I should be working.  I need to rave about the Soft Shells.  Oh my gosh, so great.  They say you should only use them during waking hours… but I couldn’t bring myself to take them off last night.  So far they’ve made such a huge difference!  My nipples are still tender, but they are not being constantly assaulted by the fabric of my bra and top.  Thank you Medela!

 

oh my goodness

Fun.  Fun is one of those words that can explain great joy and times of excitement.  Or you can plop on a heavy syrupy coating of sarcasm and it opens up a whole new book of connotative meanings.

In this case, fun means D – all of the above.

So let’s start with the breast feeding saga, since that’s currently on my mind.  Of course, when isn’t it?  Especially considering my darling daughter eats every 2-3 hours.  I do believe that I think about breast feeding more than the average male thinks about sex… Ok, well pretty darn close anyways!

There are good days and bad days.  Good sessions and bad sessions.  The scabs haven’t come back, which was a huge fear of mine.  It means that the healing continues, and the new wounds are not bad enough to cause such obvious damage.  Whew!  I need to keep reminding myself of that during the bad times.

What has been difficult is the constant sore / tender / painful nipples and breasts.   Pain hasn’t been as frequent lately, however the other two are my new room mates.  From what I’ve read and discussed with lactation consultants, tender nipples tend to last 2-3 weeks.  Mine will last a bit longer since they have to recover from the inital damage, and then “toughen up” to breast feeding.  It’s possible that it may last longer, it could just be me.  Some theorize that fair skinned Mom’s will have more problems with sore nipples.  Huh.

Poor latch?  Could be, but I don’t think that’s 100% the issue.  I’ve been focusing on feeding her as soon as I see hunger signs and making sure that all the requirements are met (nipple aimed towards top rear of her mouth, tongue forward, top and bottom lip flanged out, etc.).  While it’s not perfect all the time, I’m pretty sure that we’re getting it most of the time.  So the suspects are… vasospasm, hormones, or just my stupid body.

Solution(s)?  Today I was introduced to Soft Shells.  Do they make my boobs look funny?  Yes.  Are they comfortable?  Yes.  Do they seem to be helping? Yes.  Do I find it hilarious that I can “tap” my boobies like steel toed boots? Yes.  Mark is amused that he can say “nipple on the half shell”.  Dork.   So we’ll see how things go over the next few days of wearing these.  At the very least, they will be extremely helpful at the gym.  I was only able to do the elliptical for 12 minutes last night, due to the fabric of my top causing too much friction on my nipples.

Next problem – sore breasts.  A common issue is yeast.  It could be.  She does have a slight rash that I assumed was a diaper rash.  Other than that I don’t see any symtoms.  Additionally what I feel in my breasts does not fit the descriptions I’ve read of pain related to yeast.  Instead of stabbing or “glass” like pain, it feels more like they’ve been beat up.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I looked down to see them black and blue.  I spoke to the Lactation Consultant this morning and she thinks it’s hormones.  Which means that they will probably remain sore for a while.  Bummer.  Good news is that the solutions are reasonable – hot/cold compresses and hot baths & showers.

So all in all – it’s ok.  I get waves of depression and I crawl over to Mark and lay my head on his knee.  He loves me, encourages me and I get enough to make it through the night (nights are the hardest).  The next morning, I’ve gotten some sleep and things are back in perspective.  Times of prayer and worship have been getting me through all of it, wrapped up in a silk ribbon.  I’m going to start getting out of the house more, attending Mommy and Me group, bible study, etc.  I have to make some time away.  Away from the house work, away from Kgnt, away from family stresses.

We – I – are getting through this.  It’s been.. is… fun.

Naomi.  Naomi is beautiful.  She grunts, burps, farts, spits up, vomits, sleeps, cries, coos, snores.  She wraps her little fingers around my one big one.  She curls her toes when I tickle her feet.  She calms down when I hold her.  She snuggles into my hand while she sleeps.  I loves her.  She’s my little girl and she is so beautiful and amazing.

Nomes received her first piece of mail today.  Social security card.  We took a picture of her with it.  She was crying.  It seemed fitting.

Conversation with Mark…
“You’re missing a t”
“Styles?”
“Yah”
“Oh… it’s ok that my brain is gone.  I read about it.  It’s normal.”
“What?”
“It’s ok that my brain is gone.”
“That your brain is blonde?”
“Gone.”
“Oh. Ha ha”

QOTD from NCIS…
“My name is Anthony, my friends call me Tony.  Backwards, it’s why not”

 

… and she sleeps

I was going to take a picture, but I can’t find the camera.  Gr.  I have a ton of pictures of her, but not a ton from today.  I’m sure she looks different today (from yesterday) and I *need* to document it.

