A month old + birth story

Will is a month old today!

  I keep thinking of Charles Dickens "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.".  It seems like some cruel act of fate that newborns are soooo yummy and cuddly and amazing while moms are struggling so hard to pull themselves back together.  It's one of the most fleetingly amazing times of your life and you have to spend it simultaneously with one of the worst times in your life: being post partum.  Ugh. 

One of the worst things about being post partum is the baby brain fog.  I think I read it's an actual chemical thing so you forget how horrible childbirth was?  Or maybe it's so you focus on your baby's survival to the detriment of everything else?  I don't remember (har har).  I do know though, that if I don't write down Will's birth story, I won't remember the details and goodness knows every child needs the embarrassing blow-by-blow saga of how he was born.  

This was my fourth c-section and it's hard not to compare them all.  Jamie's c-section was so easy.  My 21 year old body bounced back after a few days like nothing happened (probably spurred forward by a baby in the NICU...both because I didn't have to take care of him full time, and I didn't want to miss anything).  Charlie was a little harder, but still pretty smooth sailing...partly because I only had one child to dodge and protect myself from whenever he came barreling toward me with three year old exuberance.   Robbie's c-section was a definite turn for the worse.  I caught a virus in the hospital, had recurrent mastitis (much like this time, except antibiotics actually did their job last time), had an allergic reaction from a spider bite, and was innocently sitting on the couch when Charlie did a cannonball dive off the back and into my incision.   In retrospect I did a lot of damage to myself internally with Robbie's recovery, but I didn't know that and wouldn't have cared anyway because he was our last kid.  (ha!)

Which takes us to Will's birth story.  Picking your child's birthday and knowing their gender and name is so the opposite of how childbearing happened historically, that it's still jarring to me to do it this way.  Not that I'd prefer birthing in a four poster bed in a Victorian nightgown while my husband paced the hall...but still, it seems a little suspiciously manufactured to walk in perfectly healthy and say "oh doctor, please do count those sponges and grab that scalpel, I'm scheduled to be sliced like filet mignon in thirty minutes".   But the fates didn't consult me in the whole child producing dept (obviously), so planned c-section it was.  This was my first c-section scheduled in the morning which was awesome.  The worst part of all my other c-sections was the starving and dehydration section of the day, and then the continued starvation the next day.  Jello is a poor food substitute when you haven't eaten in two days.   We got there early and I talked over a few things with the anesthesiologist.  This was also the first c-section where I had a woman anesthesiologist which was funny (not really) because I'd just been joking they were a rare species.   I had very specific opinions about what drugs I wanted and didn't want.  I hate how c-sections are such a one-size-fits-all.  I get why emergency c-sections are done the way they are, but why can't scheduled c-sections be a completely customizable thing?  I asked to do skin to skin right away in the operating room (versus waiting for the recovery room) and I really wanted music to sort of take away the clinical feel of the place  (and you know...  distract me from the very real awareness I was buck naked on a table under bright lights with a room full of people).  They were very obliging and honored all my requests, but they didn't know I really wanted to ask them to skip the whole drape thing.   I also wanted to pull the baby out myself directly on my chest, do delayed chord clamping, and no scrubbing the vernix off the baby...oh and please save the placenta. ;-)   ...Jim is thankful I kept all those requests to myself.  Cough cough. 

The c-section itself went great.  Normally my blood pressure bottoms out once or twice and I struggle with nausea.  My arms weren't tied down this time, and I felt a lot more relaxed (and I thought I felt relaxed with the other three).   I don't mind getting the spinal at all, and it always shocks me how fast everything moves in the operating room.  Before I knew it I heard William take his first breath and start to cry...scratch that...it was more of a furious screaming.   That was another new thing.  With my others they always said something like "and here he is!"  or "It's a boy!" and then silence.  Time always slowed down as I waited and waited for that first breath or cry or something that let me know my child was ok.  You feel kinda of sensory deprived behind that curtain and it's hard to get your bearings on what's happening or not happening.    With William though, he was crying before they even got him out.  I thought, oh dear Lord have mercy on me, I don't think I can handle a super spitfire and then they put him on my chest and he looked at me and I remembered I already knew this person.  He'd been mine for nine months and in that second I felt like I'd known him forever.  He chose that kodak moment to clamp down his tiny non-fangs on my collar bone in a desperate attempt to feed on something....anything.   He was utterly convinced he was starving to death (something he is still convinced of a month later).   I couldn't get him down far enough to breastfeed because of the surgery going on just south of there, so I had to settle on stroking his head and promising him he would get to eat soon (again, something that still happens on an almost hourly basis lol).

