Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

Letting go of control

Jun 2, 2012 — 7:26 am

Letting go of control has been a very hard thing for me to learn over the years. I rarely mention it anymore because it’s rarely an issue, but many years ago I was diagnosed with OCPD – Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. This is not the same as OCD, but it’s related. I don’t have rituals or compulsions, but I had serious control issues and a lot of anxiety stemming from it. Plans were very important to me. When I first started dating Denis I remember crying in the car a few times because our dinner date plans changed. I look back at it and it seems quite ridiculous, but at the time I just couldn’t let go, and I couldn’t adapt. I haven’t dealt with that for a long time – apparently infertility, IVF, losing a child and then having a live one really does wonders for adjusting your world view and making all the small stuff seem like, well, small stuff. I think I am a much different mother now than I would have been 5 or 6 years ago. I am also a lot happier since I’ve been able to just let things go and accept life as it comes.

So here’s the big “but”: there is a part of me that has been trying to control this baby’s labor from the start. It seems kind of bizarre to me because I don’t recall having this issue when pregnant with Kate. Yes she was born before her due date, before I really expected her, and that certainly made it easier to avoid the wondering and waiting around. This one for some reason is really bringing back out my old planning habits since the time I found out I was due on Kate’s birthday. At first I was upset to be having the girls born in the same month, I felt that was unfair to them. I got used to that idea but definitely didn’t want them born on the same day. Then there was not wanting odd number days and getting upset about getting closer to June. Now it’s June, I’m having to adjust to that, but there’s that countdown to induction that is stressing me out.

Now this is all entirely ridiculous. Obviously she’s going to be born when she’ll be born and it won’t matter in the end at all. I do want a good birth experience, but I have no idea how this one is going to go. All along I’ve been thinking that once the contractions start coming it will give me focus and I’ll be able to slip into my meditative labor state and let it all go – which may very well be true.

I’ve been thinking that all this unnecessary stressing could be one of the reasons my body isn’t going into labor. And even if not, it’s certainly not very helpful to be stressing. This is not how I wanted to spend my last weeks of pregnancy. I’m letting all kinds of external, irrelevant thoughts get in the way of focusing on what’s important. Ember will come when she is ready. I need to give up control. I need to talk to her and let her know that I am ready. And if I do get to Thursday I need to believe that my body (and mind!) will handle it.

Last night I downloaded the HypnoBirth track Come Out Baby. Its focus is on relaxing your body and mind and releasing control. I listened to it last night after I got Kate to bed but I was so tired I fell asleep halfway through! (That’s one reason I like having some meditation scripts – they calm my thoughts and let me actually fall asleep!) I’m not expecting it to put me into labor suddenly, I just wanted something to focus on, something to center me and help me to let go.

My body is telling me it will be soon. After having no signs of impending labor for weeks I have started getting little crampy twinges down in my cervix, and some of my braxton-hicks have felt stronger. Yesterday I also had contractions roughly every 10 minutes for an hour or so, but they stopped when I took a walk. The walk felt fine for a little bit, then my belly started hurting and I barely waddled home; I had to lay down for a while to let the ligaments ease off. So things do feel a little bit different. Just nothing obvious, nothing major. I’m going to stop looking at calendars, stop thinking about Kate’s and her cousin’s birthdays, stop thinking about events and Den’s work schedule and try to just start living inside my head, present with my body and my baby.

Meditation

Jun 3, 2012 — 11:20 pm

I feel so calm tonight. So quiet. I am finally watching the last few episodes of House and just finding it so heavy – a good distraction, one that reminds me of what is important.

I had two hours worth of 10 minute apart contractions this morning – the real kind of contractions, not the braxton hicks whenever-they-feel-like-it. But they stopped after I had to get up with Kate and get us fed and dressed. It didn’t upset me; mostly am very bouyed that something is going on now. It may be tonight, it may take days, but something is shifting. It brings with it peace.

As of midnight I will be 13 days “overdue”, 41w6d. It’s been such an odd time, these two weeks I didn’t expect to have. It’s strange going to parties that I expected to be bringing two children to, instead of a toddler and a very large belly. I am getting quite a bit of amusement from it, though. I get some very funny looks when I say I’m nearly 2 weeks overdue. The most interesting – and frequent – comment is, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe your doctors are letting you keep going!” Sometimes it’s implied that the doctors are “making” me suffer. I point out that I requested not being induced, and furthermore I’m not actually miserable. Oh I’m big, I’m tired, and my feet hurt. I’m certainly at the end of my pregnancy. But it’s far from torturous. It’s just my mental state that was spazzing out (and not many people knew about that part).

