Birthing Story....I mean...NOVEL

I finally got it all together and am able to post this. I am writing this to the best of my abilities and have had to gather most of the information from my mom, Greg,and friends that were there throughout the night. I really dont like to talk about this event in person, so the blog creates a perfect opportunity to let the words flow, uninhibited, and quickly so that I dont have to rehash it too much! I want to start off by saying, although this was a very stressful event, it has brought Greg and I closer than I could ever have imagined. My relationship with him as forever changed. It has also given me a deeper respect for friends and family that stuck by us not only in person but through emails, phone calls, meals, etc. By respect, I mean, I respect the fact that you all stayed there until the late night hours, even though I dont remember half of your kind words or thoughtful visits until weeks later. By respect, I also mean that many of you have just been so patient with us and our lack of communication due to lack of sleep, illness, and organization in general! My Thank You cards are behind, laundry is stacked up, and really, all together, I am just behind. But many of you have offered to help and have helped in so many ways that I will never be able to repay you. We have had meals provided since the day we came home, laundry has been taken care of (thank you girls!), Poppy has been burped and shared with many arms so Mommy can get some rest, and my dishes are clean :) Thank you Thank you Thank you! Now on to the birth story: I joked with everyone that I would go into labor at WalMart or work, the two places I am most often, well....my water broke at work at 5:50 on July 29th. July 29th: 5:50 water broke while I was on the phone with Greg discussing dinner plans. We of course, decided to meet at the hospital. I drove myself to the hospital and arrived at 6pm. Dont gasp, the hospital was literally down the street :) 6:30 pm---we were admitted to a room. At some time between now and 10pm, they started Petosin to get me to start dilating faster since my water had broken. I was having contractions....medium sized ones, but wasnt really feeling much more than what I would say is a menstrual cramp. 10 pm ---Epidural was started. This was not pleasant for me. I hear they are not supposed to be painful. However, mine was very painful (and I have an extremely high pain tolerance). I tasted metal in my mouth, felt shocks go down my left leg, and pain like a large horse had kicked me in the back when the epidural was being administered. Midnight---Epidural wore off. I started to feel emense pain at this time and was told it was just pressure from he baby 'moving down'. They kept checking to see how far I was dilated and such. They were shocked I could feel each exam as they checked me, as well as feel the catheter that had to be put in. I described the pain as a nail gun going off constantly in my uterus.... and large bombs in my kidneys....nice huh? The anesthesiologist rest assured me it was just pressure, but I told Greg and my mom it was not pressure.....I KNEW something wasnt right and I was feeling contractions. At this point a new anesthesiologist was on shift, as well as my doctor and it was decided that I needed to try some 'cocktails' for my pain since the epidural wasnt working. To make a long story short, they could not get my pain under control. Nothing would even nip it for more than about 15 minutes. During this time, mom and Greg were by my side to help me through the pain. I contracted, and felt it :) for 10 or so hours. It then became time to push about lunch time the next day. This takes us to the afternoon of July 30th. I was exhausted by the time I had to push. They tried all kinds of methods and positions, but nothing worked. I pushed for almost three hours before it was determined that Poppy was not engaged nor moving down with each push and was turned sunny side up. He was also bigger than expected, especially for being almost 2 weeks early. My doctor, Greg, and mom concluded an emergency C-Section was best. I was passed out from the pain at this point. They were waking me everytime I had a contraction to push. Apparantly all I wanted to talk about was work. heheheheh I would push, then discuss files and reports.....now that cracks me up! Greg said I also kept saying "why dont they believe me that is ISNT PRESSURE, it is CONTRACTIONS". Greg also reminded me the one time I was allowed to cuss would be when I was in full blown labor. He said I would say things like "Oh my! That smarts!---Oh Heavens to Betsy, that hurts----and Oh my, whoooooo weeeee". Anyway, they took me to C-Section where we decided to do a spinal block instead of redoing an epidural. I dont remember a lot of this due to the pain meds they had me on for the 10-12 hours previous to this event. I lost a lot of blood during the c-section and am anemic right now due to this. Thank goodness for iron pills! Greg had to see more than he had expected and this was hard for him. He was seperated from me at one point as well, which is protocol, but not expected from him. We were seperated right as I passed out so he wasnt sure of the events after that. All he knew was we had this new baby and his wife had just passed out while laying on a surgical table. All the while he could hear them quietly discussing the amount of blood I had lost and the fact that my blood pressure was 220 over something.....then whisked Greg and the baby away. He was able to join me again in recovery. They couldnt get my blood pressure under control and no one would tell me what it was. I heard 180 over something and lots of alarms going off, but for some reason thought they were talking about someone else...UNTIL they took my phone from me and told me NO VISITORS. Whatever. :) How I had my phone, I have no idea, but they did take it away and visitors were allowed as they set alarms on my to monitor my blood pressure.....which I kept setting off. Oh well. They would come in, push somethign through my veins, watch me for a second, re take my blood pressure, and then give me talk about keeping