I knew from the very beginning that I would do everything in my power to breastfeed. Like everything I do, I assume that it’s going to be super easy and then get frustrated when it’s not. It’s just my nature. Many of my friends are currently expecting and I know that majority of them wish to breastfeed their little boys and girls. I want to share some of the things that I’ve experienced in the past 12 or so days, good and bad. I want my friends to say that they WILL breastfeed, not that they will try. I think that’s one thing that helped me stay strong during late night, four hour nursing sessions; when Steve was sound asleep and all I wanted was to be asleep too.
Chase latched reasonably well from the very beginning. I attribute this to immediate bonding after he was born. I may have had a crappy experience with tons of intervention, but I did get my bonding time. Chase was placed on me and didn’t leave my side until we had ample time to stare at each other for a while and let him figure out that I was his Boob. (That’s our nickname for me now. I’m “The Boob” and Steve is “The Financer.” LOL!) He didn’t latch immediately, but he did nuzzle around and get a feel for me. When he did latch, it didn’t last long (which made me nervous). A couple hours after his birth, he finally did latch and things looked good.
Another thing that I made sure of during our hospital stay was prohibiting the use of artificial nipples. No pacifiers, no bottles, nothing but the Boob. Since we’ve been home, Chase had a paci for a few hours on and off and in my heart, I knew that it wasn’t something that I wanted to be doing. Strangely, the day he had the paci was the day that he had the most trouble latching. I’m not sure if that was nipple confusion or if it was just a fluke. I do know that he won’t be getting any more artificial nipples for quite a while. It’s recommended that babies only have the breast for the first three to four weeks anyway.
Chase went through his first growth spurt at around seven days old. Let me just tell you, mama was thinking about formula. This kid was attached to me for HOURS on end. I’m not exaggerating. HOURS. When he would fall asleep, he would only sleep 30 or so minutes and wake up for more. This lasted for two days. I was in tears. My boobs hurt, my head hurt, and I was exhausted. I stuck through it though. I knew how upset I would have been with myself if I allowed myself to fall off the wagon so quickly. We got through it and we should be gearing up for growth spurt number two soon. Gotta mentally prepare since I know what’s up this time.
Night time nursing was rough to begin with. I knew that he wasn’t going to be sleeping through the night (or any long stretch), but I once again thought all would be rainbows and puppy dogs. My mom keeps yelling at me to put him on a schedule, but I am whole-heartedly against even trying to do that. He’s a newborn. He’ll eat and sleep when he wants. I’m not on an eating schedule, so why should I expect a newborn to be. Anyway, Chase wakes up randomly throughout the night to nurse for hunger and/or for comfort. That’s another thing - be prepared to nurse for comfort, not just for food. There have been nights when I’m nursing and I try to put Chase back down after he’s done and he isn’t having it. It’s hard to look over at Steve and see him knocked out and look down at my beautiful baby who is knocked out too and not knock myself out...but slamming my head through the wall behind me. J/K! Kind of. :-)
My milk was slow coming. I know a lot of mamas who give up on breastfeeding because of their milk supply or their milk taking it’s precious time to make an appearance. Mine finally showed up around day six and I was over joyed. I knew that colostrum was all that Chase needed in the beginning days and our pediatrician was/is awesome and didn’t say a word about his 7% weight loss - which is totally normal up to 10%. She said that she knew my milk would be showing up any time and that he had three weeks to regain his birth weight until we started worrying. Awesome!
Chase is also tongue-tied. He spits milk everywhere and while he is able to latch, it’s not a perfect one. It hurts a little and he fights my boob. Like literally is in a battle with it. It’s the strangest thing ever. We have an appointment to get this taken care of next week and that should help tremendously.