Tonight Den rubbed some acupressure points on my leg, we had sex (again – yes, we’ve been trying that!), and I will turn on my HypnoBabies track. In the morning I will go in for a NST & BPP and then I’ll be calling an acupuncturist to try to get an appointment before Thursday. I did acupuncture during the IVF cycle I got pregnant with Kate – I can’t say it was the key factor, as I had gotten pregnant by IVF before, but it certainly helped relax me.

She’s here!!

Jun 4, 2012 — 6:41 pm

Ember finally decided to join us in the big outside world! She was born at 2:52pm June 4th, after approximately 8 hours of labor. It was another pretty easy labor for me! She did surprise us all yet again though…. she weighs in at 8lb 13.1oz! Holy roly-poly. (In comparison, Kate was 7lbs.) She has a bunch of dark brown hair, big chubby cheeks, and I *think* she has Kate’s little mouth and nose, but it’s hard to say at this point, newborns being so smushy and all. Unfortunately she’s in the NICU overnight because she had some trouble breathing after birth – she was crying, but not pinking up very well. So she’s just on a bit of oxygen and hopefully will be down here with me tomorrow.

I’m working on writing out the full story… I had to keep reminding myself just to post the basics first so you all don’t have to wait a day, ha.

Update on Ember

Jun 6, 2012 — 10:22 pm

Update at bottom! I’m going to leave the original post I wrote, but after talking to the doctor I have some new very good info!

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I kept meaning to come here and post but then getting sidetracked by the million other things I’m trying to do.

So last I wrote that Ember had been taken to the NICU because of some breathing difficulty at birth and we anticipated she’d be back down in our room soon. That didn’t happen. The original issue was fluid in the lungs, she had apparently inhaled a bunch of it, and it caused a bit of a rough transition to the outside world. However while she was on monitors she had a couple of apnea spells – she stopped breathing momentarily, causing her oxygen levels to drop significantly.

[This paragraph is from what I gathered from a nurse. The doctor now tells me something different.]
I don’t know if I just wasn’t asking the right questions or just not with it enough or super positive thinking or what, but I still thought it was linked to the fluid and that she’d be off oxygen the next morning and that would be that. But she wasn’t, and everyone started talking about pumping and being released without her. It wasn’t until last night that I started asking more careful clarifying questions to understand. From what the nurse said it appears that the apnea is unrelated to the original breathing issue. In fact if she hadn’t had any problems at birth it’s pretty likely that no one would have noticed anything, and that could have been very very bad. They don’t know why she’s doing it, it’s usually something they see in preemies, not healthy full-term babies. All the labs that have been run showed no sign of infection, so that’s very good. It just seems to be a quirk of hers. A dangerous quirk. Yesterday she had two episodes, one of which she recovered from and the other a nurse needed to stimulate her to wake up a little bit and breathe. Again this morning another episode that required intervention. The nurse said that usually with the preemies they want to see the baby go a week without an episode before sending them home. Clearly you want to be really sure it’s not going to randomly happen again.

So that was all a shock to me. Here I was thinking she was just having some shallow breathing from the fluid and that once that dissipated she’d come right home. Now we’re looking at an unknown time spent in the NICU, I’m going home without her. They’re just watching to see how she does as they lower the oxygen she’s on. Basically she needs to stop having the apnea episodes. If she does stop doing it she’ll be able to come home. If she doesn’t… then we don’t know. They haven’t given me any indication of what they’re going to do next.

In many ways, yes, it’s a small thing that in a few weeks or months will be in her past. We are really glad it was discovered now and she’s in the best place possible for her. But it sucks. I’ve spent the last two days in a hospital room with no baby in it – that or trekking upstairs to be with Ember. I really really appreciate being able to hold her now (we couldn’t the first day), this all feels so surreal that only holding her and touching her and talking to her make it all make sense in my head.

