I don’t know how ANYONE has any time to be on the internet after the birth of their baby. They obviously have more time management skills than me.
I will try to get a birth story out soon.. at first glance it seems like one intervention after another, which is definitely something I wanted to avoid. I don’t know if there was any way I could have avoided the c-section. The problems started with the fact that my water broke before my baby dropped and I was too scared to wait at home very long to allow labor to start itself before calling my CNMs. Everything I read online and elsewhere (even in Birthing From Within and such books) said that there was serious risk of cord prolapse when the water breaks before the baby drops and I just couldn’t take that chance. My CNMs (I labored there through 3 24-hour shift changes) were all very respectful of my requests to try to get this baby out of me naturally and without intervention. They did not pressure me into any of the interventions. Although there was no cord prolapse, the baby was sunny side up and never really dropped after nearly 2 days of labor. As I said, I’ll write more later. If the interventions can be blamed for my c-section, I take responsibility with it happening because I went into the hospital about 5 hours after my water broke instead of trying to wait it out at home. If I’d already dropped, I wouldn’t have felt hesitant at all to wait at home for days after my water broke. It was one thing I didn’t spend a lot of time educating myself on and it was the best decision I could make with the knowledge I had. Anyway, yes, a complete birth story will be coming some time. Who knows when!
Breastfeeding is going well, I think. He’s not really nursing the “recommended” 2-3 hours, it’s more like 4-5. He nursed within an hour of delivery and took immediately to the breast. I couldn’t get him latched on again for another 12 hours or so. The second day it was sporadic, maybe 3 times all day because he was sleeping a LOT (probably because of the pain medication during labor). That night he nursed almost nonstop. From there on, it’s been pretty normal, I think. After greeting me at 9:30 AM on Tuesday and hearing it’d been about 12 hours since I got Elias to latch, the lactation consultant immediately wanted to know why I hadn’t given him formula. I felt her lack of knowledge and veiled threat simply appalling and was SO upset for the remainder of the day. I hadn’t slept more than 4 hours in the past 4 days and was just nearly inconsolable. Luckily, no one else ever even suggested formula. This will definitely be going in my survey to the hospital. (Other than that, the lactation consultant was VERY helpful and the tricks she taught me definitely made it a lot easier to feed Elias after it clicked with him.)
Sometime today I think I’ll be putting some pictures up on flickr so you can keep a lookout over there.
Thank you ALL for your wonderful kind words over the past few days. I don’t know when I’ll be updating again, but hopefully it won’t be too long.
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Thanks for the update! I can’t wait to see the pictures. Hearing about lactation consultants like that never ceases to surprise me. :/
take your time posting, we’ll all be here whenever you have time. take care of you and enjoy the baby. sounds like everything worked out in the best way possible. hugs!
*hugs* Welcome back home!! Our nursing experience started off just like yours and we’re great now.
Oh and one bonus with a C-section? 8 weeks disability instead of 6, so make sure you get that doctor’s note!!
PS once you learn to nurse one handed you’ll be online all the time
Yay! So happy to hear from you. Don’t beat yourself up about the birth, if at all possible. Mourn a little that you didn’t get the perfect birth you wanted, but you *did* get a perfect baby boy!
I’m glad to hear that the breastfeeding is going so well. Bollocks to that LC. Do you have a nursing pillow? I held out for a couple of weeks and didn’t use mine, but when I did – oh mercy, it was so much easier, especially with a c-section scar! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Heck, since I’m local, I could even swing by for a visit if you need.
Congrats on the birth of your baby boy!
I hate this word “blame” you use when talking about the interventions and delivery. There is no blame. You made the decisions to the best of your ability under the circumstances, and both you and Elias are safe and healthy and together now because of them.
For what it’s worth, I also went through something similar – had my natural childbirth plan shredded with interventions – and not only did we survive it, but nearly five years later, I barely think of it. While labor and delivery were momentous in and of themselves, every day with my child over the years has made that just one memory over a collage of hundreds, if not thousands, of moments.
I’m so glad to hear that you guys are home and doing well. Taylor’s finally getting into somewhat of a pattern where I know I’ll have a good solid hour once I get her down and content. Sometimes it’s hard to juggle the diaper change/feeding/pumping/attempting to nap.
The internet is my connection to the outside world. I steal 5 minutes here or there and work on updates in spurts. Early on, I couldn’t stop watching joe with her long enough to do anything.
Congratulations Mama!
I’ll agree with that. When you’re in the heat of the moment, birth is the most important thing in the world; for the first few years afterwards, breastfeeding can be that. Sam’s six now, and while I look back fondly on his birth and nursing years, right now I’m focused on being proud of him when he remembers which spelling of two/too/to is the correct one.
There are so many “most important” moments in their lives; spend as much of your time looking laterally and forward as you can! 
Once you get the hang of nursing with one hand and typing with the other, it gets easier.
But don’t rush it; NAKing with a bad latch isn’t something you want to try!
Fall babies can be more prone to jaundice than warm-weather ones, so if he’s spacing out his nursings, you may really want to hang out with him in the sun, or get Mark to while you rest. Trust me, I know whereof I speak. O_O
By the way, Gabe says Elias is “a nice baby,” but he was pretty bummed when I told him that I can’t “turn on” the pictures to play them like movies.
For me, it’s not time management. It’s a baby who nurses constantly and will usually only sleep on the Boppy. I do a lot of one-handed typing.
I’m glad you’re home safe and sound and that breastfeeding is going well!