The rest of the surgery was uneventful.  I went to recovery, Will nursed like a champ.  I got up to my room and settled in with the awesome Foley catheter and happy pills.   It wasn't until that night when I was walking around that I felt like the medical tape on my left leg was bothering me.   I ignored it (there are a lot of things that bother you after a surgery...including but not limited to people coming in at 4 am to take your blood pressure and temperature).   The next day my left leg felt like it had blisters on it, the adhesive tape was burning it so bad.  I thought maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the tape, and since I couldn't exactly bend down to check it out myself, I asked my wonderful nurse to check it for me.   She obliged and to her confusion (and mine), there was nothing there.  Just perfectly healthy looking skin.  Huh.  Ok.   Meanwhile the blistering feeling was turning into a full on "why-are-you-holding-a-frying-pan-on-my-leg" and no one could figure it out.  My nurse was so concerned she called anesthesiology immediately for a consult.  They couldn't figure it out either so she scheduled a consult with a surgeon.    That second night I was sleeping (or trying to sleep) when the new nurse came in and (not knowing about the leg thing), she tried to move my left leg for some reason.   I came off the bed.   This is where I felt at a serious disadvantage never having done bradley classes, or hypno birthing or whatever women are doing these days, because I couldn't get on top of the pain and I had no idea what it was or how to deal with it.   Jim didn't expect to have to actually do the whole labor coach thing...except this was super-psychotic-phantom-leg-problem versus actual beautiful childbirth.   My nurse was fluttering around trying to figure out what the heck she'd done while William of course slept through the whole thing.  Figures.  

I ended up staying an extra day which was two days longer than I normally stay considering I usually break out a day early, and when they did discharge me, it was with a walker.  I went in a healthy 30 year old and came out an 80 year old.  It was an odd complication to have...normally you don't injure your leg in a csection.  The neurologist jokingly asked if they'd dropped me off the table or something, but I think I would have remembered that.   I am thankful though that everything seems to be resolving itself.  It was only a few weeks ago I was worried I'd not be able to walk for months, and now my biggest problems are my traitorous Benedict Arnold boobs.

But that aside, my baby is perfect (or rather he smells perfect).   Granted, he's a very awake and alert little dragon baby who gets rather cantankerous when the boob is taken away from him.  He would much prefer to eat without ceasing, unless of course he's sleeping which he likes to do for big 5-7 hour chunks at a time.    I've always been a non-scheduler attachment parenter, but I'm having to enact some sort of schedule otherwise the whole mastitis thing gets out of hand.   William weighs 9lbs even now (he was 6lb 4oz when we left the hospital), so clearly he's not going to go all failure to thrive on me if I make him wait three hours between feedings.

We all love him so much. If anything I have to protect the poor child from the deluge of kisses he gets from his older brothers.

Hopefully he doesn't mind that despite the kisses, he's currently sleeping in the closet like the poor fourth born he is.  :-P

And so it continues...

I'm still battling...everything kinda.  I think I'm making progress though.  My leg only hurts after I've been walking awhile, although it's still numb all the time and tingly/burny when I move wrong.  I saw a lovely neurologist who isn't very well known for his bedside manner.  He may or may not have implied my OBGYN was a wet-behind-the-ears idiot, and assured me I'd be all healed...within a year for sure.  lol  At the rate I'm improving, I hope it's a lot sooner than that. 

The battle of mastitis continues.  I think of it in terms of California wildfires.   Some days I'm at 80% containment and I think I've nearly won the battle, and then the humidity drops and the wind kicks up and suddenly I'm at 20% containment and its raging out of control.  My breasts are starting to feel like a full time job.  I have such a huge medicine regime and everything's on timers, plus hot compresses, herbal compresses,  cold compresses...rotated with massaging, hot showers and nursing on all fours. Bah.   All usually done while feeling like I have the flu.   Sometimes I give up and think I can't do it anymore and I have to switch to formula.  But then I think...I just can't do that.  I can't switch to formula, I would never forgive myself.  And so I press on.   I imagine though my clock is ticking whether I want to quit or not.  I realize I can't just exist for the next year with a permanent staph infection.  I may have to give up breastfeeding in the next few weeks and it would be entirely out of my control (come on antibiotics...you can do it).   Until then however, I'll keep working on containment.  I'm getting pretty good at sleeping in a sitting up position, and waking up every 2 hours to pump or feed.   I lost all my hard won ground over the weekend and spent yesterday curled up feverishly and achy under covers while I threatened to cut of my right boob with a hacksaw it hurt so bad.   But today I'm doing a ton better. 

