Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Breastfeeding and more....

Many apologies for being MIA for a couple of weeks. I'm sure you understand what with a new baby in the house. We are all adjusting to life together. The waking up at least twice a night and the poopy diapers and so on.

Breastfeeding:
I promised to write about our trials with breastfeeding. We seemed to have a lot of trouble, and I kept waiting for it to get better. It didn't. Dorothy would not latch on, and instead of getting better as we went along, she got worse. We had several episodes of her screaming for long periods of time, obviously hungry... but she would not latch. And when she did it was a bad latch. So we went back to the lactation specialist and she gave me a nipple shield, which worked. For a short while. Something in Dorothy's latch would make the edges of the shield flip up and onto her face. And she was waking up every one to two hours. Something was telling me that she was not getting much milk, and within a couple days of pumping, I saw that my milk supply had actually decreased from a few days prior. With how lazy she was with nursing.... falling asleep within minutes and not sucking properly.... there was no way she was draining me. So We went and got a Pump in Style Advanced Breast Pump for $320!! A small price to pay for sanity for both parties involved. She's still getting my milk and I am getting more sleep. It's a beautiful thing. Granted, I can't pump in public like I could nurse, but it takes less time for me to pump her and bottle feed than it is to try to get her on the boob. And the last few tries with the boob. She just licks it or sucks on the very tippy-tip of the nipple. It smarts. So I think it's safe to say that pumping is the best option for us. Not to mention that she makes horrible faces when we try to put formula in the bottle.

Diapering:
I made the choice to cloth diaper. The choice was actually made about a month prior to Dorothy's arrival, for a number of different reasons. One of them being that I kept getting cloth diapers at baby showers. Cloth diapering is much better than it used to be with fitted diapers and velcro covers. And the cloth is so much better on her skin! I'll have to go in to more detail on the diapers I'm using and how we launder them at a later date. Right now we're still alternating between cloth and disposables because of the number of disposable diapers I got at baby showers, too. Cloth at home, "sposies" while out.

Cleaning:
I won't even tell you what my house looks like right now. There is too much to do in the day now. And Dorothy likes to be held. A lot.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Birth Story

As you know, Dorothy Grace entered the world a week ago today. I can't stop looking at her and thinking of how amazing it is that she came from me and David! Sometime in the near future I need to post some of my baby pictures along with some of hers so you can see how she looks like me. But on to more interesting things, like how labor went.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:30 am on Tuesday morning, September 5th. Here I am right after we checked in, sporting my big baby belly.



We waited around for a few hours until the doctors could get in to check me and get things started, so here I am just waiting.




Once I was checked, I was found to be 5 cm dilated and 90% effaced, so they broke my water right then and there, starting the pitocin immediately after. The contractions picked up right away, so I asked for the epidural early. I didn't even have to wait around for the anesthesiologist because it was a slow morning. Unfortunately, he kept having to come in and "dose" me, meaning give me extra meds other than the ones that were already coming through, as I had a large spot in my lower abs that kept hurting. He adjusted the catheter to help with it a bit.



We had a lot of family in the room for the delivery keeping us company throughout the day.



Once it came time to push, the last dose in the epidural had started to wear off, so in the lower part of my abdomen, I could feel TONS of pain. The good part was that when she was crowning I didn't feel the "ring of fire", just the contractions. Good thing, too, because I tore pretty bad. I pushed for 45 minutes, and as soon as her head came out I said, "it's really a baby!" Two more pushes and her shoulders were out, but let me tell you, they were the hardest pushes of the whole process. When she came out (the most incredible feeling ever) and was placed on my chest, it was overwhelming.




She was weighed in at 8 lbs 2 oz and was 19 inches long! All this time wondering if we would have a tiny baby and here she comes out a solid, full-term chub!!



I am a very happy mommy to a very beautiful baby girl! She is all cuddles. Breastfeeding has been a big challenge so far, but using a nipple shield is helping with that. I'll write more about our breastfeeding challenges later. For now I am going to go enjoy this:



And maybe a bit of this:

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

She's here!

Dorothy Grace

8lbs 2oz
19 inches
Born September 5th, 2006 at 5:16pm


Off to the hospital!

Well, we're off to have Dorothy today! I am unbelievably nervous about labor, so much so that I'm already having chills and those aren't supposed to start until the transition phase. I don't know what method they are going to use to induce. Probably pitocin, but maybe just breaking my water would do it as I have had some pretty intense contractions on my own for the past couple weeks. Be thinking of us and we'll post some pictures when we can.