the baby in the nursery over night so I could rest. This takes us to the next day....cause that is all I can remember. I know we had lots of visitors and I fell asleep on many of you and held very unintellible conversations as well :) Thank you to all of you that came to visit....I hope you got to see Poppy in all of his preciousness :) I look back at the pictures and see that I was swollen to the size of a tank due to all of the fluids pushed through me. Man, so much for pretty birthing pictures. I also see how big Poppy was! I remember, in recover, I was in and out of it, but they brought me his footprints and they were huge! I thought for sure they had handed Greg the wrong baby and footprinted the wrong baby! But nope, Poppy was just bigger than expected and man is he an eater. This will be a great segway into the next part of the story. This is when we go home. My C-Section recovery was not blissful at all. Due to the 22 hours of labor and hard pushing, I had strained myself beyond the point of exhaustion. I didnt eat for almost 2 days and it was wearing on me. I ate both of our meals in the hospital once they brought them to me. I had energy to eat and basically try to feed the baby. I was not producing milk and it didnt come in until the day after we came home from the hospital which was day 5. Poppy is a great breast feeder. We never had any trouble latching on, suckling, etc. But I was not producing what he needed. Therefore he cried ALL the time and appeared colicky. They gave him supplemental feedings in the hospital and we continued these at home. However over the past few weeks we have had to changed formulas three times and ended up on a soy based formula as the milk based formulas are hurting his tummy. This has cost us many nights of wondering if he is colicky and waking every hour on the hour to feed. I finally became exhausted and worn down and became sick. I ran 101 fever on my birthday (aug 10) and went to the ER. The checked me for many things (mastitis, bladder infection, internal infection,etc) and decided it was just a bug. This was the first day I was able to really hold Poppy and take care of him at night because my muscles were so week in my abdomen. This was the road to recovery....so I thought. Then, I realized my milk was still not enough for him...and we were still dealing with formula issues....so, I called my doctor. He put me on Reglan which is a stomach drug that has a side affect of increasing your milk production. I took it for three days. Each day I took it I became more and more batty and numb. By the third morning I was totally numb in my arms and not able to lift the baby for fear I would drop him. I was also twitching and literally felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I called the doctor again and they told me to take 50 mg of Benedryl all day. I did this and after about 30 hours I felt my arms again. Throughout all of this, I have not been able to take care of my child the way I wanted to. I was not able to create that initial bond due to having to turn him over to others so many times becuase I couldnt nurse him due to weakness, side effects of meds, and just general exhaustion from him feeding every 45 min to an hour off of me. I was getting no sleep at night and pulling the day shift as well as Greg was unable to take any time off. I struggled emotionally and physically and am just now able to deal with that part of it. This little man needed me and I was not able to prove to him I could be there for him through thick and thin. This brings me into rebound mode. By rebound mode I mean 'lets make up for lost time and pull myself together". I got the book 'babywise' out so as to start our routine of making baby sleep through the night sooner. Well, this involves making him cry it out.............and I do mean cry it out. However you have to be able to stick to it and have the help of those others that want to keep him for you do the same. Because Greg and I didnt have it down, it just wasnt working. Greg was more able to let him cry it out than I was. I did it for two days. Holed up in my house during the day I would do it, then at night Greg would do it as my body ached and I trembled inside. I cant explain how it feels and what your body does when your child cries uncontrollably while you activley ignore it. It didnt seem natural to me and drove me batty.....lilterally....like my hair was aching, and I wanted to vomit. And vomit I did...... At this point, I decided that I didnt waste time and money on my degree and I was going to use it! I knew that crying never hurt anyone, but I also knew that a three week old doesnt understand crying it out. This was my chance to bond with my child and create an 'understanding' of how we would make a schedule together. I spent the next two days incorporating the book 'babywise' and my degree together to create what is working for us as a family. I will not go into details, because every child is so different, and what works for mine will not work for every child, but it is working for us! He isnt crying it out, and he also isnt being held constantly or soothed for hours to go to sleep. I can give details if you want them...just email me. But literally it has worked like a charm. He wont take to Greg at this time, but that is to be expected since I am with him 24/7 and Greg has had to spend so much time away. We have agreed as a couple that we need time together to create our routine. As much as we would have loved to go out to eat for my birthday, or our upcoming anniversary, or just run errands uninterrupted.....it really is best that we create structure for the baby...and a bond....and let him know what is expected from us and then he lets us know what he needs. We know his cries, we know his sounds, we know his needs now. It feels so good. This brings me full circle to the quote that has been on the blog since I found out I was pregnant: IT WAS THE TINIEST THING I EVER PUT MY WHOLE LIFE INTO I love you Poppy. And Greg, you are an amazing Daddy to support us through all of this chaos. Your strength and patience amaze me. We couldnt be who we are without you Daddy.