The NICU is very good with breastfeeding moms. Ember wasn’t taking anything by mouth for a good 12 hours after birth, then I pumped and gave a little colostrum by dropper. Yesterday I was able to nurse for the first time and the girl apparently was born knowing how to do it, she was very happy when she finally was allowed to latch! (Before then when I held her she would root and stick her tongue out and squawk and squeek at me.) So now I’m nursing every 3 hours, which means I’m not getting much of anything done, much less sleeping. Last night was me sleeping for 1.5-2 hours, my phone alarm going off, me forcing myself out of bed, walking out of L&D, taking an elevator, walking down the hall to NICU, scrubbing in, feeding a baby who keeps falling asleep at the breast while I tried not to nod off, then going back downstairs and trying to fall asleep again despite all the loud hospital sounds. I did get some sleep. I am not continuing this forever, but I wanted to make sure she got all the colostrum she could while I was waiting on my milk to come in. It’s half in now, I was able to pump some to stockpile for when I go home. Then I’m going to be pumping at home and driving in to nurse and drop off the milk.

I know many moms have done this before and survived. I know we’ll get through this. This was obviously not what I envisioned. I had a nice easy pregnancy and birth, and who expects the NICU? She looks like a monster baby next to all the little preemies in there.

And then of course we have Kate, too. Yesterday was just not a good day for her, she was whiny and bursting into tears whenever I left the room, sobbing for mama. We took her to see Ember for the first time, which did not go as well as hoped for. She didn’t like anyone touching or disturbing the baby, and then when we picked the baby up she flipped out crying. Den had to make a hasty exit with her. Today was MUCH better though, I think she finally caught up on sleep. She was in a great mood hanging out with us for a little bit, and then going to see Ember again. This time since she wasn’t clingy and whiny she reacted very well. She pointed out the baby and her body parts (“Eyes! Ears! Mouth! Cheeks!”). She sat on my lap while Den held Ember. She petted her hair, talked some more about the baby (“Sleeping!”), gave her a hug. Even tried to give Ember a rubber ducky toy. So we were very pleased! Obviously her attention span is like 5 minutes long, she got bored and tried finding new fun things to do so then our visit was over, but that made me feel a ton better.

So that’s how it stands right now. I’m definitely sore – I forgot how sore your body feels after giving birth. My abs are killing me, birthing babies is quite the workout. And my lower back is twinged from the back labor and the crappy hospital bed, I need to see my chiro. I did get a tear and some stitches again (I did with Kate, too). I need to take it easy, which is very hard to do right now.

::

Update: The doctor talked to me this evening when I was in there and what he’s telling me is much better! What they think she has is Transient Tachypnea. It is in fact related to the fluid in the lungs, it causes labored breathing and he says the apnea episodes (which I guess she doesn’t stop breathing entirely, just breathes very shallowly causing her sats to drop) are somewhat common with the condition. In any case he said today she was much improved and they expect to see her improve every day. He also said that this is a condition that should be short-lived and resolved by the time she goes home, that she won’t be going home on oxygen or anything. What a relief!

She’s still in the best place for her right now, we will get her through this, and we will bring her home.

Bonding

Jun 7, 2012 — 10:10 pm

I was discharged yesterday but decided to stay at the hospital in a free room as a “hotel guest,” something they offer moms in situations like this. I was going to stay just one extra night but decided to stay one more. I think it was a good decision. Kate is just fine with daddy at home, and I really appreciate the bonding time with Ember.

I love just holding her after she’s done nursing, staring at her and watching her cute little newborn faces. She is most definitely not Kate! She has a lot of different features, so I’m exploring all her little dimples and curves. She has a ton of long dark hair. I love stroking and playing with her hair, it all sticks up funny. I stare at her in wonder, how did she come from me? How was she just inside me mere days ago? She’s already changed in the last 3 days, looking less red, less squished. Even though she’s in the NICU I am grateful that I get to spend time with my little girl, bonding and falling in love with her. I don’t want to lose this time with her.

I also don’t want her to lose out on this time with me. She’s waking up a little more now rather than being asleep pretty much all the time. She looks up at me with her fuzzy grey-blue eyes, she pouts her little lip, she sticks out her tongue and roots around for mama’s boob. When she’s upset I’m there to hold her.

Getting off to a good start with breastfeeding was very important to me. We didn’t get to nurse right after birth and in fact we didn’t get to nurse until the following day. I wasn’t overly concerned, she had other needs to deal with right then. But happily when we did get the go-ahead to feed her she latched right on. I remember with Kate that even though she knew what she was supposed to do she wasn’t quite sure how to accomplish it – both of us were new and there was a lot of fumbling around the nipple. This one? Not an issue. And I’m not a newbie either, I’m sure that helps. I pumped off a little bit of colostrum but then just nursed her until I felt my milk coming in yesterday evening. Ember is extremely happy with the milk, and so are the nurses. She wasn’t peeing much before my milk came in, and while that’s normal in a breastfed baby they get worried about that in the NICU. Of course as soon as they brought it up I mentioned to them that my breasts were filling as we spoke and the next time I spoke to them they reported a giant poop and two good pees from her. :) So now I’m still nursing Ember every 3 hours, but then usually going back to my room and pumping off the rest. I’m building a stockpile for when I go home, since we don’t know how long Ember will be at the hospital still. I’m already pumping off 2oz each time after she eats (and at 3 days old she’s not eating that much per feeding!), I imagine I’m going to have to deal with oversupply for a while.

