3.22.17. My due date. The date that I was going to have our baby boy.
3.23.17. No baby. 3.24.17. No baby. 3.25.17. Nope. 3.26. Still no baby.
3.27.17; 11:30 pm. My water breaks.
** disclaimer : I am NOT a blogger. Words aren’t my thing. That’s why I take photos. If you came here just for photos, keep scrolling 🙂 **
Now let me tell you a little something. We took a labor and delivery class a couple months prior to due date and during this casual class, the nurse tells us about what to expect when & if your water broke. “If you sit up and feel a trickle of fluid, your water may have broke… wait a while and see if more leaks, if so, head into the hospital to have them check you out.” & “Ladies, it doesn’t happen like it does in the movies. You’re not going to have some dramatic breaking of tons and tons of water! Most women don’t even experience their water breaking! ” …. Bull. Our son made a dishonest nurse out of her.
11:30 and I’m in bed. It’s my last night at home with just Chris and no baby; as we were scheduled to induce the next night. Chris was in the living room studying for his test he had the next day. Anyways, I’m laying in bed and felt what I would explain as Ezra punching my hip bone, soooo I decided to roll a little to the right. That (very) subtle movement is all it took to break the dam. Y’all. I’m going to be frank here. My first thought was that I’d lost all control of my bodily fluids. WHAT in the good Lords name was happening to me. After a (longest, most drawn out) second of thinking I had peed myself, I called out to Chris that my water had broke. No other statement fits this experience better than “when it rains, it pours.” Fo’ real. I’ll leave it at that.
Chris kicked it into high gear. Putting our bags in the car, quickly taking the sheets off the bed (sorry, I lied about leaving it at that) and throwing them in the wash, double checked that we had what we needed, and got me into the truck (after giving the dog a sentimental goodbye, of course). 12:10 pm. (ish) We get to the hospital and he drops me off by the emergency door. I waddle up to the front desk where they calmly ask “How I can I help you.” And I surprisingly, very calmly respond “Hi! Oh, my water just broke.” to which they look up at me surprised & quickly called a nurse down. She arrived promptly and got me situated in a wheelchair. Up we went.
12:30 am, we’re all hooked up with IV, blood pressure monitor, fetal monitors, etc. My parents showed up ready for a long night. Snacks, iPad, you name it. Poor Chris had just had some coffee while studying, and continued to chug a Red Bull on the way to the hospital anticipating a long long night. I’ll never forget how many times he had to run to the restroom! HA! He’ll blame the liquids, but I’m sticking with him being super nervous. Anyways. That “long anticipated night” was actually the shortest of them all.
Not long after the nurses had done all their checks did they come back in and ask me to rotate to my right side. As I’m doing this, she reaches for an oxygen mask and places it on my face with no explanation… shortly after that she asks me to rotate to my left side. She continues to tell me that baby’s heart rate had dropped and we needed to find a position that he was “happy” in. Left side didn’t work. I tried getting on hands and knees and still no luck. In the meantime, they had called the on call OB. By the time she showed up, Ezra’s heart rate had stabilized. She told me she had shown up prepared to do emergency c-section but that since his heart rate was okay, we could wait it out. However. She continues to tell me that it’s worrisome that baby was acting up this early especially since I was only 1 cm dilated and contractions weren’t very intense. She explained we could still try to induce, but in her opinion, she didn’t think baby would handle the pitocin very well. AND If his heart rate dropped again, there was a chance I’d have to undergo emergency c-section, in which I would have to be completely knocked out. No thank you.
“Ultimately, I see this ending in a section.”
Why prolong the inevitable, while putting baby at risk, and reaalllyyyy testing my anxiety?? I had no birth plan. * My only ‘birth plan’ was to get an epidural. To the women who do this naturally, props to you, you’re a true badass! Personally, as long as my baby came out safe and healthy, I didn’t care how it happened. So, we decided to go ahead with the section. Within 25 minutes I was being wheeled into another (super bright and frigidly cold) room where they gave me a spinal. I couldn’t tell you how long the section lasted. I can tell you, I didn’t feel a darn thing. I had an extreme case of chattering teeth & hand shaking though. The spinal numbness came up higher than I was prepared for, which made my chest feel heavy. Cue the anxiety. However, Dr. Harper ensured me that as long as I was talking, I was still breathing! Cue the talking. After having to use a suction to reach Ezra due to him still being high up, they finally got him out at 3:06 am! All I remember is being told he had a ton of hair, and someone saying “ohhh, he’s not little!!” Hahaha!
9.10z & 20 inches.
** woooo! brief interlude for photos**
//Fast forward to our hospital room & life after//
• Getting out of bed for the first time may have been one of the hardest parts of my hospital stay.
• I lie. The extreme itchiness that comes with the spinal wearing off was definitely the hardest part of recovery. The nurses kept telling me that the effect it had is somewhat related to when drug addicts are coming off of meth & just keep scratching themselves… don’t do drugs y’all.
