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.
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| 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.
This is Landon's birth story. There are some graphic details so read at your own risk :)
We had been ready to meet Mr. Landon for quite some time. We knew we were expecting very early (we found out April 2, 2013) when I was only about 10 days pregnant. So, needless to say, we were very ready to meet the little guy. I had a pretty routine and uneventful pregnancy for the most part. A couple little bumps here and there but nothing major. On December 17, 2013, the day before his due date, I woke up at about 5am with very infrequent, sharp lower abdominal pain. I knew right away that this pain was different than any other in that I had, and since it was so close to when he was due, I figured this was "it."
I laid in bed for a while and then Greg and I came downstairs around 7 or 8am. At that point the pain was coming inconsistently and I was kind of pacing the downstairs trying to figure out if this was really the day I was going to give birth! Greg was supposed to go into work but stayed home since the pain was decently strong and we didn't really know what was going on. We started timing the contractions and they were about 10-15 minutes apart and were lasting about 20ish seconds. We called the doctor and they told us to wait until the contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasted for about 50 seconds. I continued to pace around and around 1pm they were 5 minutes apart and lasting between 40-50 seconds so we went ahead and went into the doctor. He checked me and said I was still 80% effaced and only about 1cm dilated. This was so disappointing. Especially because the doctor said we should head home and wait until the contractions were even stronger. I almost cried. And when he told me to "get some rest," I almost became violent. How do you "get rest" when you stomach is tightening to the point that you can't walk every 5 minutes??
Greg and I headed home. At this point we were not so sure that we would be meeting our baby on the 17th. I laid on the couch and tried to "rest." I would nod off for a bit and then wake up in pretty severe pain ( I would say maybe a 4 out of 10). I did this for about an hour and a half and then I couldn't take it anymore. Around 4:30pm I started to lose it a little. I started crying and told Greg I couldn't take it anymore and we needed to call the doctor again. They said to go ahead in and the on-call doctor would meet me there. We had already packed our things in the car when we went to the doctor earlier in the afternoon so we didn't have much to take with us. We put away a few things in the house knowing...this was it!
I held Greg's hand in the car as I would have contractions and we made it to the hospital around 5:30pm. We were checked into our room by 6pm and the fun began :) My contractions were a little worse but still manageable. I was 2cm dilated at that point and the doctor could feel his hair when she checked me! They gave me IV fluids and antibiotics since I was Group B Strep positive. The doctor came in around 8 or 9pm and tried to break my water but nothing came out. She thought maybe Landon's head was blocking the opening so the fluid was all behind him. Around 10pm I got my epidural and my catheter and they gave me a little pitocin just to get things going. This is when things started to go downhill... The epidural worked quickly but I had a "hot spot" where I could feel everything in just one spot of my lower, right abdomen. Looking back, I wish I would have just worked through that, but the anesthesiologist came back in and re-dosed my epidural which made me suuuuuper numb. You would think this was a positive thing but I couldn't move my legs at all. I literally had to be flipped from side to side and I couldn't get comfortable to sleep since I couldn't really move around in the bed. I dozed some but not much. Around 3am (now December 18th), they checked me and I was 10cm. They let me "labor down" for about 30 minutes before starting to push. This is really when things got worse...
At
3:30am I started pushing but could feel nothing-- no pressure, no
contractions, couldn't feel my legs...nothing. I guess this is the
point of an epidural but it seemed extreme I guess. I had always heard
that people could still feel pressure with each contraction and I could
literally feel nothing. This affected my pushing because I couldn't
really feel where to push down. At this point, I hadn't eaten in about
15-20 hours so I was STARVING. All I was allowed to eat was ice chips
so I started feeling really nauseous. About 30 minutes into pushing I
threw up repeatedly into a bucket that Greg was holding. He was on my
left and my sister was on my right-- each holding a leg. I continued
pushing with little progress and one more big vomit. About 2 hours in,
Landon was coming but he was stuck under my pelvic bone and his heart
rate was starting to decline. They gave me oxygen and had me rest
through a few contractions to give him a little bit of a break. He
recovered during those rest times but the doctor said if he didn't come
soon, I would be headed for a c-section. This kind of sent me over the
edge since the whole thing had been such a long process. I cried and
really did not want a c-section if at all possible (again, looking back
now, I'm not sure a c-section would have been much worse/more recovery
than what I went through). Around 5:30am the doctor said we could try
to use the vacuum but if that didn't work it was an emergency
c-section. She prepped everything and I started pushing again and she
attached the vacuum to his head. Apparently that was all he needed
because with just a few pushes from me and pulls from her, out he came!
At 5:53am on December 18, 2013 (his due date!), Landon William was
born! He weighed 8lbs. 1oz. and was 21 inches long! He had dark black
hair and mocha skin :) No water/fluid came out which the doctor was
surprised by but said that meant he was very ready to be born!
Unfortunately,
the stress of the labor had taken a bit of a toll on him. When he came
out, the cord was around his neck and he had had a bowel movement while
inside me (lots of meconium came out when he came out) which shows that
he was in distress. The doctor suctioned him for a few minutes and
then he was taken to the warmer. Neither Greg nor I could hold him
yet. He seemed OK over at the warmer but they were suctioning him for a
while since it is dangerous if any meconium gets into their lungs. In
the meantime, they delivered my placenta and stitched me up. I had a
second degree internal tear that tore in 5 different directions so the
doctor was stitching me up for about 45 minutes. I was able to hold
Landon for about 1 minute and then they had to take him to the nursery
for observation--definitely not the way I thought our first hour after
birth would be. I had lost a good amount of blood and still had not
eaten so I was feeling pretty woozie and almost passed out. They gave
me more fluids and more oxygen and then I started to feel better.
At
about 10am, they finally brought Landon to me and I was able to hold
him for the first amount of extended time. I couldn't believe that he
was finally here and I was so excited to finally meet him! He tried to
nurse a little and we cuddled before Greg and family got a chance to
hold him. It was a rough entrance into the world--for both baby and
mama--but we made it, and he was all we were hoping for and more!!