Kate is doing so well. She was a little hyperactive in the hospital, but then this isn’t exactly the most toddler-friendly place, she has energy to burn. She is happy to see mama for a while, she sits with me and we play games and eat food and she talks a lot. But she isn’t throwing fits when Den takes her home. That’s a huge weight off my shoulders! I think she’s actually enjoying having a lot of time with daddy, to be honest. She’s doing great with the baby, too. Today we told her we were going to go see the baby and she happily marched down the halls with us to the NICU. In the hall way in front there are big paintings on the walls of various jungle animals, and Kate gets so excited to point them all out to us. Then we get a sticker (on her shirt, identifying her) and we go wash our hands – that is awkward, Den has to hold her up while somehow scrubbing in himself and getting her hands and arms washed. Today when we got done with the hand washing Kate said, “Baby? Baby Emma?” and was all set to walk straight into the pod where Ember is. (And yes, she pronounces it emma. The b and r are apparently difficult!) She happily sat on the chair with me but was very impatient when we took time picking Ember up, she kept pointing and instructing us, “Baby!” When daddy brought the baby down to our level Kate waved at her, said, “Hi!”, petted her head, and then of course grabbed the blanket and tried yanking the baby into her own arms. Ummm, not so much, Kate! So it appears her main frustration right now is that she is not allowed to grab the baby and carry her around. ;) She did give hugs though. Then Den distracted Kate a bit while I started to nurse the baby. Kate had no issue with that, either. They did have to leave, but only because Kate was just too wired and wanted to run around and touch things. All in all I think it’s going very well! Hope it continues to go well once Ember is home with us.

I have pictures, but I’m not exactly sure how to post them from the tablet. I’ll see if I can figure that out next.

Pictures

Jun 9, 2012 — 4:36 pm

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I am exhasted, I am now driving back and forth, pumping and nursing and splitting my time between two kids. Ember is doing a lot better and was just taken off oxygen completely, which is a huge step. She may be coming home in the nexg few days! But everytime she has a great stetch with now issues she then turns around and has a de-sat or two just for fun. It is so frustrating. I really want my baby to come home!

Home!!

Jun 10, 2012 — 11:52 pm

Ember had two really good days and she is clearly waking up out of the newborn sleepy-all-the-time stage. Feeling better probably didn’t hurt either. She was weaned off the oxygen and quickly moved to the step-down continuing care nursery. We were hoping to bring her home in a day or two. Much to my surprise I got a call from a doctor this afternoon asking if we wanted to take her home this evening! Aahhh!! It was so exciting and yet sent me into a very slight panic, too – I was running around the house moving things, cleaning off her cosleeper again, making sure I had clothes picked out. And just being nervous. What do you mean no monitors? As much as I hate the wires and machines that go ping, there was definitely a comfort level to them, knowing they would pick up on anything.

So at 9pm on June 10th we walked out of the NICU with our little Ember! Kate wasn’t misbehaving, but she was being loud… in a nursery full of sleeping babies. I wanted to hold my hand over her mouth! But she was tired and Den got her to settle down with some lullabies. They did a car seat fit check, took my ID band as proof that they did indeed hand over the correct baby (noooo! I wanted that for the scrapbook!), went over some paperwork for me to sign, showed me how to correctly dose vitamins (errr, okay), gave me all of my bottles and bottles of frozen milk, and we were on our way!

When we told Kate we were going to get Ember she said, “Baby??” At the NICU she tried marching right in (and was confused when the doors didn’t open). After scrubbing in she grabbed the carseat and tried dragging it in there. She was very excited to see the baby again. But she was tired and a little whiny. When we got everyone back out to the car I put Kate in while Den put the bags in before loading Ember. Kate immediately started crying and trying to get out of her carseat. “Baby?! Baby?!” I pointed out the baby as Den put Ember and her carseat in the car next to Kate. Kate immediately calmed down and settled in for the ride. Apparently she really likes her new baby.