I'd say I'm at about 75% containment right now.  Although I need a sign to wear in public that says I'm not randomly groping myself, I'm just hyper obsessively checking for plugged ducts. :-P

Wasted

When I was pregnant and going in for my million NST's, the nurses would always comment that Will was in the perfect birthing position.  They would marvel at my awesome child bearing hips and how well he fit in my pelvis. (because that's what every woman want's to hear when she's nine months pregnant) 

...all completely wasted on me of course, since I was having a scheduled c-section.   I wished I could trade it like when you're playing a board game.   "I'll give you my non-breech baby card for that complication-free c-section card you don't need."  

And now I feel the same way about my newborn's sleeping habits.  I of course am not sleeping at all.  I'm lucky if I get a couple of 90 minute chunks, but unlike most newborn households, my sleeplessness has very little to do with my baby.   He's sleeping great.  The last several nights he's slept from 10:30pm or so to 7-8 am.  I on the other hand, have to give my poor zombified child a cold sponge bath at 4am just to wake him up enough to relieve my out-of-control milk/mastitis inferno.    So now I wish I could trade my "sleep for more than five hours at a time" card for a "no mastitis"card.    

Although it's not just the mastitis.  Really I need one of those Star Wars "Bacta Tanks" where I can sleep suspended in a healing liquid.  I can't sleep on my back without my leg killing me.  If I sleep on my left side, I wake up with mastitis on the left, and if I sleep on the right side, I wake up with mastitis on the right.    I've gotten to the point where I dread nights so much, just because I rotate from one obnoxious position to another.  It's a good thing Jamie's babyhood broke me of needing sleep, otherwise I would feel completely insane right now.  As it is, I can feel my body starting to shut down from the exhaustion even though I don't feel sleepy or tired.  

 

But overall I'm doing a lot better.    I can walk pretty easily now.  The blistered burning-at-the-stake sensation has been replaced by a more manageable throbbing and tingling sensation.  Sometimes if I move it wrong, it feels like my leg is made of shattered glass.  But it helps to know it's all in my head.  I constantly tell myself that my leg isn't actually a crystal goblet someone is taking a sledge hammer too.  It's more of a mind over instinct thing...So different than usual pain.  I've been applying all kinds of ice packs and salves to the invisibly wounded area, and I'm relieved at how fast it's healing.  It's given me an eye-opening amount of sympathy for people who suffer from nerve pain on a regular basis.   I pray I never have to experience it for a long term amount of time.  Shudder.  

The mastis is at about 90% containment during the day...although I lose ground at night thanks to my awesome sleeper (knock on wood... because watch, I say that and the moment I can actually sleep will be the moment he stops sleeping).   But overall I feel like I'm doing better than I was a few days ago.  Hopefully, I actually can manage four boys in a few weeks.

Hahahaha...

I did however make it to Will's baptism.  Maybe it's because I'm a bit of a geek, (and this is probably sacrilegious) but the sacraments are so awe-inspiring to me, they're like real life Lord Of The Rings.  True magic that transcends time and history.  Something that's been done for millenniums before this moment in my baby's life, and will continue to be done until the end of time.   It's the kind of thing that sends shivers down your back (and also turns me into a puddle of tears).   

All of you who vowed with us... I expect you to keep your promise.  ;-) 

I could kill a vampire...

... with my breath.   In the last 48 hours I have consumed not one, not two, but almost three bulbs (whole bulbs...not cloves) of raw garlic in a desperate attempt to stave off mastitis.  And this is where I insert a warning about the rest of this post containing delirious post partum confessions probably not suitable for a mixed audience.

I had recurring mastitis with Robbie, so it's a familiar albeit somewhat hellish deja vu.   I really really don't want to take antibiotics for a whole host of reasons that mostly revolve around me not wanting to start a catch-22 like I did last time where the antibiotics wiped out my immune system so much, I just immediately got another infection.   So here I sit with what basically amounts to a painful game of whack-a-mole where I have so many clogged milk ducts, I feel like I get rid of some of them, and more pop up somewhere else.   The list of alternative remedies I've tried include but are not limited to, hot showers, castor oil packs, lecithin, the aforementioned raw garlic (yum...gag),  anti-inflammatories, probiotics, probiotics on my nipples, essential oils on my my breasts, cabbage in my bra, nursing upside down...in a football hold and every other contortion I can think of or make up.   It's been a full time job. 