Ok, so now that I’ve made it seem like a nightmare, let me just tell you IT’S NOT! It’s the most precious, amazing, awesome, insanely over powering with love thing that you could ever do. Well, next to actually giving birth, I suppose. When I look down at my little boy’s face so peaceful, it makes my heart smile. When he’s staring up at me, (or at least we’ll pretend he’s staring up at me) I seriously tear up. I don’t think I would get the same satisfaction from looking down at him while feeding him from a bottle. Nursing is something that Chase and I can only share and it gives me the opportunity to bond and talk to him about random things. Night time nursing sessions have gotten much better since I now use our co-sleepr crib as an expensive blanket/diaper/wipe holder. Haha! Chase sleeps cuddled up to me and for the most part latches on before he even wakes up. Just know, that 99% of the time, you can nurse your baby. I understand some circumstances may not allow this, but I hope that you’ll at least give it a legitimate try.
And for the record, I’m not opposed to pacifiers and bottles forever. Just for the first month or so of life. I want Steve to be able to feed Chase when I want to sleep in on a Saturday or go out without him for a little while. I don’t mind pacifiers when used correctly and not as a tool to prolong not having to nurse.
So, that’s that. This turned out to be much longer than I wanted, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Keep it real!
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Birth Story -No use in crying over spilt milk
For the people that have been following my journey toward labor and the birth of Chase, you know that I wanted an all-natural, med-free, home birth. With all of my careful planning and preparing, I couldn’t have planned nor prepared for the crazy things that were ahead of me.
Late on April 9th (around 11pm), I woke up having contractions, but I wasn’t sure if they were fake outs or real. I decided to stay up for a bit to see what would happen and around midnight, I woke Steve up. A few hours later, I had a little bloody show and my contractions got more intense. I didn’t want to call Suzy and Angie over too early, but at 4am (April 10th) I thought it was time to call. They came over and from there, things got a little more intense. From 5 (ish) a.m. until noon, the contractions picked up even more and I really felt like I was making progress and was excited about the light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t have been more wrong!
At this point, Suzy checked me to see how much progress I had made and to everyone’s bafflement, I had made ZERO progress in the way of dilation. Suzy started feeling around and ask had I ever had surgery, to which I responded yes. I had completely forgotten about two procedures I had done in 2003 and apparently; they had caused a significant amount of scar tissue. Suzy said that with every contraction, instead of it dilating me, it was like tugging on a piece of fabric that was never going to give – or in my case dilate. So, from 11pm on April 9th until noon the next day, I had made no progress. I’m not sure if anyone can fathom how frustrating that was to hear. Not to mention, the extreme pain that came along with my cervix/uterus not being able to do its’ job, yet continuing to attempt to do it.
Suzy gave me two options: continue to try to labor at home and she would keep trying to get to my cervix to strip the tissue or go to the hospital and have them do it and proceed from there. By this time, I had already been working my butt off for almost 15 hours and I was getting exhausted. I knew that there was no guarantee that Suzy would be able to get to the scar tissue and Steve and I decided that it was time to go to the hospital.
We got to the hospital, got me admitted, and within about an hour I was hooked up to every machine known to man. I knew that this was going to be the way of the world in the hospital environment, but geez. I had crap everywhere! I had an epidural, which meant I was required to have a catheter. The epidural slowed me down, which meant I needed pitocin. Once the epi wore off a bit, the contractions from the pit were horrible and I needed another epi. I was also required to wear two monitors around my belly – one to monitor my contractions and the infamous fetal heart rate monitor.
So, after I got the epi, a doctor came in and was able to get to my cervix and clean the scar tissue up. I started making slow progress from there (hence the pitocin) and all seemed to be going rather well.
From here, my timeline gets a little hazy. I mean, I was lying there for SEVERAL hours, so I don’t even know what the f was going on half the time. I’ll just give some brief descriptions of my experiences.