Family

Jun 12, 2012 — 11:57 pm

Most of my time spent in the NICU was to nurse Ember – in fact, looking back, I don’t think she even had a bottle until day 4, before then it was entirely me nursing her on demand, I was there literally every 3 hours around the clock (that seems a little crazy to me, not sure how I did that). But there were a lot of times when I had no where to be, no one to meet with, and I would just hold her in my arms after she’d passed out on my boob and I would just stare at her. I knew that she would be fine if I wasn’t there all the time… but it mattered a lot to me. I had a hard time emotionally bonding with Kate after she was born, and the thing that helped was holding her pretty much all the time. Ember not being in my room was a bizarre feeling, like I hadn’t just given birth. So I spent a lot of time in the NICU with her. And it’s amazing how holding your child can turn on all those switches inside you, how the tears can fall in joy and relief and amazement and how deeply you can fall in love. And the thing is, I know it just keeps getting deeper.

Having a second baby at home is definitely different from having just the one, for sure. I remember we held Kate all the time, both because she screeched when we put her down and because, well, we could. We had nothing else to do but wrap ourselves in this tiny little being we brought home. This time around I am much more willing to put the baby down, I am happy to have her sleep in her bouncer so I can spend time with Kate and eat and get a couple of things done. The biggest change, though, is how much I look forward to the future. I remember wanting to keep Kate that small forever, that I felt like her perfection was complete in that moment in time. Now that I see how much Kate has become I find myself staring at Ember and wondering who she will become, too. I am so eager to know who this person is, in what ways she will be similar and different to her sister. I picture the two of them running around together, reading together, sitting together. The present is awesome. The future looks beyond awesome.

Kate is being amazing. She really really loves her little sister. In the morning when she woke up the first thing she said to Den was, “Baby sista??” After nap, too, she has to come out and make sure the baby is still here. She tries to help Den carry the car seat by the handle, and when we load them in the car Kate leans forward to make sure that little sister is coming, too. This evening Kate sat on the couch and reached out her arms, so I placed Ember on her lap (with me still holding). Kate was SO proud of herself, she wrapped her arms around the baby and gave her a couple of kisses. The only problem was that when I picked Ember up Kate immediately wanted her back again! Kate pets her hair and touches her hands and feet. She gives a ton of kisses and hugs – so many that I have to try to distract Kate with something else. The main problem I have right now is that when I’m on the couch nursing Kate wants to give Ember hugs… and her method of doing that is to lean over and pretty much lay on her. We’re working on the gentle and personal space. It can be frustrating when Kate isn’t listening, but at the same time I want to keep it all positive because she’s being so good.

Emotionally I am very happy but I guess struggling a tiny bit with that guilt of having to split my time and attention. I really miss Kate sometimes, even though she’s right in front of me. Den is home now for a while (he’s taking 6 weeks off), so he’s dealing with feeding and changing Kate while I’m covering Ember. (We would swap, but he doesn’t have the boobs, so he’s pretty limited with Ember right now!) When Ember is sleeping I read Kate books and give her lots of cuddles (no belly in the way now!) and just try to be present. I can also hold and/or nurse Ember while interacting with Kate, even if I can’t hold her right then. And then I feel a little bad that I’m not holding Ember all the time like I did Kate.

I have no idea how being home alone with both is going to go, right now I’m just trying to figure out a rhythm to the day. Ember is over a week old but is still basically a mystery to me. Sometimes she cries and I am just puzzled as to what to do – she doesn’t react like Kate used to, and I don’t know much about her normal patterns. I’m sure it will just take some time to figure out. But on the whole she seems like a pretty straightforward baby so far. When she’s upset either changing or nursing her fixes the problem 99% of the time. And she will complain if I put her down when she doesn’t want to be put down. So far she seems to be sleeping okay on her own, but she’s apparently starting to realize that mama’s arms are a much better place to sleep. The first day home she wanted to be put down to sleep, she fussed at me for a while before I figured that out. Day two… not so much. Last night she started off the night sleeping 3 hours in the cosleeper, but then ended up in bed with me after a middle of the night change feed cuddle feed change feed had me so tired that I just fell asleep with her in my arms. I figure as long as I can start the night out alone I should be good. To be honest I love waking up cuddling a baby way too much.

