Bun Quest

We’ve been in Cali for a few weeks…sorry for lack of updates. Don’t worry I’ll be making up for lost time after Christmas and will post lots of pictures! Can’t believe she’s a month old already!!!

***I just realized I hadn’t posted since the nurse told me to restrict her feeding. After a week of what seemed like constant screaming, I decided to screw her a**vice and feed on demand, even though this means that I have her latched pretty much all day, with small (like 30 minutes tops) breaks. She’s much happier. Have you ever heard of a new born eating 6 – 8 oz at each feeding (I pumped and bottle fed her the milk a few times just to see)…I mean really, that’s a lot.

The swing. It’s the only thing that calms my little fuss monster. Jewels is NOT happy unless she is eating or swinging…and sometimes not even while she is swinging. I called the pedi yesterday after my “it’s just normal fussiness” rationalization turned to “OMG, what if she’s in pain!” The nurse said it sounds like she just likes to snack every hour or so and that then she gets pissed that she’s not full and starts screaming. She recommended not feeding more often than every two hours and if she cries in between to just let her cry. She said I could try to soothe her, but that I should really insist that she only eat every two hours. I’m trying this now…I feel mean. The only upside to her “cluster feedings” is that it usually results in her sleeping from 8 or 9 PM straight through to sometime between 2 and 4 AM. So that’s nice.

Captured on film…the only 10 seconds of the day that she wasn’t stark raving mad and screaming!

Ok so here it is…the  nasty post partum post.

1. If you dialate quickly…oh, I don’t know – say 6 cm’s in one hour, your LDR will look like a scene from Saving Private Ryan.

2. Even without drugs, I didn’t feel myself tear.

3. If you don’t get an epidural, they still inject a local anesthetic (lidocaine, I think) before they stitch you up.

4. They stitch you up with a needle relatively the same size and shape as Captain Hook’s hook.

5. You bleed profusely while this is happening. You might, as I did, shake like you have the chills. “Repairs seem to take a long time.”

6. If you are instructed to push to deliver the placenta, hold back a little – if you push with the same intensity you pushed your baby out with, you will launch the placenta out  and maybe across the room.

7. You have to stay in the LDR for an hour after you are “repaired”…you will be lying in wading pool of blood (the nurses will try their best to keep cleaning you and your bed up, but it’s really a futile effort).

8. They let me eat and drink in the LDR during recovery, this was good b/c I was parched (I did not have an IV, so I didn’t have any fluids in labor)

9. It’s really weird to be lying in bed and bleeding like mad, all the while making small talk with your family.

10. The bleeding was only massive the first 24 hours, then it tapered way down.

11. After the birth, the only thing that hurt was my nipples.

12. All new mom’s should be wrapped in bubble wrap and labled “emotionally fragile.”

13. When hospital staff knocks on your door, it means “I’m coming in” not, “May I come in?” If you need privacy, make your husband stand outside the door and physically stop people from coming in.

Ok, so here are the pictures. I took these today, 2 weeks post partum.

Daddy playing catch…with me!!!

Here’s looking at you! (Sorry for the gore, but I wanted to show the world how she looked right up at me the second they placed her on my belly!)

A shot from the NICU, this was taken between 2 – 3 hours after she was born. I got to hold her on our pit stop in the NICU from the LDR to our room.  I think she’s planning her plot for world domination..check out those pensive fingers!!!

Happy Turkey Day!!! (Nevermind my oddly contorted hand/arm.)

With Gammy!

Really, more pictures? Okay, just a few! Laaast One Mommy, you promised!

May I just say, for the record, that a “pioneer” birth is WAY, WAY, WAY easy when compared to actually taking care of a newborn! It’s taken a while to get the hang of things. The pedi told us to feed her every 2 hours (timed from start to start – which really works out to less than an hour of free time in between feedings) until she got back up to her birth weight and then we could feed “on demand.” Thankfully, she was already back to her birth weight on the 28th (that’s just 6 days old!!), and since then she feeds every 3 – 5 hours and that extra hour or two helps a lot!! I’m no longer forced to choose b/t eating and sleeping! Yay!  Anywho, we’ve been busy and today is actually our first full day alone! (Gammy was super helpful and stayed until yesterday to teach us all her tricks!) Daddy has gone back to work and Mommy is pulling the night shift, and the day shift – b/c she’s in a crazed nesting mode that she somehow missed before giving birth! Now for some lists…

Places Jewels has been…

- Pedi (followed by a lunch a Mi Cocina): 4 days old (weighed 6 lbs. 14 oz., jaundice level at 15. something)

- Funeral home (My uncle w/ CP passed away on Thanksgiving Day): 6 days old

- Pedi (followed by breakfast at The Original Pancake House): 6 days old (weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz., jaundice level down to 12.6)

- Babies R’ Us, twice: 8 days and 11 days old

- Houston’s: 10 days old

- The Airport to drop off Gammy: 11 days old

- Target: 11 days old

- Stayed home alone with Gammy while Mommy and Daddy went to the funeral: 9 days old

- Peppermint’s: 12 days old

Big Ups to Jewels for these developemental goals met:

- Can hold her head up briefly and will lift her head from my chest and switch which cheek she is resting on.

- Stares at faces.

- Follows objects and sounds with her eyes.

- Super latcher! Seriously, she was given formula via a bottle in the NICU, she takes a pacifier, both boobs, and will bottle feed on breast milk.

- Interacts with Mommy and Daddy!

***Sometime this weekend, I’ll post a post-partum follow up – complete with a picture of my belly (CAUTION! GRAPHIC CONTENT). I’m doing this b/c I was always curious about what to expect, so in the interest of full disclosure I’ll pull a Kate and post it!