She’s so beautiful.  Especially when she sleeps.  Especially when my breasts aren’t screaming in pain.

So breast feeding has been getting better.  The scabs have fallen off, but there’s some new rawish areas appearing.  We’ve had a few difficult feeds the past few days and I’m guessing that the two are related.  We are both learning.

I’m trying “commands” and she seems to be picking them up.  “Open Big” for feeding… “put your leg down” (down being the key word) for changing diapers… “open” for pushing her jaw open to release a latch.  Maybe it’s my imagination, but she really does seem to be getting it.

One odd thing, is that she keeps spitting out the nipple.  I haven’t figured out why or what yet.  I did change from football to cross-cradle and that seemed to help, but her latches don’t seem as deep.  The deeper ones she spits out… thus the rawness I mentioned above.  Hum.  I’m still not sure what changed to cause this.  Google here I come!

 

After Mark, I didn’t think there would be anyone else in the world who could warm up my insides like this.  Make everything slow down, even stop.  To be so content in their company that I don’t need to be doing something.  Sitting, watching, listening is doing enough.

We are moving forward.  My left breast is still more sensitive, as it had greater damage, but it’s getting better.  Her last meal on it was pretty easy (except for the hands) on it.  I’m hoping that in a couple more days my shoulders won’t cramp up with fear every session!  Deep cleansing breath…

 

Well, another sucessful day breastfeeding.  There’s still soreness, but the scabs are dropping off already.  During our last feeding, she latched on perfect the first time!  Praise the Lord!  Hopefully they all go that well.

note for the records – cord dropped off today.

 

Where do I start?  I’ve been trying to find time to sit and clear my head, but each day rolls into the next and it’s been over a week since she arrived.  So much has happened since that Wednesday night.  So many events, so many emotions.  I hope I can remember all of them.  Even to just jott them down here as some string to the memory.

Where I am right now.  I’m going to start here because I desperately need to sort everything out.   I’m pretty sure my hormones are rearranging my brain chemistry, causing this toppling wave of defeat.  I think I’ve cried more in the past 24 hours than I have all year.  Frustrated.  Breastfeeding is difficult.  Easy in technique.  I understand it.  Difficult in skill and in gaining the cooperation of all participants.  My darling Naomi, is so beautiful.  She’s so difficult to feed.  I’m fairly sure that the first few days involved shallow latches, which means my nipples were beat up.   I’ve been trying to work on better positioning, etc. – however, she refuses to open her mouth wide enough and will even go the other direction… to raise her eyebrows and press her lips together in a kissy face.  In order to get a big open mouth, we check her diaper or do something to piss her off.  Then she screams and hopefully I can get in there before she falls asleep.  Yes, my daughter is narcoleptic.  So when we get a good latch, after pissing her off… after re latching because she spit out the good latch and decided she wanted a poor one instead… after Mom crying out in pain (especially from those initial sucks) … then she only feeds for 10-15 minutes.  She falls asleep.  No amount of stimulation wakes her.  Even raspberries on her belly don’t wake her up.  At one point, we were able to burp her and then reattach… but sadly that only seemed to last a day.  So now Mom’s worried that she’s not getting enough to eat, on top of feeling completely frustrated and defeated.  Add on the rushes of heavy emotion … and I’m spent.  I don’t want to send her back, but I want to send me back.  Replace me with the experienced five child Mom who would be able to overcome this with amazing grace.

So today I’m heading to the lactation clinic for some help.  Unless they are miracle workers, I expect to switch to pumping.  It’s important to me that she gets breast milk, so I’m thinking pumping and using a bottle are a good all around option.  I love the intimacy of breastfeeding with her, but her health is more important.   I’m hoping that I could switch to pumping, give my body a chance to heal, and then switch back to the breast.  I know there’s nipple confusion and it will probably be difficult… but I think if the pain were eliminated I could do this.  Right now… right now I have to psyche myself up in order to “dive in”.  There’s gotta be something wrong.

