Limitations

While I was pregnant a lot of people asked me how I thought I'd deal with all the life changes I faced ahead. They wondered how I'd feel about working out less and scheduling activities around a child. I didn't know, I still don't know, I just know it's all changed now.

I was not planning to have a c-section but that's the way the cookie crumbles. One of the tough aspects of a c-section is the recovery, it's longer and maybe a little harder on your body.

While I was in the hospital I felt much less mobile than usual but the nurses laughed at me a bit, telling me how well I was actually doing. On the first night, my torso and below were 100% numb. One of the nurses asked me if I could roll over towards my side at all. I pushed down on my arms and shifted my entire body to face the side wall.

"How did you do that?" she asked in complete amazement.

"I don't know, I just used my arms. You asked if I could roll on my side."

She started to laugh, "You have no idea... most people can't move at all."

Here are a few of these changes / limits and my perspective on them 1 week after Leah's birth...

Pain Meds - There are a lot of pain medications prescribed to c-section ladies. I'd been told by others to stay ahead of your pain medication, it's tough when you get behind schedule. I listened to this advice but I also wanted to get off those things as quickly as possible. By the second night after her birth I started having some really bad dreams and my body was retaining a lot of water. Plus, I can't imagine those things are good to have in your system. So I've been doing my best to clear this stuff out.

Driving - No driving for at least 2 weeks, longer if I was still on the pain medication. I get cleared to drive again at my first postpartum appointment. Although this limitation makes it difficult to go run errands I'm perfectly happy to have Michael do all the driving. It almost feels like having a personal chauffeur since I sit in the back next to Leah.

Laughing, coughing, sneezing, etc - These activities are among the most painful of all, the incision sight is not a fan. For the past week I've been begging Michael not to make me laugh. Every time he says something funny I do my best not to laugh. When something gets in my throat and I need to cough I grab water and hope I can wash it down. The other day I cried a bit and realized it hurts to blow my nose. I've put a kibosh on all emotions.

Water Exposure - no swimming, no baths, no water applied to the stitches for 6 weeks. The swimming and baths is to decrease the chance of bacterial infection to my inside as well as my incision location.

Exercise - 6 weeks with no exercise. Everyone just kept telling me no heavy lifting and no strenuous exercise for 6 weeks. The OB on call during the weekend told me I could walk as far as I wanted. I finally started to tell the doctors I needed more details to prevent me from unknowingly doing too much.

Heavy Lifting = 10+ lbs
Walk as far as you want = You should not want to walk more than 1 block
Strenuous exercise = Yoga, Running, Cycling, Swimming, Weight Lifting, etc

Of course, I do admit, even a short walk through the hospital seemed like a tough workout at first. This video makes me laugh every time. I was so out of it that day. Too bad it hurts to laugh.

Good Eater Award

Leah's first pediatrician visit was Tuesday morning. Before going to Dr Louis's office we got to visit CPL to get a bit of blood drawn. She seemed to do pretty well having her heal poked yet again. Luckily the veins in her heal don't seem to roll like the huge ones in her mothers arms. Both forearms are still bruised from the 5 times I was poked for an IV last Thursday. The trails of veins in my arms could be used for a picture in an anatomy textbook but that doesn't mean they like to stay in place when being poked at.

Back to Leah's appointment...

We were happy to hear she weighed in at 6 lbs 2 oz. The doctor was sure to tell us there are often differences in his scale versus the hospital scale but in general this is a good sign. She's been an overachiever in the dirty diaper department (we know because we have a spreadsheet to record all of it) and has also been doing well eating.

Yes, my daughter is a good eater, we're giving her this weeks Good Eater Award. Unfortunately this has lead to some interesting side effects, mainly effecting yours truly.

The amount of milk the mom initially produces is partially a result of the amount of colostrum the baby takes in during it's first few days. Leah, being the good eater, got me all set up to produce enough food for a small army of babies. I now have a pleasure of two leaky faucets attached to the front of me. Or maybe we should call them leaking balloons, a faucet is much smaller than a water balloon filled to capacity, about to pop due to pressure.