• Never. Never ever. EVER. Look in the toilet after your first trip to the bathroom post baby. #TMI? Sorry. Believe me, I’m saving you a panic attack.
• You’ll never go an hour without someone walking into your hospital room. Your frustration will grow with each knock. It’ll grow by doubles when the knocks are in the wee hours of the night right when your baby finally falls asleep after what seems like hours of screaming. But, the (loud) knocks will keep coming. Like it or not.
• There’s no nursery at Lafayette General, but I’m not ashamed to say when the nurse said she could take him for a couple hours so we could sleep, I replied “yes mam”
• Thank God for my mom. Seriously. She was quite an angel during the whole process. From helping me with my first shower, to staying the night so that Chris could study & sleep for his test the next day, to waking up every time Ezra cried that night – which literally felt like ALL night. I’m pretty sure she didn’t sleep more than an hour. She’s continued to be my chauffeur since I’m not allowed to drive. Checking in on us everyday, and coming to my rescue when my hormones went a-wall. I can’t say enough about our families. Chris’ parents got there Wednesday & stayed with us until Sunday. They helped keep things clean and kept us fed, even though they may have been kept up at night by a (super cute) crying baby. I’m so thankful they were here the first few days to help out & spend time with their new grandson!
• BREASTFEEDING. I could make an entirely different post on this. But I’ve already written so much I might as well throw this in here too. Y’all. Breastfeeding is hard. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. My carpal tunnel was(is) so bad, I could barely support Ezra enough to nurse him in the hospital. The lactation nurses had to help. We had to stack pillows so that my hands weren’t holding all the weight. When we got home, it felt like Ezra was always crying. Poor guy didn’t latch very well and it didn’t help that I physically couldn’t support him as well as he needed me to. We went home on a Thursday. That following Sunday, he cried all day. All day. Chris was at work, his parents had left that morning, and my parents were visiting my grandparents. My mom had dropped off a breast pump before heading out so that we could see approximately how much Ezra was actually getting. It wasn’t nearly enough. Cue the hormones. The guilt. I couldn’t stop thinking that I’d been starving my baby without even knowing it. My body wasn’t doing what it was made to do. Why? What had I done wrong?? After realizing I was having a hard (understatement) day, my parents left & came back to Lafayette. My mom eventually suggested we try giving him an ounce of formula. After that bottle, we had a different baby. He was satisfied. He slept. Peacefully. Cue the hormones double time. For the next few days, I tried getting in to see a lactation nurse, but they never called me back. Our feeding routing went like this; nurse for 20 minutes, pump for 20 minutes, feed him whatever I got from pumping with a syringe, and then give him an ounce of formula. I bought the supplements that would “increase my milk”. I tried everything I could. I cried. A lot. I apologized to my baby. A lot. I felt guilty. Breastfeeding is supposed to be such a special bond between mom and baby. Women should be able to do this, right? We should be able to produce for our children, right? Social media tells is that “breast is best”, and leads is to believe we’re not “momming” right unless we do so. After 4 days, I had to make a decision. Keep hoping my body will magically produce more milk, or switch to formula. Ultimately, I wanted Ezra to be healthy and happy. So we decided to go with formula. I cannot tell you how hard this was. Giving up nursing hurt, emotionally. I doubted my decision for the next few days, asking myself if it was too late to try again. If I let myself think about it for too long, my eyes started tearing up. But since switching to formula, Ezra gained 10oz in one week. Our pediatrician laughed & said he may need to go on a diet soon (sarcasm), and that he was doing excellent! Imagine that. A formula fed baby, doing absolutely awesome. Take that, social media.
• I barely remember all the pregnancy pains. Everything except for carpal tunnel that is. I can barely snap his pajamas my hands are so weak. Pins, needles, and numbness 24/7 in both hands. I can’t feel temperature in my fingertips. I can’t fully enjoy how soft my babies skin is because I barely have feeling. It takes me twice as long to change a diaper, fix a bottle, and get him dressed. Today, I had my first go at dry needling and have 4 more appointments in the next 2 weeks. I’m physically & emotionally desperate to have my hands back. If there’s one thing new moms need, it’s the function of their hands. Not to mention I kinda need my hands to be able to hold a camera, ya know? So. Hopefully we can get this under control sooner than later. Send some positive vibes & prayers if ya can!
• Our sweet boy is 2 weeks old. He’s the cutest thing ever and has the worlds saddest cry. He lost his umbilical cord two nights ago and I made Tobes fish it out the trash for me. It’s truly pretty gross, but it’s one thing that connected us for a long time in the womb. So it’s kinda (grossly) special to me. Cue the hormones. I’ll probably put it back in the trash, no worries guys.
• I mainly wrote all this for myself so I can remember it years down the road. I’m no writer or blogger, so if you made it through all this, I’m impressed! The hospital stay was such a blur and everything happened so fast, so I’m glad to have gotten this out to remember for later!
