The Booby Trap

So..yeah.
My little Bun will be 7 months old in a few days. Pretty sure I've mentioned before that I'm a bad blogger. She's amazing! I love my BunBun so much, I get a physical ache when I have to be away from her. Being a mother is the most wonderful and draining thing ever. I've struggled with ideas of the Mother I wanted to be and the more realistic version that I am. I wanted to be a stay at home, cook every night, clean house mom but instead I'm a work part time, ordering out food, cluttered house mom. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. As she is getting older and more independant I'm finding a better balance..everyday I feel a tad more in control. The worst part? Breastfeeding.

Oh the breastfeeding! It was the one thing I really was adamant about and everything in my birth plan was geared toward starting that bond right from the start. When they put her on my chest I remember my doula reaching up and pulling my gown down, Bun wriggled up and latched on, there is a picture it did really happen. After a bit they took her to the NICU to get checked over and make sure her lungs were clear of any meconium, afterward I learned she was aggressivly aspirated several times despite her lungs being obviously clear. Later that night she wouldn't latch..but hey it had been a big day no big deal, she'll eat when she wants to. Next morning still not latching, she wouldn't even open her mouth, I'm told to either supplement her myself or she would be taken to the NICU and it would be done for more. All requests for the Lactation Consultant on staff were delayed or brushed off.I sobbed while I gave her that first bottle. By the time we took her home on the second day it was a struggle to even bottle feed, when I would offer her the breast she would scream and go rigid. Also not helping was my milk didn't come in until almost 5 days after she was born. I started pumping as soon as we had gotten home, it was awful. Seeing so little milk was very disheartening. I kept saying I think something is wrong, something isn't right with this but was put off that it was horomones or just new mom worries. Finally when she was 7 days old I called a LC that was also a LLL leader. She came the next day and evaluated Bun and I. She wasn't optimistic, my nipples were a bit large for my teeny baby and she had a bad suck aversion. She promised she would help me anyway she could, that maybe bun just needed to grow a bit or I might have to exclusively pump. So we started: Using a SNS feeder, taking warm baths to simulate birth then putting her on the breast- which oddly enough would prompt her to nurse but she wouldn't do it outside the bath. Some days she didn't want any of it..she would go for a week without any of these aides, screaming even if she heard me unclip my bra. I was pumping every 2 hours around the clock, I was exhausted and she wasn't sleeping either due to a growth spurt or demonic possesion.

We kept seeing the LC once a week. She would make progress then regress. I was considering giving up all together. I wasn't pumping enough, she had been getting formula for weeks. I had quit my job so I could be home to use the SNS or take a rebirthing bath. The main issue was she wanted the breast, she just didn't know how to take it or what to do with it. She would cry and root and paw at my breasts but we couldn't make it work. After 10 weeks of this I had had enough. I was just going to pump, give her what I could and try to make it to 6 months doing that. A few days after I made up my mind we attended a wedding. When we got home she was just over tired and stimulated. We tried everything. Finally I figured I'd offer the breast, couldn't hurt she was pissed anyway! I get rigged up with the nipple shield (the only way she would take it) and holy shit, she nursed then promptly fell asleep! You could have knocked me over with fairy wings, I was excited but not wanting to get my hopes up. Over the next few days she would nurse several times a day but only with the shield. I still had to supplement her on occasion but my milk production picked up noticeably.

Around week 14 she was nursing one night and somehow flipped the nipple shield off and before I could get it back on she relatched and went to town! Normally she would have a fit until it got back on but this time I think it clicked. We had to use it a few times the next couple days but after that she was shield free and on the breast 100%! It was a long haul, it was very hard emotionally. I could have fed her formula full time, I have nothing against it..this was for me as much as for her I think. I honestly think if we have another baby and have these issues I wouldn't go through it again. It still isn't perfect, I don't respond well to the pump, I can only get about 4oz in an 8 hour period. When she was 4 months I came back to work part time. When she is at my MIL's she has to get formula because I can't pump enough. I wish I hadn't let it get to me so much, I really feel I wasted precious weeks with her worrying and stressing about my breasts.

So kids, today's lesson is trust yourself if you think you have a problem and know a fantastic kick ass Lactation Consultant.

Many years ago when first decided to use a donor, we came to the decision quickly but knew it would be some time before we could go forward with it. I know I wondered over the years if we were making the right choice for us. I wondered how my husband would really feel once a flesh and blood baby was here. I wasn't sure how his family would act towards her, if they would accept her the same as their other grandchild. I really worried throughout my pregnancy even though we had spent years talking about these issues. Husband felt strongly enough that if he felt his family didn't treat her as they do the other kids, he was prepared to cut them off entirely (which for the record I feel that's a bit harsh but its his family and his choice to make).