Today I woke up and decided I needed to have a new bra....as in, do not pass go, do not collect $200, head straight to the nearest mall despite the fact I'm not exactly mobile right now.   I have plenty of perfectly wonderful nursing bras that aren't working for me.   Normally nursing bras are these huge, hideous things that look pre WWII era and come in sizes like 32GGG.  You'd think with them being so stoic and industrial by nature, they would work for me, but no... they seem to exacerbate my problems, and I'd decided they were the root of all evil.  Last time I found the perfect nursing bra at...Fredericks of Hollywood *cough cough* and so that's where I dragged my slept in hair and breast milk stained shirt self this morning.   I was like a coke addict desperate for some relief.  I finally got to the dressing room with the appropriate size and sighed with relief when sure enough...the second I put my miracle bra on, all pain eased.  

I wasn't about to take the bra off after all that just to pay for it, so I went looking for a store associate to ask if I could leave it on.   She said that was fine, I just needed to give her the tag.  No problem, I ripped off my tank and started to get the tag off right then and there when she suggested I might be more comfortable doing that in a dressing room.  Ah..right.  I'm still in that post-modesty-less zone where I'm so sleep deprived and so completely desensitized, I forgot it wasn't appropriate to undress in a store filled with giant pictures of hawt nearly naked women.   I probably wasn't really good for business either.  A haggard shell of a human...newly post partum... walking around dragging her leg like a zombie.   It doesn't exactly inspire someone to buy any of the sexy lingerie (which is all 40% off right now in case anyone is interested).    I kept saying "I'm so sorry, I just had a baby."  as if that would explain it all to the tiny 18 year old trying to steer me to the nearest dressing room.

   As she opened the door for me, she picked something up off the floor and said "is this your shirt".  Um yup, I'd left my shirt in the dressing room in my exuberance.   At least I had gotten the tank back on?   All I could say was,  "I'm so sorry, I just had a baby." 

Lord have mercy.  This child is so precious and worth it, but I'm not sure how much longer I'm going hold out.

Upside-down World

I'll ever forget the look on Jim's face when I asked him quite honestly "I just don't understand how the baby got poop on his diaper...I mean, where did it come from?"  

Between the leg thing and the meds, I'm sure he thought I'd lost my mind.  There was a completely reasonable explanation for why I asked...but I don't remember it at the moment. 

Jim just sort of blinked at me and said really slowly like he was talking to Charlie in the middle of the night after finding him trying to pee in the bathtub, "um babe...the poop came from his butt."

Then we laughed. Which then made me cry because you can't laugh when you've just had a c-section.   Then the crying caused a letdown, which then meant I soaked my shirt with not only my tears, but with breastmilk as well.

And that my friends is what you call being post-partum.  The crazy mixed up world where you're as deliriously happy as you are sleep deprived and crazy. 

I've got this vague awareness that life is going on at breakneck speed around me, and I'm supposed to be participating instead of sitting here counting neck wrinkles and new fat rolls on my baby.  I'm getting a million and one emails from the kids charter school about all kinds of truly important things...testing they're supposed to be at this week... curriculum that needs to be picked up ASAP and meetings I can't miss.   Jamie starts three different kinds of therapy this week for issues I can barely remember exist when I see him cuddling and singing to his baby brother.  Robbie starts speech therapy next week which I've set three reminders for because goodness knows I'm never going to remember it any other way.  I'm also supposed to harass Robbie's medical records out of Kaiser which...ha... Kaiser and I don't have the best relationship at the moment, and right now I'm picturing myself having to break into their medical records office at midnight in a wheelchair. 

CC started yesterday without me, and it was strange (albeit a bit satisfying) to watch Jim make breakfast and pack lunches while Robbie bawled, Charlie freaked out about his shirt collar bothering him, and Jamie flooded the bathroom trying to comb his hair (he looked like a cross between a wet dog and a slicked up salesman before Jim rescued him).  It confirmed my suspicion that mornings just suck.  Particularly mornings where you have to get everyone out the door early.  I don't know how non-homeschoolers do it.  I think most of our problem revolves around the fact that we have one super chipper morning kid, and one complete wreck of a night owl, and the poor middle one ends up at the mercy of both.  Meanwhile I am enjoying my spectator status (and brainstorming) because it will very shortly be my challenge to deal with.

But seriously....neck rolls! 

Cloud Baby

Conversation I'm overhearing right now between Jamie, Charlie and Jim.

 "William's all mine."
"No, he's all mine!"
 "Well he's my brother"
 "He's my brother too!"
 "Well he's my son, so both of you stop it."
"But I want to hold him."
"I asked first!"
"But I'm the oldest." 
Ensuing sounds of smackdown. 
"I'm the dad and neither of you can hold him while you're wrestling."
"What?"
"I said STOP FIGHTING, you just hit William in the stomach" 

~ ~ ~

Oh William.  You have no idea what you've been born into.   I feel like I need to bequeath you a special sword or magic trumpet or something.  I hope you survive. 

