hormonal, sleep deprived mama here.
i wrote a post a while ago about making peace with your birth experience. having the natural birth with townsen went a long way to heal some wounds from my first birth. but whatever trauma i held about drew's birth doesn't come close to the trauma from my experience with trying to breastfeed him. needless to say, it didn't work and he was bottle fed.
the guilt i felt making that decision still haunts me.
in preparing for townsen's birth i read, re-read and triple re-read all breastfeeding literature. i can quote the womanly art of breastfeeding, as exciting as that is. i have seen just about every video on the planet on how to properly latch a child to one's breast. i prayed so hard that breastfeeding would come more naturally this time.
and then my little townsen was born. and by day two i could see the vicious cycle repeating itself as it did with drew. the insecurity of not knowing if he was latching correctly, the unsureness of whether i even wanted to breastfeed and oh, the pain, the pain!
but i was determined to make this time different. i hired my awesome bradley instructor who is also a certified lactation consultant. she came to my house when townsen was three days old to go over things. we have been on the phone for hours since communicating and working on things.
it took a while but i feel like we've finally got the latch down. but the damage was already done to my nipples. the pain is shooting and throbbing each time townsen latches. after he finished eating there was a stinging pain that went from my breast to my back. i have since been diagnosed with a ductal infection and am on antibiotics. i quickly began dreading feedings.
and the weight gain. this poor boy just can't gain weight. he was 7.2 when he came home from the hospital and 7.8 at birth. we've had several weight checks and today at 17 days he had lost weight and was at 7.1. i did a pre-weigh, nursed and then weighed again and he had only consumed 1 ounce. i also tried pumping some over the last two days to supplement but was only getting 1 ounce at most, sometimes nothing.
that was the final straw. my pediatrician told me that we need to start supplementing.
i bawled all the way home. i don't think i've cried so much over the last 2 1/2 weeks as i have in my whole life.
when we got home and i nursed townsen the sadness overwhelmed me. it felt like my body was letting him down and not giving him what he needed. as i prepared his bottle i thought of every bottle i'd prepared for drew.
i'm still really determined to make breastfeeding work. we've made it 2 1/2 weeks so far solely on breastmilk which is huge for me. the plan is to still keep nursing every 2 1/2 hours and then giving him 2-3 ounces of formula afterwards until he gets his weight back up. we'll go in next tuesday to weigh him.
my fear is that he'll get too used to the bottle/formula and eventually refuse the breast.
so friends, please let me know if you've had any experience with supplementing before and then weaning your baby off of it. i'm going to keep working with my lactation consultant and nursing and pumping like crazy.
wish me luck. seriously, wish me luck.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
a birth story
my due date was thursday, april 26th which naturally came and went uneventfully. by sunday morning i was feeling emotionally so ready for our little boy to come and physically so ready as well. at my birth center they don't do routine vaginal exams so i had no clue if, or how much, i was dilated.
that morning odie took drew to church and let me stay home so i didn't have to face any "you're still pregnant?!" questions, as much as i do love those. they came home around 12:30 and odie put drew down for a nap. i was laying in bed and distinticly remember at 1:30 sitting up in bed with a hard contraction.
awesome, i thought. let the fun begin. i pulled out my trusty phone app to start timing the contractions and waited. and waited. 18 minutes went by. then another one came. then another 13 minutes went by and another contraction. at the rate i was going i figured we'd have a baby sometime monday.
from 1:30-4:30 i spent trying to find different laboring positions. i took the birthing ball into the shower with me and stayed there for about 45 minutes. i also laid on the hard floor for a bit with a fan pointed directly on me. around 4:30ish, the contractions started becoming more painful and i found myself needing to sit on the toilet with each one and feeling a little pushy which i thought was weird. that didn't happen with drew so i didn't know what to make of it.
another hour went by and around 5:30 the contractions were getting pretty intense. in my bradley method classes they talk about the "cave woman" sounds that a woman who's close to pushing starts making. i definitely was making those sounds. i would stand, hold onto something for dear life, and moan during the contraction.
in my mind, i had convinced myself though that i was probably a 1 or 2 as far as being dilated goes. i was so paranoid to go to the birthing center and be sent home. by 6 p.m. i knew i couldn't wait any longer. even if i was a 2, i needed to be where i was going to give birth.
odie went to run drew to the neighbors. while he was gone, i had 3 contractions in a row that brought me to the ground. i thought to myself that i couldn't do this and would have him take me to the hospital instead. it hurt too badly. all i could think was there was no way i could handle another 8 cms of dilating pain like this. looking back now, i can see that that feeling of wanting to give up is a tale tale sign that you are in transition.
odie came back quickly, and went to pull the car out of the garage. our neighbors were out and as odie was opening the door for me, they asked "is it baby time?!" odie gave a resounding yes and fist pump in the air (classic odie moment). i sat in the car and another contraction came over me. just as soon as i had sat down i jumped out of the car, not sure what to do. all i knew was that i most definitely could not be sitting down at that moment. i made it a few feet into the garage and collapsed on all fours, moaning with the strong desire to push.