1. At some point a nurse came in to check on my IV, etc. She wasn’t our nurse – ours was in delivering a baby – and she was pretty stupid. I hate to call people names (no, I don’t), but she wasn’t nice and I wasn’t in the mood. She started changing the IV and pit and didn’t even bother to follow the lines to see that they were crossed. Steve was trying to tell her that the lines were crossed so that the IV bag looked like it was over the pit computer and vice versa. She didn’t want to listen and when she turned the pit computer on some ridiculously high number instead of 3, Steve flipped out. She got extremely irritated that Steve was “telling her what to do when he was not a nurse, nor did he know what he was talking about” and turned everything off. Like literally everything. My IV, pit, epi, whatever the hell else I was hooked up to. I sat like that for over an hour, with an empty IV line. When our nurse finally came back, she was pissed and I had to get my line flushed, because you can’t just leave an IV line not running. Not to mention, that whore turned my pit off right when my contractions were starting to be reasonably productive and once she turned it off they came to a screeching halt. Set back #1.
2. Oh man, do I hate catheters. Since I had an epi, I had a wonderful catheter in. The first 12 or so hours, it didn’t bother me at all. I couldn’t feel a thing. Once the first epi started to wear off, I started being able to feel the catheter and I knew that I was getting a UTI (not to mention the “mysterious” fever I developed…ummm…ya think it could have been from the UTI and the epi? Weird. The fever required me to get antibiotics) I begged them to take it out, but they were refusing since I couldn’t take myself to the bathroom or feel when I had to go to the bathroom. However, I proved that I could still feel my legs and have control over my bodily functions; I just couldn’t feel the contractions. I guess I got lucky in that way, because I could still move my legs even with the epi in. They still required me to keep the epi in, so I had them turn it off. A few hours of no catheter was all I wanted and during that time, I had to use a darned bedpan. Annoying. Eventually, they turned the epi back on and I had to get another catheter, which was pulled out a few hours later when I finally started pushing.
3. The night nurse that I had was awesome. At one point, I started losing it and begging her for a c-section. Like literally yelling, “HALEY! Give me a c-section! I mean it, Haley. Give me that damned section. I don’t even care anymore, I just want this to be over!” She was awesome and kept telling me that she knew that’s not what I really wanted – all the while Steve is standing behind me, motioning NO C-SECTION. Haley actually kept talking the doctor out of giving me a section. Her and Steve are the only reasons that I didn’t end up cut up.
4. When I eventually starting pushing, things seemed to be going well. I pushed like a mad woman and his head eventually started to be seen. Steve was there…how should I say…in the thick of it. I’m glad he’s seen far worse things than what was going on in my lady business. During my pushing, my nurse and Suzy suggested I turn over and lean over the back of the bed to try a different position of pushing. Right when I got into position to push, another doctor came in. He walks in and simply states, “I’m a doctor. I need you to turn around so that I can check you.” Steve was very confused about this and I didn’t want to turn around, not to mention we had no clue who this clown was. Apparently, he was the head of OB and wanted to check to see if Chase was sunny side up. What does it matter?! Anyway, I roll back over onto my back (yet another reason I didn’t want to be in a hospital, being on your back the entire time is not conducive to labor/birth) and he checks me. In the process of this unnecessary check, he pushes Chase back up and I had to push for another 45 minutes to get back to where I was before he came in. Set back #2.
I pushed for the additional 45 minutes and one of the nurse’s started mentioning C-Section. My contractions were starting to get lazy and I was exhausted. I had been pushing for over three hours at this point and I was just done. I wanted all of the high-tech machinery off me, I wanted everyone to be out of my vagina, I wanted Chase out, and I wanted to just be left alone. They gave me the option of section or vacuum. I was heartbroken, but opted for the vacuum – the lesser of the evils, I suppose. The same a-hole doctor that found it necessary to check me had to be paged back in to do the vacuum and he was the biggest jerk EVER. He didn’t say a word to me, didn’t explain what was going on, just shoved it up there. As he was pulling Chase out, (while I was pushing, at least) I saw him pick up the knife and say, “I’m just going to give you a small episiotomy.” I yelled that he was to absolutely not cut me and he got pissed that I wouldn’t let him do it, but put the knife down. I did have a 2nd degree tear that had to be stitched up, but I would rather tear than be cut any day. It makes more sense to me and afterward the nurse said that if I had let him cut me then I would have had a 3rd or 4th degree tear.