Last night I had to make a trip trip to Target to purchase some new supportive undergarments. There were two in the maternity section for little people with big balloons. Michael tries to keep the spirit upbeat about this, "Some people pay big money for that." Somehow I doubt the leaking is part of their surgical reshaping. Of course, it would be much worse if someone who'd had plastic surgery started to leak for no reason. At least there's a usefulness in all this mess.

BTW, Michael is holding Leah in the picture above because she was already hungry when the doctor came in too see her. We knew she would not be too happy if mom held her and refused to feed her. It's a bit hard for a newborn to understand why it's not convenient to feed at certain times or places. Of course, I'm nobody to talk, I always carry a snack with me and have no problems sneaking them into my mouth whenever I want.

Sleep

Newborns sleep a lot! They basically eat, poop, pee, and sleep.

But something amazing seems to happen every night, Leah has some internal alarm that goes off at 10:20 PM. I think it's the get up and play fussy baby alarm. Then another alarm goes off at 5:30 AM, be perfect and cute.

I don't know for sure but it seems quite a bit too coincidental that 10:20-5:30 are the exact sleeping hours I've followed for the past couple of years. For 9 months these were the hours when her environment was not rocking her to sleep. Therefore, these were the hours when she was awake to move around and it appears her internal clock has not changed.

Therefore, I am booking a flight back to New Zealand to visit some friends.

Oh wait... that won't work... It's not a good idea to have an infant on the airplane that long (germs, etc). I guess we'll just have to endure this adventure like the other parents out there.

For now we'll just go with the tried and true tricks:

Sleep when the Baby Sleeps: (oops, not doing that right now)
That's what Michael was doing in the picture above. He got in a 4 hr nap yesterday afternoon, the longest stretch he and Leah have slept in the past week.

Do Not Wake the Sleeping Baby:
I learned another valuable lesson last night, do not wake the sleeping baby just because you heard her poop. Last night I heard a big gurgle from her and knew there was a mess awaiting. I debated letting it go until she woke up naturally but felt bad about leaving her in a mess. I woke her up at 11:30 instead of letting her wake up on her own. By 3:30 I was wishing I'd given myself a few extra minutes of rest, next time I might wait to get her up.

Who's the Boss

Leah's testing this morning showed a 1 oz weight gain over the past day and a decrease in the jaundice levels. She'd been feeding well but her crazy number of diaper messes had been all but eliminated. I was a bit concerned about the lack of bowel movements but since she'd had 17 dirty diapers in the past few days I figured it wasn't a big deal.

Our pediatrician cleared our glowworm to leave the hospital today. He wanted Leah to stay under the light until noon but said we were free to go home after that.

We spent the morning packing up all of our belongings and getting a bit more rest before getting discharged from the hospital. Everything was ready to go by about 11:45 but we decided we'd just stick around until 12:00 until turning the machine off.

As the clock struck 12 noon we flipped the switch and Michael got her into her onsie to return home. Just as her right foot was placed in her outfit we heard an explosion. We'd been waiting for 24 hrs for the first green runny poop and Leah had nicely saved it just for the moment we wanted to leave. It was a bit humorous and and also quite impressive when we saw the amount of mess she had been saving up.

Michael changed her diaper and we put her into the car seat, while in the room, to be sure the straps were adjusted correctly. They were a bit too loose, no surprise, and we made the adjustments to get it ready for her first car ride. While this was going on Leah began to show signs of hunger and I decided it would be smarter to just feed her in the hospital.

After spending a few minutes feeding her we got cleaned up and Michael went down to get the car. While he was out Leah started showing signs of hunger again. So I faced the fun task of unpacking all the feeding items and maneuvering us around the room alone. Michael walked in a few minutes later, "No way!"

"Yup, she's telling us who's in charge."

Cleaned up again, it was now 1 pm. We laughed at our nieve belief that we would just walk out at noon since that was what we'd intended to do.