odie jumped out after me and my neighbor yelled out if he should call 911. i started pushing and could feel something coming and asked odie if it was the baby's head. no, he said, but he wasn't sure what i was pushing out. comforting. something foreign was coming out of my body. it felt surreal. we quickly figured out it was the sac of waters that was still in tack. it broke on the floor and i continued pushing.
i couldn't believe what was happening. a few minutes had passed and our neighbors had run over. our neighbor katrina was on the phone with 911 who told me to lay on my side and not push. right. i tried it and jumped up just as quickly as i had laid down, crying that i couldn't do it. the need to push took over my body.
at most two minutes went by and i heard odie scream that he could see the head. it was an out of body experience. one push later and his body came out.
just like that. we had delivered our baby in the garage.
odie caught him and i sat in shock, unsure of what had just happened. a minute later the ambulance came and it was a whirlwind of commotion with them cutting the cord, checking the baby and checking me. my placenta was still in me and they told me not to push it out until we got to the hospital. that 20 minute ride was so long and bumpy. they asked if i wanted to hold my baby but i felt too weak and in shock to do anything. all i wanted to do was get the placenta out. odie sat there holding our son during the ride.
we got to the hospital where they promptly hooked me up to an IV and got pitocin running to stop my bleeding. i pushed out the placenta and waited for the doctor to stitch me up. as i looked around the room at the doctors and nurses and IV in my hand i couldn't believe that after planning on a non-hospital birth i still somehow ended up in the hospital. even in the shock of the moment the irony of it all made me laugh. i was so glad to have had my baby naturally at home, even if it was in a garage.
i had torn in two different places but nowhere near as badly as with drew. literally as i was being stitched up a woman approached me saying that NBC wanted to do a story on us delivering at home. what? i had just delivered 20 minutes before and couldn't believe word had already gotten out. we ended up doing the interview the next day.
i laid in the hospital bed that night with my sleeping baby on my right and my sleeping husband on my left. and i just stared at the ceiling. i didn't sleep a wink that night. i kept replaying the birth over and over in my head, trying to wrap my head around it.
we feel beyond blessed that for the 5 hours i was laboring and 10 minutes i pushed that nothing went wrong and that we had all the help we needed. you never expect to have your neighbors watch you deliver your child, yet it was a really special experience for all involved. i am just so happy that our sweet townsen is here, healthy and happy.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
making peace with your birth experience
that was the title of an article that my instructor handed me a few weeks ago as we left our bradley method birthing class. i quickly glanced at the title, felt a pit in my stomach and hurried to the car. after a few minutes of silence odie asked what was wrong and i burst into tears.
"i'm most definitely not at peace with my birth experience." i said.
when i gave birth to drew i was no where near prepared for what birthing would be like. odie and i had happily sat through our oh-so-extensive 4-hour hospital class where the best advice they gave for dealing with pain was "pick a focal point."
nice.
when my contractions started, i didn't know what to do. i didn't know how to handle them or how to have odie help me. i paced our apartment and cried.
by the time we got to the hospital i was for sure the baby was almost here to find out i was only dilated to a 2. a non-working epidural, two hours of pushing, an episiotomy and a 4th degree tear later and we had our sweet boy. nothing went as i had imagined.
when we found out we were expecting number 2, i knew i wanted something different. something else other than monitors and IVs and a doctor that i didn't really know. i wanted freedom to move, eat and do basically whatever felt right at the time.
but more than that, i wanted freedom from my fears.
the pain and experience of drew's birth has haunted me and since deciding to go natural at a birthing center with this one, i've spent many an hour wondering if i can deal with the pain and how i will cope. when you have something traumatic happen in your life the easiest response is to not think about it.
that's what i did with drew's birth. i tucked the whole experience away and tried to focus on the fact that out of the whole ordeal we got our beautiful baby boy.
expecting another child has brought everything to the fore front for which i am grateful. i've spent a lot of time in prayer since that night to be able to let go of any negative emotion and fear i've felt. i'm feeling a lot more at peace about the whole experience and about my upcoming birth in general. i'll never be able to relive drew's birth (thank goodness!) but i'm feeling more whole about the whole thing. sometimes things don't go as planned. and that's okay.
this time when i'm in labor and my contractions start i'll try to remember the wise advice to pick a focal point and try to laugh instead of cry. i'm fairly confident that can be added to my list of awesome birthing techniques.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
exciting news!!!
what, you may ask, would possess me to
FINALLY
update my blog months later?
a NEW BABY of course!
we're so happy to announce that
baby #2
is on the way!
i'm due april 28th and feeling great
we find out in 3 weeks what we're having
we both think it's a girl
we're so excited!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
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