Now that our daughter is here, I have no idea why I ever worried or doubted. We so made the right choice. I have never seen my husband so happy as he is when he is holding his baby. It makes my heart ache sometimes when I see how in love he is with her. And she is a Daddy's girl! When she was very new she would always turn towards his voice and hated it when he left the room. Now at almost 10 weeks her biggest smiles and coos are for her Daddy. His family can't get enough of her! His dad is a huge guy and he loves letting her sleep on his chest..my bitty baby on her 6'8 grandpa's chest is just too cute. His mom can't stop buying her clothes, she only had boys and has male grandchildren so she is just in little girl heaven. After so many years it is hard to believe how good everything is but it really is. I could use a nap though.

We don't know our donor, we don't know really why he chose to donate but I have never been so grateful to someone in my whole life. Out of all the pain and procedures we got something wonderful.

The post where I have a baby

Yeah, I fail at blogging. At some point after my baby shower I started to feel really low. I can't explain it or put a finger on what really was going on. I really regressed on all my positive feelings about having a baby and fear took over. I had a hard time facing the fact that I was pregnant, let alone going to have a baby- maybe. Since I was on bedrest I pretty much just laid in a dark room and had a pity party, for no reason. Everyone was so super excited about the impending birth and that just made me feel like an even bigger asshole. At my 38 week appointment my protein levels were elevated and my BP was a tad higher. The OB got with my kidney Dr and they decided that I was heading towards pre eclampsia for realsies so if I'd made no progress by 39 weeks I'd be induced that night or the next day.

I wasn't having any of that.

Of course at the 38 week appt my cervix was all sealed up and not even looking like it was going to be open for business any time soon. This was a Wednesday, the plan was made that on Saturday we'd go out to the outlet mall and walk- for hours if needed. I kept telling everyone "I'm not getting induced!". Saturday we walked, Sunday I paid the price with an aching everything and not even a braxton hicks contraction to show for it. Monday and Tuesday I cleaned and did last minute bill paying and errands and took my dogs to my mom's house Tuesday afternoon. All day Tuesday I was in a foul ass mood. Just everything in the world was pissing me off, I figured it had to do with being induced the next day- I just knew it was going to happen despite my best effort. My husband was working until 11pm so I just relaxed as best I could and read. He got home and got to listen to me bitch and moan about being induced until I finally let him fall asleep about 1:30am. About 2:30am I'm laying in bed reading and I shifted a bit and heard a wet popping sound..but nothing came out or happened so I just figured it was some gross pregnant vagina thing. I figured I'd get up to pee since I was going every 15 minutes anyhow and when I wiped I noticed blood and mucous..an investigation further reveals my mucous plug is gone! I'm excited because now maybe they will give me a few extra days to go into labor on my own instead of inducing. I go into the living room and I'm hit with the urge to pee AGAIN so I head back to the bathroom. After I'm done going, I realize fluid is still coming out..and its a funky green color. I come to the conclusion that I'm leaking fluid and the baby has had a bowel movement..I need to call labor & delivery, even though I know they will tell me to come in. I throw on a pad and I'm standing in the hall on the phone with a nurse, explaining the leaking and the color:

Nurse: Are you sure your water didn't break?
Me: I'm positive. Its just a little fluid but the color is green. There's been no gushing just a sma..*sploosh*! My water just broke. I'm coming in.

Thank god I was wearing a pad it was pretty gross! I go wake up Husband and we grab my already packed bags and haul ass out to the car. We get in and he turns to me and says " Where's the hospital?? How do I get there??" Um, the same place its always been. Seriously guy, I need you to focus! We to the hospital and I'm in a room and hooked up in no time. This all happened pretty quick- I felt the pop at 2:30 I was in a room at 3:15am. Contractions still hadn't started but I was able to talk them off the pitocin until my doula could get there. Come to find out they don't let you have anyone beyond 1 support person until 7 am. So basically I napped until 7 am when the shift changed and the new nurse came in with the OB. They were concerned about the darkness of my fluid but it wasn't quite bad enough to make them call it a c-section right away. They started my pitocin about 7:30 and we were in the countdown!