I've always enjoyed doing my own newborn photoshoots, but this is the first time I've been physically unable to do it very easily.   I thought it was going to be completely impossible, but my mom and I did it together in a sort of two pronged approach where she was my hands and feet. 

I need to do another one with the boys, but this way if I never get to it, I've at least captured the magical newborn stage that disappears so fast.

 He's a very awake baby...not unhappy like I first thought he'd be, just way too awake for a kid on vicodin.  So this sleepy picture was a hard shot to get.

 This is normal Will. 

 Jim calls this "the cloud picture" but I'm very proud of this blanket.  I saw something similar at Anthropologie for $350, then I saw another one on Pinterest, and like the girl I am...I had to have it.  Except I bought the raw yarn off of Etsy, dyed it and knit it myself.   The dyeing part was the most fun, the knitting part was horrendous.  I daydream too much to knit anything.  I think I took this blanket apart at least five times and started over because I lost track of where I was. ho hum

  

 You have to admit, William looks very much like a little monkey. 

 Pointy butt.

We call this his sleepy puppy face.  It's funny how newborns can look totally different one second to the other.

My mom and Julia are here from Guatemala...which I didn't originally think I would need.  Ha.  It apparently takes two adults and a teenager to take care of three kids, a wounded mother and a very awake infant.   It doesn't help that it's hotter than Mars in San Diego right now.   I cannot wait for Fall weather.  I don't think I've ever spent a more miserable Summer in my life.   Thankfully, some friends had pity and loaned us a small window air conditioner that we installed in our room.   So now there's a little slice of coolness in our tiny apartment.  Our bedroom now doubles as my throne room, school room, slumber party room and the room of requirement.   I'm a bit like Rapunzel though, in that I'm stuck up here in my tower, so if you want to say hi...please feel free to come over!

 

Hello Grandma  

Big Expectations

It's funny... Usually, the more you anticipate something, the more you set yourself up for disappointment.   If you have a particularly above average imagination, then letting it run away with visions of your wildest dreams usually means you suffer a lot of crushingly dramatic disappointments.   I'm sure there are exceptions, maybe some people always get their deepest hearts desires, I don't know.   Mine recently, have revolved around fantasizing about air conditioning this Summer.  I'm pretty sure I can't remember the last time it was legitimately chilly enough to drink the now disparaged Pumpkin Spice Latte, but it certainly wasn't last Winter. 

But there is one huge glaring exception to the whole "don't get your hopes up" rule.  Having a baby.   Jim and I have been wondering for months what William would be like... what color his hair would be...his eyes (which is completely meaningless considering our babies hair and eyes rarely settled on a color very long).   We've spent months taking care of someone we desperately love but hadn't met.   It would seem to me a recipe of disaster... counting on someone being so amazing when people are so often disappointing.  But then we laid eyes on our little Will.   We held his tiny little bones in our arms and thought he was even more amazing than we were hoping for. 

 

And it's a good thing, because while we're all gushing over his soft elbow dimples and fighting over who gets to hold him next, I've got a troupe of evil phantom elves trying to saw off my left leg with a red hot iron poker.   I'm not sure what went wrong during the surgery.   There was apparently a lot of scar tissue and a super thin uterine scar that was about to burst?  But we both came out of recovery fine, and it wasn't until a day or so afterwards that I got up and about fell over from a weird shooting pain in my left leg.   It's gotten worse since then, and nobody can figure it out.  My nurses weren't familiar with "help my leg is burning" complication from a c-section.   The surgeons say it's got to be anesthesiology's fault, and anesthesiology says it's got to be something the surgeons did.   They kept me another day scratching their heads over it before sending me home with vicodin and a walker.  (the PT guy they sent down with the walker looked a little lost to find himself in Labor&Delivery lol).   The c-section part of my recovery looks and feels great.   I'd never guess I'd just had my abdomen sliced open and sewed shut.  What I would guess is that I got shot in the leg and there's a bullet left in there somewhere.  The pain is excruciating...topping any of the other traumatic incidents in my life.  Up until now I would have said the broken foot or the tonsillectomy was the most painful thing I've ever gone through, but they've been knocked off their pedestal by these evil phantom elves and their chainsaws (...or was it red hot pokers?). 

Hopefully it's all just temporary nerve damage caused by all the tissue trauma to that general area.  Because I'm not sure how much longer my family is going to last with me in bed coming unglued every time someone barely touches my left leg. 

Praying next week brings healing and answers...