sleeping meds I had already agreed to and left us to watch TV on the Kindle. During all of this I was having mild, if slightly uncomfortable contractions. The nurse returned with the sleeping pill shortly and we settled in to attempt some sleep. By 11PM I was getting increasingly uncomfortable and had S call the nurse to bring the pain meds on order (I am not ashamed to admit I have NO pain tolerance and was fully on board with accepting any and all pain meds offered me). The meds were administered and I was finally able to fall asleep sometime around midnight.

I awoke shortly before 2am and S helped to the bathroom (in addition to no pain tolerance, I have a surprisingly tolerance to narcotics and other drugs) since I was quite unstable from the pain meds. got back in bed and attempted to settle back to sleep but was suddenly racked with contraction upon contraction and intense pressure in my bottom and vaginal area. S called the nurse. She arrived and attempted to get the baby back on the monitor since we had been unsuccessful upon returning from the bathroom. Another contraction hit and I felt a popping sensation near my pubic bone then wetness. The nurse asked me roll to my back so she could check me and I told her I thought my water had just broke. As I rolled a gush of fluid came out and she announced that I was correct and that it was “nice and clear”, her check revealed that I was still at 1cm and “very thin” this was at 2:15am. She plugged my IV port to fluids so they were on board and we could get the epidural placed. S asked if she should call my Mom (who is 45 min away) (insert 24 hour delay in typing) I said no, thinking it would still be hours before we were anywhere near ready to be pushing.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth (at least that is what is felt like) and I was again racked by waves of contractions, only now my body was bearing down, there was nothing I could do to stop it, no matter how hard I tried, what breathing technique I used, etc. At some point the nurse checked me again and this is where things really start to get fuzzy as I had lost all concept of time. She announced I was now 3-4 cm and in her sweetest voice said “Honey, don’t freak out, but I don’t think we are going to get that epidural in time,” All I could think was WTF! At this point S called my Mother to let her know she should get there ASAP. After more uncontrollable contractions (and a lot of screaming from me) the OB arrived, checked me and declared I could start pushing. I pushed for all I was worth, for what seemed like hours and at 3:47 am our little man made his way into the world.

So, lets recap: arrive at hospital 7:30PM, Cerv@dril inserted at 9PM, water breaks at 2:15AM baby born at 3:47AM. Certainly no record for fastest labor but damn, I was not expecting a fast labor at all! In some respects it was good but in others not.

and now that you have survived this long post, your reward in pics! or not since WP keeps giving me an error when I attempt to upload any… I will try again is a separate, password protected post… Let me know if you need the password!