At 9:30am the OB came back in and decided he still didn't like the color of my fluid and placed amnio infusion cath into my uterus. Until this time the contractions were there but totally bearable. I was super confident in deciding to go drug free and was feeling pretty good. The amnio infusion was super painful when they placed it and immediately kicked up the intensity of the contractions. By the time my doula got there at 10:30 I was in terrible pain. The contractions were 1 min apart and lasting about 45 seconds..so I couldn't catch my breath and I was starting to hyperventilate. They gave me oxygen because the baby wasn't liking what was going on either. At that point I made the choice to get an epidural. I knew if I couldn't calm down it would stress the baby out more and I would end up with a c-section. When they finally came to place the epidural, it took almost an hour to do it and even then it didn't seem to be fully working. I had enough relief to catch my breath but I was still in a lot of pain. It was now about 12:30pm and I was about 3cm. The next few hours were a bit blurry. There was a lot of pain, they came and upped the epidural 2 more times until I was at max dosage and it just wasn't working. About 4 pm I hit max pain. Jenny, my doula, had been watching the monitor and me told me she was pretty sure I was in transition. About 4:45 I was really feeling a need to push. I had been feeling pressure and an urge but I wanted to conserve energy for "real" pushes. When they checked I was at 10 cm! I told the nurse and she said ok, that I could try some "practice" pushes. They went and got my mom from the lobby and the nurse called the OB to let him know I was progressing and wanted to "try" pushing. Everyone got in position and I gave it a pretty good try..and felt a huge pressure drop down. The nurse yelled "Stop pushing, I see hair!" Things went really quick after that: Another nurse came in to help break the bed down, the NICU team came in be there in case she had aspirated meconium and all the while I'm still pushing! The OB came running in shoved his hands into a gown and gloves, sat down and we got down to serious business. I heard my husband say I see the head and then I heard there she is! I started to say is she almost out? and they put her on my chest! I had felt intense pressure and burning but I really expected it to hurt more (don't get me wrong, it really fucking hurt!) but didn't think it was her coming just normal for that stage of labor. And the only thing numb from the epidural was the top of my right thigh!

Amelia Maeve was born on July 11, 2012 at 5:10pm after 20 minutes of pushing! She was a bitty baby, 6lbs even and 19.5inches. She was so alert! She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I couldn't look at her enough. I did have a severe internal tear which was awesome..it took longer to stitch than it did to push. The room looked like a crime scene there was so much blood. And that's pretty much the whole story! She's 6 weeks old and we're doing great. Somethings haven't been so awesome, like breastfeeding, but that's a whole other novel of its own.

And now baby:

Fresh out of the oven, Daddy already smitten

The next morning

Daddy and his girl doing what they do best

Daddy's home, just in time too!

So I've pretty much been filling my days with cooking, cleaning, baby shower stuff and work. I've been trying to get the house in order not just for the birth but also for Husband's return from Afghanistan. Saturday morning I had gone to store to pick up a few things to make chicken taquitos to freeze. About noon I went to the bathroom to pee and surprise- there went my mucous plug! I wasn't too worried about it but just decided to lay around for the rest of the day just in case I started to feel anything off. About 7 I got up to pee for the millionth time and there was bright red blood in my underwear and on the TP. So of course off to L&D I went! I wasn't having any contractions or pain but of course as soon as they hooked me up to the monitor they started! I couldn't feel them but apparently I had a few good ones in the first hour. So they ordered a FFN swab, it came back positive. Ultrasound came in and took a look around to get an estimated weight, she was about 4 pounds so that was nice to hear- even though I know those can be off. Then they did a transvaginal and lo and behold my cervix is super short- only about a 1. They gave me a steroid shot with orders to come get the next on monday since it was early Sunday by this time. So I've been on strict bedrest since then! The first day was kinda nice, just laying around watching tv. Since then its been pretty lame. I went yesterday and got the second shot and followed up with my smokin hot OB. Basically, since I'm almost 34 weeks and they are happy with her size and all her monitorings they aren't going to do anything to keep her from coming besides bedrest. He says with the FFN being positive labor usually starts in 2 weeks but that doesn't mean it will happen for sure. So for now just lay on bedrest and keep coming in for the weekly biophysical profiles and the MFM appointments. The hospital here that I'm delivering at has a level ll NICU and a level lll 30 minutes up the road so I know we're in good hands. I just want my lil cupcake to get a little more icing on her before she arrives! And finally- Daddy's home! he's been so cute with my belly and she was bouncing all around last night so he got to feel some pretty good kicks. He has been really good so far with helping with the bedrest and fetching of meals and drinks. Tomorrow he's going to install the car seats and put together a few things I got at my baby shower..I'm sure I'll learn all sorts of new colorful phrases!