Breastfeeding aside, the whole experience has been incredible.  I had my first contraction around 7pm Wednesday (2/18) night.  Between 7pm and 8:30pm, I had maybe three contractions.  Around 8:30pm they started picking up in frequency.  At 9:30pm I called a friend to confirm what labor contractions felt like .. and then called L&D.  I wasn’t quite ready to go in, but it sounded like it was going to be soon.  A couple minutes after getting off the phone with L&D I had a contraction that I couldn’t talk through.  Ouch.  I looked at Mark and told him we “we’re going in”.  This was 9:45pm (ish)

Now, I didn’t have Braxton-Hicks contractions during my pregnancy.  So luckily, I had the presence of mind to recheck our bags and get everything together in that 8pm hour.  We grabbed our stuff and headed out.  During the short drive to Fremont, they became more frequent – and more painful.  Driving during that… ouch.

Arrival to L&D around 10pm showed that I was 70% effaced and 2cm dilated.  Naomi wasn’t responsive enough to each contraction, and being only 2cm they were going to send me home.  Instead, they hooked me up to the monitor for a while… then had me walk for an hour.  Walking … ouch.

After that hour, I was 5cm.  About 20 minutes later I was 7cm.    I think this is when I took a narcotic.  It took off the edge of the contractions, and luckily it lasted 40-45 minutes (you can only re administer every hour).  Sometime later I was 9cm and my membranes hadn’t ruptured yet.  They didn’t want me pushing until my water broke, so I blew out that candle as long as I could.  I finally told her I had to push and she agreed to get the doctor to rupture.  I’m not sure if they did or if it broke on it’s own, it all happened at the same time.

Pushing.  Oh to finally have a place to direct that pain!  There were three places my body wanted to push from/to.  My face, my rectum, and my vagina.  Of course, the latter was the more difficult and I kept having to refocus myself to make sure I wasn’t working with the other two.  I have no idea how long I pushed for, but it was less than an hour… Mark thinks it was 30-40 minutes.  I tore just slightly, nothing terrible.

Once those shoulders passed and her body slid out – the relief was incredible.  Everything dropped several levels and my legs started shaking, then my whole body.  I wanted to do skin to skin immediately, but I let them take her because of my body shakes.  I didn’t think I had the strength to hold her just then.  By the time they cleaned her up and medicated her eyes, I was feeling better.

I asked the doctor if I could see the placenta.  WAY bigger than I expected!  She took time and showed me the different pieces… cord, sack, where the placenta connected to my uterus, etc.  Very interesting, very cool.

The next couple of hours are a blur.  Calming and slowing down.  Enjoying our baby girl.  Nurses taking vitals and chatting about all kinds of things.  All I really remember is thinking how great Mark was through the whole experiance, and how beautiful our little girl is.

Mom was in the hospital the whole time.  I can’t believe she stayed up all night!  Felipe took her home around 6am and she proceeded to sleep the rest of the day.  I should have followed her lead!  Instead I was up all day and didn’t up sleeping until that following night.  Too much going on.  Visitors and the general air of excitement.  All the nurses coming in and out didn’t help much either.  She’s a proud Grandma and I’m looking forward to seeing our relationship change & grow now that Naomi is here.

Mark … wow.  My husband was AMAZING during the whole thing.  He kept me focused during the contractions, monitored my breathing, and was constantly giving my direction and encouragement.  There is no way I could have gotten through it without him.  My husband was a source of strength and unending love.  I am blessed and thankful… and… in love with him.

On a side note, writing this done by taking bits and pieces out of my day.  At the moment I’m enjoying listening to her sleeping and feeling hope. The lactation clinic was just what I needed.  We worked on the “football” position, which is supposed to be better for women with larger breasts.  I tried it once in the hospital and didn’t care for it and have been using the “cross cradle” position since then.  This experience was completely different.  The position is more comfortable, without giving up the control I need to get her to latch on.  And the best part?  I didn’t squeal in pain or feel the need to stomp on the floor to redirect the pain/discomfort.

It’s now 12:25am.  I made it through today’s feedings without problem.  There’s still soreness, but it is 1000% better than it was.  I don’t have constant throbbing pain in my breasts and I can hug Mark straight on (instead of the side… because they were too sore to touch).  Those ladies at the clinic are straight from heaven.  I need to bring them brownies or something yummie.

It’s late.  I’m tired.  One other thing I want to jott down for the record.  She’s strong.  Naomi’s been lifting her head for a couple of days, but today she lifted and looked side to side.  I’m so proud

She’s just… I love to smell her hair, listen to her breathe, feel her skin against mine.  She is … my daughter.

Oh – and here’s some pictures!