All of a sudden we heard it... another explosion. Our daughter, who hadn't had a bowel movement all day yesterday, had just had 2 in one hour. Sweet!

Labor Report

Before I write too much I must reiterate one thing that I have heard many times throughout pregnancy, "Everyone is different."

Years before I even considered getting pregnant I had been told, "You're so tough, labor will be a breeze for you." During pregnancy I'd heard stories of other people finding labor to be easy or telling me I'd have no problems because I was in pretty good shape.

Well... I can tell you without a doubt, Thursday was the most painful thing I have ever endured. For me, it was a huge challenge and I commend all those other mothers out there who have gone through it.

Now... for what I remember (I've been told there is a bit of labor amnesia that occurs)

On Wends night (Sep 16th) Michael and I went to bed with the intention of getting up at 5am to go for our Thurs morning workouts. As I laid down I noticed a lot of gurgling in my belly and wondered if I'd actually make it too the pool. At 11:30 I woke up, pretty sure my water had broken, I changed into some clean clothes and laid back down for a bit. I woke up Michael at midnight to tell him my water had broke, "Are you sure?" We were both confused b/c we'd heard it would have a distinct smell but we didn't smell anything... or well... I didn't smell anything and Michael smelled something horrible for a short amount of time. He said he'd had a dream already that night about my water breaking. We called the nurse line, took a few last minute belly pictures, and emailed the people we were planning to meet up with in a few hours.

Then we were off to Seton. I've never seen Mopac so empty or feel as empty as it did during that drive, yet somehow we had a diversion when the off ramp for 35th st. happened to be getting resurfaced. Not a big deal but a bit humorous.

We checked into the hospital and it was confirmed that my water had broken. Doctor said I get 24hrs to get the baby out, after my water breaks, before she gets taken out for me.

My plan was to give it my best to get through labor without any drugs but I knew I would have to see how it went. As my OB told me later on Thurs, this was not something I could train for.

At 1am I was at a "generous" 1cm of dilation. By 6am I was starving of hunger, and 1.5cm dilated. There was no choice, I was given Pitocin, medication to induce contractions. The painful part of the day soon began. Within an hour I was having intense contractions at a rate of about 3 min on, 1 min off. Michael tried to assure me, "It's just like doing 800m repeats at the track."

"But I've got about 100 of them to do," I replied half joking and half fearful of the pain to endure.

"I think you have a lot more than that." He was not joking but at the time of the statement we didn't realize how true that was.

Over the next 6.5 hours I went through the most painful thing I have ever endured. My contractions got closer, and at times they began to overlap. The few I remember the most were the ones that didn't seem to let up, when I would have a continuous bout of pain for 10 minutes. I couldn't hardly talk, I could not relax, I could hardly stand. At some point Michael had to leave my side for a moment to go to the bathroom and I could hardly deal with the agony of having him step away.

Mid morning the anesthesiologist came in to ask me if I'd like an epidural. I told him I wanted to keep trying and he said he would be available if I changed my mind. He also mentioned that it's rare for people who are induced not to get the epidural b/c you don't have the same progression of pain as natural labor.

I tried my best all morning to cope with this pain, after all, I believed I was supposed to be able to deal with it. After about 3 hrs of labor I really wanted to take the epidural but could not bare the idea of given up. Michael kept assuring me I was doing fine. I'm not real sure what he was thinking but that's what he told me b/c he was doing his best to support my efforts to make it through without the epidural.

If I am not mistaken, I believe I was at about 3.5 cm by 10am. As noon rolled around I was seriously questioning my ability to keep going. I could hardly stand up on my own and my body was getting fatigued. My nurse said my contraction patterns were looking like someone who is pretty far in labor, and we got excited for a moment. She checked my cervix, "You're at 9cm!, opps... I slipped you're still at 5.5 cm." She told me that most people could expect to dilate about 1 cm / hr up to 10 cm now. Once I'd get to 10 I'd have to push. After 6.5 hrs of this I was not sure if I could make another 6. The internal battle was huge but I asked for the epidural. I almost felt as if I was a quitter. What if I speed up and get to 10cm in 2 hrs from now, I could do 2 more hours. No, logic said it was unlikely and I should let myself get the epidural to have energy to push.