I also asked for delayed cord clamping and the doctor did not abide by my wishes. As soon as Chase was out, he clamped the cord. Steve did cut the cord and they placed Chase on my belly. The ped nurse did all of the checks with Chase on my belly and they left us alone. The ped nurse was really awesome and didn’t give us a hard time about any of our decisions. We did not allow them to give Chase a bath, opted out of HepB, VitK, and eye goop. We said that either Steve or I would be with Chase at all times and he was able to room in with us for the duration of our stay.
At one point in the night, they came in to check on him, I was so groggy, and out of it, I didn’t even realize I was giving them permission to take him out for a check and Steve was asleep. They only kept him out of the room for about 30 minutes, but I’m positive that in those 30 minutes they gave him formula. He came back and spit up a lot and I hadn’t really feed him much yet. Not to mention, since we’ve been home, he has not spit up as he did at the hospital. He’s only dribbled a little bit, but I think that’s because my milk came out too fast and he couldn’t keep up with it. That’s slightly irritating if they did that.
So! That’s my story. It was very traumatic for me and nothing went the way that I wanted it to. I had nearly every intervention known to man and it breaks my heart to even think about it. I keep telling myself that I got a beautiful baby boy out of it and I didn’t end up with a C-Section. Two very important things. I’m sure some people are thinking that they told me so or that they knew I wouldn’t be able to do it at home. I, however, know that I did things that right way and used hospital intervention appropriately. My cervix wasn’t dilating and I had to make a choice of what would be best for Chase and me. Given the opportunity, I would absolutely go for another natural birth (probably at a birthing center next time) and opt out of as much intervention as possible. I saw first hand how intervention begets intervention and it’s an awful, viscous cycle of crap. There are so many unnecessary things and I know that my body is capable of doing what it was made to do – birth a baby. The doctors (not the a-hole) all said that I would never have this much trouble again and that next time would be much easier. The scar tissue is completely gone now and I will totally rock my next birth.
Chase is doing awesome and has been nursing like a fiend. I think he’s going through a growth spurt right now, because he was literally been nursing all day. It’s taken me so long to type this out, because he only gives me five or six minutes at a time to type. We’re co-sleeping and loving it. I sleep so much better/more with him cuddled up next to me. At first, we were trying to put him in his co-sleeper crib, swing, anything to get him to sleep. I gave up and just started sleeping cuddled up with him. It works so much better for us and has been going really well.
I think that’s about it. I’m sure I missed some details, but this is long enough.
One week old.
Late on April 9th (around 11pm), I woke up having contractions, but I wasn’t sure if they were fake outs or real. I decided to stay up for a bit to see what would happen and around midnight, I woke Steve up. A few hours later, I had a little bloody show and my contractions got more intense. I didn’t want to call Suzy and Angie over too early, but at 4am (April 10th) I thought it was time to call. They came over and from there, things got a little more intense. From 5 (ish) a.m. until noon, the contractions picked up even more and I really felt like I was making progress and was excited about the light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t have been more wrong!
At this point, Suzy checked me to see how much progress I had made and to everyone’s bafflement, I had made ZERO progress in the way of dilation. Suzy started feeling around and ask had I ever had surgery, to which I responded yes. I had completely forgotten about two procedures I had done in 2003 and apparently; they had caused a significant amount of scar tissue. Suzy said that with every contraction, instead of it dilating me, it was like tugging on a piece of fabric that was never going to give – or in my case dilate. So, from 11pm on April 9th until noon the next day, I had made no progress. I’m not sure if anyone can fathom how frustrating that was to hear. Not to mention, the extreme pain that came along with my cervix/uterus not being able to do its’ job, yet continuing to attempt to do it.