Birth Story

Jun 13, 2012 — 10:08 pm

For a few mornings I had been getting some regular contractions for a couple of hours, but they would stop when I was up and moving. I was getting close to 42 weeks and even my hands-off midwives were talking induction at that point. I was feeling very frustrated; Kate was born 3 days before my due date, and I couldn’t figure out why this kiddo was waiting so long. I knew if I had to be induced I would deal with that, but I just wanted my body to do it itself like it knew how to. I bought a HypnoBabies track and listened to it at night, and on Monday I planned to make an appointment with an acupuncturist.

On Monday, June 4th, at 41w6d, I woke up at 7am with a contraction that made me have to get up and pee, and then when I layed down I had some more 10 minutes apart. They were still very gentle but the pressure was a bit different, I could feel it down low. I didn’t like laying down through them, I had to sit up, which caught my attention. At 8am I woke Denis up and told him to take a shower just in case this was it. I was so relieved to think I could be in labor!

I had a NST scheduled for 10am that morning and I wasn’t sure if I should bother getting ready to go in for that or not. I didn’t want to go in, be told I was having contractions, and then either be stuck in the hospital the entire time or have to drive home and then go back in again. Not to mention I didn’t think I should be driving in case the contractions got stronger. I called the Midwife on call – who turned out to be the same Midwife who delivered Kate! – at 8:30 to let her know that I might be in labor, she said not to come in for the NST, we could reschedule it later or I’d be coming in soon.

My contractions were now every 4.5-5 minutes apart, making me feel like this actually was labor! Den made toast, eggs and bacon for us. Kate was still asleep. I mostly sat on my birth ball at the table, eating and texting. I also went around making sure that the diaper bag had everything in it, that my ID and phone and chargers were all in my bag. At 10:00 we got ahold of our friends and told them we would be dropping Kate off soon for the day as we headed into the hospital. Contractions were still around 5 minutes apart and not much stronger, but I did have to stop and relax during them and I didn’t want to wait too long at home like I did last time. I could feel the baby sitting lower. The only question now was how far along I was, not whether or not this was really labor.

We dropped Kate off at around 10:30 and headed to the hospital. We got there just after 11:00. I called my Midwife on the way and she asked if I was sure I wanted to come in, I still sounded in a good mood. Den said the same thing, but I reassured him that I was pretty sure this was a good time to go in, I wanted to get through triage before it got serious. I also called my mom to tell her that I was in labor and we were headed in to the hospital. This was a far more pleasant car ride than racing in while in transition with Kate… just saying.

I got into triage pretty quickly, got hooked up to the monitors. Baby’s heartrate was good. I couldn’t sit back during contractions at all, I was leaning forward and holding myself a little off the bed with each one, I could feel a lot of low pressure and some in my lower back as well. After about 20 minutes on the monitor the midwife asked if I wanted to be checked now. She checked me and then sat back in surprise and told me I was 6cm already. She said she had been nervous I was going to be too early and have to go home. So went to get me a room. I walked up there – first time riding those elevators up when actually in labor!

By 12:30 we were in my room. The midwife got me a birth ball to sit on; I sat facing the bed, rolling my hips and texting on the phone. My contractions were still around 5 minutes apart like clockwork, but only lasted for 30-45 seconds each. Either Den or the midwife would press/rub my lower back with each one, I could still feel baby pressing against my spine. In between contractions we chatted a little bit, played on our phones, and waited. It was quiet. My friends were laughing that I was on Facebook and writing emails while in labor. I had my bottle of water that my midwife would remind me to drink from, and no IV. The midwife would use the monitors to check baby’s heartrate every 30 minutes. It kept sliding down so she sat next to me and held it on for the few minutes needed to get a good reading through a contraction. Baby was still doing great. There was no mention of pain meds or other interventions from the nurse, she just kept saying things like how I was doing so great.

At 1:45pm I asked her to check me again, I was feeling a lot more pressure down low and just wanted to know where we might be at. She checked me at a 7, then asked if she could check me during a contraction, she suspected I might be dilating further during the pressure of contractions. Sure enough she said I was 8cm during contractions as her head came down. I sat up on the bed and lowered the foot part so I was perched at the edge. I put on my headphones and turned on music, but of course didn’t feel like any of the soft gentle music I had brought with me. I turned on pandora to my dance station, then just closed my eyes and bobbed my head to the beat. I really had to remind myself to relax during contractions now, my body was trying to tense up to get away from all that low pressure as her head pushed down.

At around 2:15 I told my midwife that the contractions were getting a little painful now. She noted that it was the first time I had used the word “pain.” At around 2:30 I told DH I had to go to the bathroom. I was able to have a bowel movement, and there was some bloody show. I knew I was getting much closer. I remember thinking that I was about to push a baby out, that it was going to hurt, why was I doing this again??

