Our Unexpected Beautiful Life

Our first couple days home were comprised of many snuggles and staring at my beautiful boy.  My favorite thing to do at night is getting my baby snuggles and listen to his adorable cooing sounds. I love him so much.  I also stare at him all the time when he's sleeping. I still can't believe he is here.  The first nights home were also filled with very little sleep. Luckily, I had my mom there to help me take care of Adam. I still was recovering from surgery and was in some pain. With a newborn, you aren't able to get adequate rest so it was great having her help me at night with him. He ate every two hours and developed a bad habit of falling asleep and not getting enough, therefore making him wake up even earlier for the next feeding.  I attempted the breastfeeding and made strides but I still wasn't producing what he needed. I had to use formula to get him full, but he still usually only lasted two hours between feedings. We also were having issues with the diapers...

By day four, I was ready to go home. They wanted me to stay a full five days but since I have a great relationship with my doctor, and I begged, he let me go home a day early. Yay!  In our final time in the hospital, I was able to shower, move around very slowly, and Gammy continued to get her snuggles with Adam and help with what I was still unable to do.  Isn't he so stinkin' cute?!  As we were about to leave, I was starting to get cranky because I was feeling very overwhelmed, Adam started crying uncontrollably when I tried to put him in his car seat, and I was really hurting and was getting nauseous.  We finally got in the car after my poor mom had to haul all the stuff down to the car. We got Adam all settled in his car seat and he happened to look adorable, if I do say so, myself.  I wasn't prepared for the ride home. In my mind it was going to be this joyous occasion, but it was anything but. I was really hurting and I didn't know why it never occurred to...

Day three was the day of pain! They took out my epidural and slowly waited for feeling to come back into my legs. They took out the catheder, which by the way was awesome. I need to get me one of those!  As I began to get feeling back in my legs, they started administering a different pain medication to me that allowed me to manage my pain, but allowed me to walk around and be up.  The first time the nurse came in and said, "time to get you up" I was nervous. I've always heard, "that first time up after a c section is awful." I also am very suseptable to nausea with any kind of pain so my fear was fainting. Luckily, I had one of the great nurses at this time and she walked me through it in steps. First I just had to sit up, then put my feet over bed. I did that and OUCH! Felt the nausea coming! Then I had to bend and stand up. She held my hand and on three I did it. Holy hell! It felt like a stretch of fire being pulled apart on my lower abdomen. I immediately f...

After having 30 minutes of sleep our first night, it was a tiring day, but it was still awesome to open my eyes and see my son across the room. He is such a little miracle to me.  I felt really good the first two days because they kept my epidural in so I was numb and in no pain. While this was awesome, it was hard for me to not be able to care for my son. Every time he cried, my mom or a nurse had to get up and change him, or bring him to me, and that was hard because as a new mother all you want to do is rush to your child for his needs. The nurses had told me that I would be getting up for the first time soon and that freaked me out because I'd heard horror stories about how much that hurts. Adam continued to sleep, and we stared at him constantly. He's just so adorable!!! That night, my friends Christina, Gwen, and Ashley came up to see him. We had a good visit but man, those pain meds were making me LOO-PY! I remember feeling so out of it, like I was talking, but I...

After my visitors left the hospital, things got hairy! I could tell Adam was getting hungry and the colostrum I was or was not producing was clearly not sustaining him. It was really hard seeing him like that. He was giving me SEVERE hunger cues and he was so frustrated that even putting him to the breast wasn't working. We tried calming techniques but my baby was just starving. It was HORRIBLE. I felt so helpless and asked the nurses for formula. They reacted with some resistance which was really frustrating. They kept encouraging me to "be patient" and "wait for my supply to come in" which to me was upsetting because my baby was in distress. And I am his mother and I found it disrespectful to push back on my request for what I felt was best for him. After some back and forth, I finally convinced a nurse to get me some formula. She encouraged tube feeding so he wouldn't have nipple confusion. We tried it, he drank one ounce, then slept for 12 hours. Poor ba...