Suzy gave me two options: continue to try to labor at home and she would keep trying to get to my cervix to strip the tissue or go to the hospital and have them do it and proceed from there. By this time, I had already been working my butt off for almost 15 hours and I was getting exhausted. I knew that there was no guarantee that Suzy would be able to get to the scar tissue and Steve and I decided that it was time to go to the hospital.
We got to the hospital, got me admitted, and within about an hour I was hooked up to every machine known to man. I knew that this was going to be the way of the world in the hospital environment, but geez. I had crap everywhere! I had an epidural, which meant I was required to have a catheter. The epidural slowed me down, which meant I needed pitocin. Once the epi wore off a bit, the contractions from the pit were horrible and I needed another epi. I was also required to wear two monitors around my belly – one to monitor my contractions and the infamous fetal heart rate monitor.
So, after I got the epi, a doctor came in and was able to get to my cervix and clean the scar tissue up. I started making slow progress from there (hence the pitocin) and all seemed to be going rather well.
From here, my timeline gets a little hazy. I mean, I was lying there for SEVERAL hours, so I don’t even know what the f was going on half the time. I’ll just give some brief descriptions of my experiences.
1. At some point a nurse came in to check on my IV, etc. She wasn’t our nurse – ours was in delivering a baby – and she was pretty stupid. I hate to call people names (no, I don’t), but she wasn’t nice and I wasn’t in the mood. She started changing the IV and pit and didn’t even bother to follow the lines to see that they were crossed. Steve was trying to tell her that the lines were crossed so that the IV bag looked like it was over the pit computer and vice versa. She didn’t want to listen and when she turned the pit computer on some ridiculously high number instead of 3, Steve flipped out. She got extremely irritated that Steve was “telling her what to do when he was not a nurse, nor did he know what he was talking about” and turned everything off. Like literally everything. My IV, pit, epi, whatever the hell else I was hooked up to. I sat like that for over an hour, with an empty IV line. When our nurse finally came back, she was pissed and I had to get my line flushed, because you can’t just leave an IV line not running. Not to mention, that whore turned my pit off right when my contractions were starting to be reasonably productive and once she turned it off they came to a screeching halt. Set back #1.
2. Oh man, do I hate catheters. Since I had an epi, I had a wonderful catheter in. The first 12 or so hours, it didn’t bother me at all. I couldn’t feel a thing. Once the first epi started to wear off, I started being able to feel the catheter and I knew that I was getting a UTI (not to mention the “mysterious” fever I developed…ummm…ya think it could have been from the UTI and the epi? Weird. The fever required me to get antibiotics) I begged them to take it out, but they were refusing since I couldn’t take myself to the bathroom or feel when I had to go to the bathroom. However, I proved that I could still feel my legs and have control over my bodily functions; I just couldn’t feel the contractions. I guess I got lucky in that way, because I could still move my legs even with the epi in. They still required me to keep the epi in, so I had them turn it off. A few hours of no catheter was all I wanted and during that time, I had to use a darned bedpan. Annoying. Eventually, they turned the epi back on and I had to get another catheter, which was pulled out a few hours later when I finally started pushing.
3. The night nurse that I had was awesome. At one point, I started losing it and begging her for a c-section. Like literally yelling, “HALEY! Give me a c-section! I mean it, Haley. Give me that damned section. I don’t even care anymore, I just want this to be over!” She was awesome and kept telling me that she knew that’s not what I really wanted – all the while Steve is standing behind me, motioning NO C-SECTION. Haley actually kept talking the doctor out of giving me a section. Her and Steve are the only reasons that I didn’t end up cut up.
4. When I eventually starting pushing, things seemed to be going well. I pushed like a mad woman and his head eventually started to be seen. Steve was there…how should I say…in the thick of it. I’m glad he’s seen far worse things than what was going on in my lady business. During my pushing, my nurse and Suzy suggested I turn over and lean over the back of the bed to try a different position of pushing. Right when I got into position to push, another doctor came in. He walks in and simply states, “I’m a doctor. I need you to turn around so that I can check you.” Steve was very confused about this and I didn’t want to turn around, not to mention we had no clue who this clown was. Apparently, he was the head of OB and wanted to check to see if Chase was sunny side up. What does it matter?! Anyway, I roll back over onto my back (yet another reason I didn’t want to be in a hospital, being on your back the entire time is not conducive to labor/birth) and he checks me. In the process of this unnecessary check, he pushes Chase back up and I had to push for another 45 minutes to get back to where I was before he came in. Set back #2.