I walked back to the bedside and stood there through another contraction and felt a little pushy, which I told them. A couple more contractions I just pushed a little bit. At 2:40 I started whimpering through the contraction and knew I had hit transition when everything feels overwhelming. 2:45 I really pushed with the contraction and my water broke all over my feet. The midwife put down some chux pads underneath me and asked if I wanted to get on the bed or not. I believe I just whimpered in response, I couldn’t think and couldn’t move. I ended up holding Den’s hands across the bed and squatting to push. It was only a few contractions I pushed through, a few pushes each time, but to me it felt like it took forever. I could feel her head coming out and I was pushing so hard to desperately get it out. Her head came out and I felt a wave of relief followed by surprise that the rest of her body didn’t quickly follow. I pushed a couple times through the next contraction but she wasn’t budging. My midwife was very quick and take-charge, telling me to quickly get up on the bed, a very difficult thing at that time. She got me on my side and I pushed as hard as I could and out she came. I overheard her tell the nurse that it wasn’t shoulder dystocia – later she told me that the baby had a large chest and she was in a bit of an awkward position.

HUGE relief when the baby was out. They put her on my belly and I held her, shocked again at the whole process, that I just pushed a baby out. How did this creature come from me?! I could feel the cord between my legs, it seemed kind of short – Ember was as high up on my chest as she could with the cord still attached. I was aware that the midwife and nurse were very hasty and talking quickly, not all relaxed. The nurse rubbed the baby with a towel and urged her to take some good breaths. Ember was crying, but her skin tone was very purple still. It was a few minutes like that, Ember on my chest crying now and again but not really getting pink. The midwife clamped the cord and had Den cut it, then they told me they were going to take the baby over to the warmer and get her some oxygen. For the first time I noticed all the people in the room by the warmer. They rubbed her and suctioned her and put an oxygen mask on her. Den watched very fretfully. I was tired and knew she was in good hands, I figured she would be brought back over to me in a couple minutes. One of the women in the group said she was from the NICU and explained what they were doing and that they were going to take her to monitor her. I was confused that they were taking her to the NICU, I felt like she was going to be fine any second now. I figured they’d take her up, get her back on track, and bring her right back down.

My midwife said to try pushing a little bit to see if the placenta would come out, and a minute later it did. I had a first degree tear again, so she stitched me up – it was exceedingly not fun. We still didn’t know Ember’s weight or length, but the midwife said by the looks of her she was over 8lbs. Later when I was on the phone with my mom the nurse came back down from the NICU and announced the birthweight was 8 lb 13.1 oz! My mouth dropped open at that! I had felt like Ember was going to be bigger than Kate (7lb) but no one suspected a baby that was closing in on 9lbs! It just amazes me that she was hiding in my belly! The length we didn’t know until much later, but it was around 19.75 inches, so basically the same length as Kate.

Unfortunately she did not come straight back down from the NICU, she was there for 6 days. There was fluid in her lungs after birth, which is not common in healthy, full-term babies. It’s not a huge deal, but her oxygen saturation needed to be watched carefully and she was on oxygen while there. As usual Ember was on her own timeline!

First week home

Jun 18, 2012 — 9:49 am

Well one thing is clear: Ember is a very different baby than Kate! I fall into the habit of thinking in terms of extremes, so in my mind I was wondering if this baby was going to be a really easy-going laid back baby or maybe a colicky baby. She is of course neither but is somewhere in the middle… just a different middle than Kate was. Ember is noisy. She grunts, squeaks, growls, whines, and of course cries. She really doesn’t scream at all so far, though she definitely scrunches up her face and kicks her legs and cries when something is wrong. She just works up to it with a lot of other sounds. She seems kind of fussy to me thus far, and I know part of that is gassiness from my overactive letdown/oversupply. She also is a frequent pooper… combined with the cluster feeding she does when awake that leads to a lot of diaper changes; she’ll be awake for an hour and nurse and need diaper changes about 3 times. So she’ll be happy nursing and then laying in my arms, but then I need to burp her. She loves sitting up to burp, I hold one hand under her chest with her slumped over and pat her back with my other hand. I swear she will just zone out and even fall asleep like that. But then she’ll rouse a few minutes later grunting and growling and I have to go through everything to figure out what it is this time. (I don’t think it’s reflux, for what it’s worth. She’s randomly fussy but sleeps just fine when laying down. And I can get her calmed down with some burping, changing and/or nursing.)