I got the epidural and almost instantly the baby's heart rate started to have trouble. A swarm of nurses and doctors entered the room and I felt even more guilt, that I'd made a decision that was hurting my baby to keep myself from feeling pain. This was actually not the case, it was the effect of her position and the constant contractions on her head leading up to that point. Her body was having trouble with the intensity and frequency of the contractions, and a decreased heart rate is her way of telling us she is unhappy. This decreased HR did occur a few more times during the day and was not considered to be good, a sign of fetal distress. To control the heart rate decrease, the nurses had to reduce the amount of Pitocin to reduce the contractions, which reduced the rate at which my cervix would dilate.

After the scare subsided I realized what had happened. Maybe I should say I realized how much pain I'd truly been in. All of a sudden I was able to relax and carry on a conversation. It's no wonder why so many people just tell you to take the epidural when you are given the chance.

For the rest of the afternoon I was stuck in bed, hoping my cervix would dilate and Leah's body would be able to cope with it well.

At 8pm, the doctor on call checked my cervix again, and discovered I was only at 6.5cm. I had progressed only 1cm all afternoon. Things were not looking good for a vaginal delivery. The doctor also expressed concern about the shape of my pelvic arch and the ability to have a vaginal birth. Even though this conversation was hard to have, the doctor did a great job of presenting this to me in a very professional manner. I had a good cry, but knew what choice had to be made. At this point, things moved the quickest they had in hours, by far!

At about 8:10pm I was wheeled into the OR. I was prepped for cesarean surgery, and Michael was prepped to watch. The room was full of people who were doing a great job keeping me in good sprits. One nurse by my side blurted out "We're havin' a birtday party!" The doctor announced when she made the incision, which was clearly one of the most stressful points in the day. The doctor eased the tension by mentioning: "wow, you have not body fat." I said 13%. She asked where, and Michael blurted out "boobs and butt". Great place, the doctor said.

A few seconds later, though what felt like an eternity, we heard some crying. The nurses dropped the drape so Michael could see Leah for the very first time. She was quickly moved over to a cleaning area and prepared to go the transition nursery with Michael. He and the nurses snapped a few pics and video and before I knew it, they were gone, and I was being cleaned up and taken to the recovery room.

About 20min later, Leah and Michael rejoined me for the first feeding. We got about 15min of feeding in, which the nurse said was pretty good. At this point, we were all very exhausted, but still had a lot of sleepless, though well worth it, hours ahead of us.

It's impossible to know what cards you will be dealt for your labor, however you can be assured it will be the most memorable experience of your life.

Leah Madison

Leah Madison Garel
Born: September 17, 2009 @ 8:32pm
Weight: 5lb 15.5oz
Length: 18.5"

Mom and baby are healthy and doing great.

Labor report may be posted eventually....

Baby G's Library

I just finished Baby G's library... okay... maybe not quite the picture above but it's still a good collection.

A few months ago Juli told me she had some books to pass along to Baby G. On Friday afternoon I made a trip over to her house to gather up the newest treasure. I had no idea what she meant when she told me she had some books. I assumed it would be a box or two of favorites that I would be able to add to my growing collection from friends.

After spending a few hours loading up an entire CRV full of books I was a bit overwhelmed. I made a trek to the Container Store on Saturday to buy some milk crates for organization (we need to set a good example and use the ones without a "property of..." stamp). I had to go back today because I had underestimated the amount of books I actually had. 10 crates later, I think I've got a good handle on them.

Now I'll just need to be sure I have enough building blocks that she doesn't begin to use her books to make forts when she gets to the construction age. If she takes after her mother she might realize how useful heavy books become when you want to be sure a sheet will stay draped between two pieces of furniture. This of course is not quite as destructive as using books to create a large scale domino game.