I pushed for the additional 45 minutes and one of the nurse’s started mentioning C-Section. My contractions were starting to get lazy and I was exhausted. I had been pushing for over three hours at this point and I was just done. I wanted all of the high-tech machinery off me, I wanted everyone to be out of my vagina, I wanted Chase out, and I wanted to just be left alone. They gave me the option of section or vacuum. I was heartbroken, but opted for the vacuum – the lesser of the evils, I suppose. The same a-hole doctor that found it necessary to check me had to be paged back in to do the vacuum and he was the biggest jerk EVER. He didn’t say a word to me, didn’t explain what was going on, just shoved it up there. As he was pulling Chase out, (while I was pushing, at least) I saw him pick up the knife and say, “I’m just going to give you a small episiotomy.” I yelled that he was to absolutely not cut me and he got pissed that I wouldn’t let him do it, but put the knife down. I did have a 2nd degree tear that had to be stitched up, but I would rather tear than be cut any day. It makes more sense to me and afterward the nurse said that if I had let him cut me then I would have had a 3rd or 4th degree tear.
I also asked for delayed cord clamping and the doctor did not abide by my wishes. As soon as Chase was out, he clamped the cord. Steve did cut the cord and they placed Chase on my belly. The ped nurse did all of the checks with Chase on my belly and they left us alone. The ped nurse was really awesome and didn’t give us a hard time about any of our decisions. We did not allow them to give Chase a bath, opted out of HepB, VitK, and eye goop. We said that either Steve or I would be with Chase at all times and he was able to room in with us for the duration of our stay.
At one point in the night, they came in to check on him, I was so groggy, and out of it, I didn’t even realize I was giving them permission to take him out for a check and Steve was asleep. They only kept him out of the room for about 30 minutes, but I’m positive that in those 30 minutes they gave him formula. He came back and spit up a lot and I hadn’t really feed him much yet. Not to mention, since we’ve been home, he has not spit up as he did at the hospital. He’s only dribbled a little bit, but I think that’s because my milk came out too fast and he couldn’t keep up with it. That’s slightly irritating if they did that.
So! That’s my story. It was very traumatic for me and nothing went the way that I wanted it to. I had nearly every intervention known to man and it breaks my heart to even think about it. I keep telling myself that I got a beautiful baby boy out of it and I didn’t end up with a C-Section. Two very important things. I’m sure some people are thinking that they told me so or that they knew I wouldn’t be able to do it at home. I, however, know that I did things that right way and used hospital intervention appropriately. My cervix wasn’t dilating and I had to make a choice of what would be best for Chase and me. Given the opportunity, I would absolutely go for another natural birth (probably at a birthing center next time) and opt out of as much intervention as possible. I saw first hand how intervention begets intervention and it’s an awful, viscous cycle of crap. There are so many unnecessary things and I know that my body is capable of doing what it was made to do – birth a baby. The doctors (not the a-hole) all said that I would never have this much trouble again and that next time would be much easier. The scar tissue is completely gone now and I will totally rock my next birth.
Chase is doing awesome and has been nursing like a fiend. I think he’s going through a growth spurt right now, because he was literally been nursing all day. It’s taken me so long to type this out, because he only gives me five or six minutes at a time to type. We’re co-sleeping and loving it. I sleep so much better/more with him cuddled up next to me. At first, we were trying to put him in his co-sleeper crib, swing, anything to get him to sleep. I gave up and just started sleeping cuddled up with him. It works so much better for us and has been going really well.
I think that’s about it. I’m sure I missed some details, but this is long enough.
One week old.
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