I certainly hope I can get 8 weeks out of them for this. I’ll drop off my FMLA paperwork at Kaiser tomorrow for them to reassess it. I talked to a CNM there yesterday who said she certainly thinks I’ll be able to get at least a recommendation for 8 weeks, if not 12. That’d be great because my employers would pay me for up to 16 if it were recommended.
While at the hospital, I didn’t really feel bad at all about the experience. When I came home and saw the apartment as I left it when we were leaving for the hospital and I still expected a somewhat normal birth, it felt very sad. We do plan to have one more and I have every intention of trying to do it naturally again, so I’m hopeful I can get a different experience out of that.
All that being said, I did try to have as natural a labor as possible. My water was broken for a total of 46 hours. I labored for nearly a day before allowing them to give me some pitocin (at which point I was about 2cm with contractions 2-3 min apart). In the end he wasn’t dropping, I wasn’t dilated more than 4cm and the contractions were so painful and coming about a minute apart and I was clenching up so much I knew it wasn’t helping me dilate at all, so I asked for an epidural to try to possibly relax me enough to allow my cervix to dilate. 3 hours after the epidural I hadn’t dilated any more at all, then his heartbeat started to drop and act weird. At that point I already knew a c-section was inevitable so I was pretty calm when they were hysterical that I needed an emergency CS. I was just confident that there was nothing truly wrong and sure enough as soon as they got me into the OR, his heartbeat was regular. I am thankful I’d received the epidural a few hours before. If I hadn’t, they would have had to put me under and Mark wouldn’t have been able to be with me. My breastfeeding relationship would have been so much more troubled than it is now.
Oh, and I have a boppy and it is the best thing EVER. I wish I would have brought it to the hospital. I think EVERYONE needs one.
Thank you.
Thank you Carrie. It helps to have it put in perspective for me. I’m not thrilled with how it went, but believe it went as well as it could have in my situation with the knowledge I had. If there is a next time, all I can do is try to get more naturally-minded support from the beginning and continue educating myself about every aspect of what could go wrong. I think I spent too much time on what troubles interventions caused a perfectly normal birth instead of focusing on things that could go wrong and what to do then.
Thank you.
BTW, do you have a Boppy? I am loving mine SO much right now!
LOL. I told this to Mark (who thinks your children are adorable and teared up at the Gabe-balloon story) and he said we’ll have to take some videos soon for Gabe to play.
I do have a boppy. I love it. I’m still working out the whole using it with nursing part (I have two small pillows, maybe 14 inches square that I find really convenient to use).
Mainly I lay a receiving blanket over it (to stop her from sliding too far into it) and let Taylor hang out on the couch in it with me. It’s very helpful when she’s objecting to her pack n play – which apparently is going to be most of the day today. I think we may be hitting the 3 week growth spurt, she’s cluster feeding a lot – but we’re off the bottles and off setting the alarm to wake her up every 3 hours at night
. It’s so nice to have good news for a change.
I didn’t know fall babies were more prone to jaundice – although it makes sense with the shorter days…
Also, if his blood type is the same as yours, that can help the jaundice clear up faster (or not get as high) because it eliminates the blood incompatibilities.
I think you were very brave and patient during your labor, and I’m glad you’ve been strong about your crunchy beliefs. I had some… aggressive nurses at the hospital, too, and I was glad to be home when it was done.
Elias is a beautiful baby! I wish I lived closer because he looks so huggable!
Boppys are the bomb.
Sounds like you made good decisions throughout your labor, and of course, produced a beautiful, healthy baby which is the whole point of the enterprise.
Congratulations!
You have every right to mourn the fact that the birth didn’t go the way you wanted to but please don’t blame yourself. Try to remember that birth isn’t a contest with a prize to whoever had the best one – the only prize is the one you ended up with, and he sure is a gorgeous baby!
It amazes me how many LCs are so clueless.
Can I just say that I’m REALLY impressed that you’re online this quickly? And after a c-section, no less!
It sounds like you made very wise choices throughout. Early water breaking with a baby so high is just one of those things that there’s not much you can do about it, and without homebirth midwives to monitor I certainly would have wanted to be somewhere where I could be monitored too. You did well.
I think that even women who have perfectly natural births that go as they’d hoped usually still have a lot of emotional and physical baggage to work through afterwards. Birth, as beautiful as it is, can still be a very traumatic experience, and when it doesn’t go as hoped, grief for that loss is very natural, despite a healthy baby and all the happiness that comes with him. So be easy on yourself. It’s incredibly intense, especially in those first few months afterwards, but I think working through all of that is a big part of healing. You have a very good outlook already.
Oh, and it may be a good idea to stay clear of the natural childbirth message boards / communities for at least a little while.
I made that mistake shortly afterwards and ended up crying and crying because of some pretty insensitive comments from a few holier than thou, “if you didn’t have you’re baby unassisted in a hammock in the woods you’re not worthy” sorts. You did the right thing with the birth options you had. Like Sherry said above, it’s not a contest, despite those who try to make it one.
I’m so happy for your little family I could burst. Birth is a very powerful few days, but you’re going to have years and years to build from that and enjoy Elias.
I hope the nursing continues to go well. Oh, I have an unopened package of herbal “nursing mother’s tea” that I never needed to use. It’s supposed to increase milk supply. If you’d like me to send it, I could. Just drop me an e-mail with your address if you want it.
dawntreader AT fallingstar DOT net. Good luck with everything!