Postpartum Journey

To those close to me, it was very obvious that I had a difficult time for about 2 or 3 weeks postpartum.  This postpartum journey began before we even left the hospital. 

There were three pieces to my postpartum journey: my healing, issues with Landon, and so many unexpected things happening at once. 

As far as my healing...
My body went through pretty extensive trauma during Landon's birth.  They thought my urethra could have possibly been damaged which, along with the effects from the epidural, caused me to lose bladder control pretty severely.  Like, I wore Depends for a couple days.  Like, I peed my bed, my pants, the floor.  True story.  I was extremely sore but didn't have uncontrollable bleeding, which was good.  It was really difficult for me to not be able to hold my pee and I just really hadn't expected that.  Everyone assured me it was "totally normal," which made me want to punch them in the face.  It doesn't help you psychologically to know that peeing yourself multiple times a day is "normal."  Now, 6 weeks later, my bladder is about 90% better but I am still pretty sore and am not able to do too much exercise or heavy lifting. 

As far as Landon...
The first day he was born, Wednesday, and into Thursday, we got lots of good snuggle time with Landon, as well as his first bath :)

Later on Thursday, Landon was diagnosed with jaundice, which we know is very common.  In order to rid his body of the bilirubin, he needed to have bowel movements and, since my milk hadn't come in yet, the nurses suggested we give him formula.  We really felt that we had no other choice.  This was very difficult for me because I had not planned on giving him formula and had not planned on giving him a bottle yet.  I was also not prepared for the fact that he would be in the nursery under the photo therapy lights and that we would only be able to hold him for 30 minutes at a time when he needed to eat.  A couple very kind staff members allowed us to keep Landon in our room under the lights so we could at least have him near us.  We hated having to put the little eye protectors over his eyes because he didn't understand what was happening, but we knew it was best for him.  The trouble came when it was time to eat.  He had become accustomed to the bottle, and getting food quickly through that nipple, so when we tried to nurse (and my milk hadn't come in), he got frustrated and was not interested.  This, emotionally, was very difficult for me.  I hadn't slept more than a few hours in a few days, I had little to no bladder control, I was sore and bleeding, my baby was away from me for the majority of the day and night, and now he wouldn't latch on to nurse.  Breast feeding was one of the most important things to me, so this made it especially difficult.  We knew Landon needed to get nutrients any way he could to rid himself of the bilirubin, so we gave him the formula and I pumped to bottle feed him colostrum.  He did great with the bottle so we were happy that at least he was getting what he needed.  We continued to try to nurse but the more bottles he took, the less he wanted to nurse.  By this point, I was pretty devastated and definitely ready to go home.  We were supposed to be discharged on Friday the 19th but because of his high jaundice levels, we were not discharged until Saturday the 20th.

Going home!!

When we left the hospital, he was being totally bottle fed with breast milk (my milk mostly came in Saturday into Sunday).  On Sunday, we had to go back to the hospital to have his levels checked again and we also bought a nipple shield and called the lactation consultant.  Because of the holidays, we weren't able to get to the lactation consultant until Friday the 27th.  In the meantime, I was able to get Landon to latch onto the shield and we were supplementing with bottles of breast milk.  He was now completely off formula.   Over the course of the next 2 weeks, I worked with Landon to wean off the shield because the flow is slow and it reduces your supply, so I was having to pump a lot.  Within about 2 weeks, Landon was completely off the shield and needed no bottles (he was about 3 weeks at this point).  I was still healing at this point and actually had to go back to the doctor early for a check up since the delivery was so rough.  The doctor said everything looked like it was healing pretty good and I'm currently still waiting for my 6-week follow up.

6 weeks out I can say we are doing well and settling in!  After a rough delivery, with so many unexpected things to happen afterwards, I am starting to feel like everything is beginning to level off.  Landon is nursing well, I am continuing to heal and I can't imagine a day without this sweet boy. 

I think I just had certain expectations about what the delivery and nursing would be like, and neither of those expectations came true.  I spent a lot of time away from my sweet baby in the hospital which was painful and makes me feel so deeply for the mommies and daddies who have babies in the NICU. Or even worse, families who never get to bring their babies home. There was a slim chance we were going to have to leave him in the hospital for an extra day with us being discharged and I can't even imagine...  I am so thankful we left the hospital with a healthy baby, had the resources to help us get our nursing on track, and that we get to love on this sweet boy each and every day.