Like I said, she’s cluster feeding. She does nurse quite well, but she only wants little snacks during the day. She’ll sleep for 2-3 hours, but then nurse four times in an hour. Granted I don’t know how much of that is hunger and how much of that is “I’m pissed you just stripped me down and changed my diaper, I want a booby to calm down!” She took a paci in the hospital, grudgingly, but ever since she got home she has refused them. In fact when we try cajoling her with a paci she gives us the most disgusted look ever. She’s already found her hands and sucks on them a lot, but not enough to calm her down entirely. She’s definitely a booby baby. She’s a great nurser and other than sensitive nipples for the first week and the pain of engorgement I have had no problems at all. With Kate I was in serious pain for a good 3 weeks, as she had a small mouth and very strong suck needs – she squashed my nipples flat and they hurt so bad! This one is much gentler on me. Both girls were very fast nursers, though, and I think that’s my oversupply. They don’t need long to get a full feed.

Ember’s sleep seems much different from Kate, too. Ember is not sleeping as much or as long – I remember Kate was just always sleeping for the first few weeks, she was an exceedingly sleepy baby and only woke up to be changed and nurse and would pass right out again in my arms. However Ember is okay with being put down. Yes! I can put this baby down! She’s taking daytime naps in the bouncer (which is inside the pack’n’play, so Kate can’t just grab her), and spends the first stretch at night swaddled in the cosleeper next to my bed. The other half of the night she’s in bed with me because I really like my sleep and that’s the best way to get it. But even sleeping in my arms she’s waking up at 5:30 in the morning! Yes she goes back down eventually, but she’ll just lay there wide-eyed staring at the window for quite some time. During the day, too… when she wakes up she stares at everything and does not want to be cuddled into a little ball against my chest (she growls when I try it).

It’s good that I am able to put her down, because as much as I love cuddling sleeping babies (and I LOVE it), I really enjoy being able to cuddle Kate, too. We are doing our best to give Kate a ton of attention. So even when I’m breastfeeding I’m talking to Kate, asking her questions, watching her jump. Den is home too so he spends a lot of time getting food for her, changing her, and of course playing with her. He’s clearly the fun guy. :) She still needs her mama, though. The other night she had a nightmare or something and was calling out for mama. Den got up but brought her in to our bed for a hug. Kate has been doing really really good. Like super good. She has not shown any issue with me holding and nursing the baby very frequently. She loves the baby and checks on her first thing in the morning to make sure she’s still here. She loves to sit next to me on the couch and pet the baby, and now she loves holding the baby too. I hold on too, of course, but she opens her arms wide and gently holds her little sister while watching TV, leaning down to give a kiss or two. It is the sweetest damn thing ever. The hardest part is that Kate is still just 2 and she doesn’t understand how rough she can be – she likes to jump on the couch, give huge dive-hugs to me, and she’s still experimenting with hitting and throwing. None of it is malicious but she just doesn’t understand. So we keep repeating “Gentle!” and showing her how to touch nicely and at times when she’s repeatedly not listening we put her in time out before we lose our patience. The hard line for me is trying to keep her from being too rough on the baby without constantly correcting her and making the baby seem like a bad thing in her mind. I definitely try to keep it all very positive and happy. Kate gets a ton of positive attention when she’s being gentle.

Ember has been home a week tonight and I’m feeling really good about everything in general. It was a little strange at first, not being new to having a baby but not knowing this particular baby at all. I’m getting more of a feel for her moods and needs now and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve spent a few hours alone with both girls, and that went fine. I’m still intimidated by the idea of taking both out of the house in public, but I took them to my SIL’s without an issue (other than Kate tantruming the entire way home for some unknown reason). As long as it’s a safe place like someone’s house or yard where Kate is okay not to be watched every second then it’s fine. But what I’m not sure about is when it’s not a closed location and I have to nurse or change a diaper. Kate is pretty good, but she’s still a toddler who doesn’t always listen! I can wear Ember, and I have done so twice now on test runs, but I can’t be climbing playground equipment!

As for me I’m pretty much feeling fine now. The first week I was sore and had to take it easy, but now I feel pretty much normal. My belly has shrunk a ton, I’ve lost 19 of the 36 pounds I put on, I have energy and I’m very pleased that I can now bend over without a basketball squashing me. Moodwise I’m even fine, which is weird because I remember crying off and on for a few weeks after I had Kate, hormones going a little crazy. This time I just feel pretty mellow and happy that my girls are home with me.

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