28 Weeks

I can't freaking believe I'm in my third trimester. I realize I have spent the majority of my pregnancy either in a state of disbelief or in outright denial at times. I'm convinced that I'm not showing, I simply just look fat. I've only gained 10 pounds so far I think the theory deserves some consideration. Every day I get more excited and slightly less worried that something will go wrong. We have a great NICU locally so even if I do have her early I know she will get the best care possible. Her room is ready, minus a few wall decorations- I'm not good at decorating at all and I think it came out quite cute. I start my childbirth classes next week and signed up for cloth diapering class on Saturday. The next hurdle is my baby shower. I went to my cousin's last week for her Baby B, turns out I'm still not a fan of baby showers. I actually felt a little awkward being there visibly pregnant and her baby being in the NICU. And he is doing awesome, he is on track to come home in 3-4 weeks! The little guy is super determined to get the hell out of dodge and is hitting all his goals way ahead of schedule.

I have maybe decided to keep working after the baby is born. If they give me the promotion that they have been saying is in the works, it will allow me to work 3 1/2 days a week with weekends off. I do actually like the work I do so I think that would be a good compromise. As an added bonus I found a daycare that will work with me on the cloth diapers! But if for some reason they can't get my new position on paper they can kiss my lactating ass. I'm fully prepared for both scenarios. In other real life news I have reached the point where I am so over this deployment! I'm tired of doing everything myself, I'm tired of being lonely and feeling guilty that he is missing all the joys of pregnancy. Yes, the birth and afterward is much more important it just sucks so bad for him to be gone through all this. Only about 5 more weeks to go and he'll be home. Lord knows I'm tired of getting my own drinks.

24 Weeks

24 weeks, oh my! We might just be having a baby- like for reals even! Time is passing quickly in the slowest way possible, if such a thing can be imagined. I had an interesting weekend..my back started hurting on Friday at work, not painful but enough to say oh that sorta aches. Saturday it was still hurting and since it was in the kidney area I decided to go to the urgent care clinic thinking it could be a kidney infection starting. Urgent care sent me to Express care which sent me to the ER since I'm pregnant..all the while holding the urine sample I first supplied at urgent care. 4 hours later I was the proud parent of several kidney stones. I was sent home with a few perco.sets to deliver them naturally. And might I say, after not even having any alcohol since early October that perco.set got me hiiiiiiigh. And I got 2 days off work, so all in all not too bad. I had a major kidney stone a few years ago and it was quite dramatic, screaming, crying, lots of morphine required. These tiny stones were a cake walk compared to that.

I also began seeing the perinatologist last week and I have now added Lovenox injections to my nightly routine. The first one bruised terribly but the others haven't been so bad. I'm not a fan but if they thought walking across burning glass everyday would help I'd gladly light the fire myself. I also got a nice long ultrasound, she's right on target with size and weight, her fluid and cord are prefect- things I was pretty nervous about considering what my cousin just went through with her son.

And speaking of Baby B he is doing fantastic! He's up to 2lbs 8oz and bulldozing through all the tests and on a fast road to going home much sooner than his due date. We're going up there for her baby shower in April and we will hopefully get to see him! Now if I can keep my mouth shut about the skeevy guy my cousin started dating literally the day she was released from the hospital, we'll all be amazed.

In 2008 my cousin lost her daughter at 26 weeks. She had really high blood pressure from the start of her pregnancy and they think that led to the umbilical cord being small. At one point she actually had reverse flow in the umbilical cord, at which time they decided to go ahead and do a c-section but the baby passed away before they could get her to a hospital that had a nicu (they live in a very rural area about 3 hours from a nicu equipped hospital). When she became pregnant again they were prepared. Her and the baby's father moved closer to the hospital. She had monitoring and ultrasounds every week with progesterone injections. Last Wednesday was 26 weeks. It was a hard and scary day for her which I fully understand. On Friday they admitted her because the baby was too small and began monitoring the umbilical cord. On Sunday the cord was showing signs of reverse flow. Baby B was born Sunday night at 26 weeks 4 days at 1 lbs 12 ozs. He was taken straight to the nicu and placed on a vent. Monday morning he was taken off the vent and has been breathing on his own ever since! He still has many weeks to go since the earliest he can go home is June 5th, his due date. My cousin is doing well, relieved that her son is doing good but hating that he has to stay and feels guilty about him being a preemie, which I guess I can understand. If anything happened to my girl I'd feel it was my fault no matter what happened. For now our little puffer is doing good and hopefully he'll behave and get to go home in June!

Baby B, a few hours old