Our first week home: learning to listen to myself

Our first week home has been a dramatic but special one.  The biggest milestone we got through was how to feed our baby.  I began nursing in the hospital but our boy that began at 7lb. 4oz. lost over 9% of his weight by the time we brought him home.  Although it is normal to lose weight that first week, the doctors get concerned if the baby loses more than 10% and we were close.  Was I producing enough colostrum?  When was my milk going to come in?  Was I nursing enough?  We went home and sure enough my milk came in and we just kept trying. We kept close tabs on how often Joaquin peed and pooped and then I got a check in call from the nurse...I was already exhausted from nursing so often and knowing Joaquin wasn't meeting the required amounts of bathroom breaks.  I felt like the nurse was scolding me on the phone when I gave her my report and basically she made me feel like a bad mother as if I wasn't doing everything I could.  By the time she heard me crying at the end of our phone call she apologized and tried to sound sympathetic.  She made me call my pediatrician's office asap so they could help me set up a better feeding plan.  Luckily the nurse at the pediatrician was much nicer.  She told me it was hard for everyone beginning and it was just a bump I would get past.  However the new schedule was to nurse Joaquin every 2 hours from start time to start time and then pump in between.  This meant the only time I was with my son was when struggling to nurse and get him to latch on and make enough milk and then I would pump very little more while he was awake and then he would sleep the next 40 minutes and the vicious cycle repeated itself.   I just wanted time to play with him when he was awake. So...why was I nursing?  Why was I feeling deprived of seeing my son awake and just torturing the two of us for something I didn't even need to do?  I was doing it because I felt like I should and it was what everyone else was doing.  I was also saving money. These were all the wrong reasons. I get that there are antibodies you can only get in breast milk and it helps baby's immune system...but at the pediatrician today she assured me that some other studies are just not complete.  She mentioned how some studies show higher IQ's of those breast fed and then mentioned how those studies often compare suburbs to inner city and this is often affected by socio-economic status.  She said there are many more factors that go into your child's IQ besides breast milk such as how often you talk to your little one about the world like showing which tree is bigger when out on a walk or if you read to them often.  I am not discrediting the benefits of breast milk, I am just acknowledging that it is not for everyone.  I had a home nurse come and see me over the weekend and we talked this out.  She told me I needed to do what I wanted to do and not what everyone else wanted me to do.  What I wanted to do was use formula so she told me go ahead and stop the breast milk cold turkey if that's what I wanted.  The rest of that day was the best day I had with my baby yet!  I couldn't handle the stress of not knowing how much he was eating with breas milk and with formula I could see exactly how much.  Everyone around me wanted to help me but no one could help my baby eat or help me nurse so now with formula I can take turns with others and I get so much more play time with Joaquin when he is awake other than when he's eating!  It was the best decision I could have made.

Here's a photo of Joaquin resting/playing on my knees, he's awake! Although looking a little sleepy...ha!

Now for a little soap box...I had such a hard time with so many people telling me why I should nurse.  Even when I said I wanted to use formula, people would still say: well keep trying or what about both?  That just wasn't the solution for me.  The whole pregnancy was full of other people's opinions on why I needed a Dula or a midwife or a water birth...I don't even like taking baths, why would I like that?!  I just wanted to deliver in the hospital and take the drugs.  When my baby was breech, multiple people told me to get the version. They weren't in the doctors office listening to my 50-50 chances of it working with all the risks and pains involved.  So many women say birth and pregnancy is about you getting to make your own choices and not to let the doctors boss you around.  But my choice was to listen to doctors and I wanted to deliver in the hospital and although the c-section was not intentional, it really all worked out for the best!

Here we are going home!

Now JAG (Joaquin), JAG (Jesus) and RAG (my initials)  are home and adjusting to our new life.  This is only the beginning and I am so grateful even with the hardships.  I have a supportive husband and we have had plenty of visitors to help us out.  I can only imagine the months ahead, or weeks...or better yet let's start with days.

The ceasarean

How could I ever wrap my head around being cut open while I was awake?  I know I didn't have to look but was it really going to be pain free?  This procedure terrified me but I had to do it to deliver our breech baby.  As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I believe that worthy men in the church have Priesthood authority to act in the name of God here upon the earth.  I am so grateful for the night before the surgery when my husband could give me a Priesthood blessing with my mom at my side to comfort me for the next day.  Probably one of the most special experiences of our marriage so far.

The next morning, my mom, Jesus and I all headed to the hospital.  Luckily I had a great nurse who got me prepped and stayed with me and took care of the baby in the surgery.  My poor mom was more nervous than I and as she sat in the prep room with us, luckily the nurse asked if I wanted everyone in the room or if it should just be my husband.  I was able to say just my husband because my mom being stressed only added to the stress of my own. The nurse sensed that and told me that's why she asked me before going any further. Mom was able to come and say bye to me before I went into surgery and then she waited in the waiting room and was there after the baby was born.

Next they took me to get the epidural.  This was a somewhat painful shot in the back but mostly because it lasted for what felt like five long minutes putting it in!  However it was nothing I couldn't handle but the doctors worked it up to be so much more!  I had one nurse telling me to rest my head on her and she kept reminding me to breathe while the anesthesiologist was in my back telling me to listen to him and to arch this way or that!  It was like a big production when I wish they could have just given me the shot and not made it so dramatic and I would have been fine.  Next my husband arrived all prepped and looking adorable in his scrubs just like a doctor.  He held my hand and rubbed my head and reminded me I was ok as I was getting shot up with more drugs causing me to shake uncontrollably mostly in my arms.  This was scary but the kind anesthesiologist who sat by my head let me know all my reactions were normal and just part of the anesthetics.  I also began to feel very nauseous which wasn't fun.  However in spite of all that, can you believe there was no pain as they sliced me open?  I could feel them pushing or touching my stomach but it didn't hurt.  I didn't even know when they began the incision.  Jesus just sat there and stared at the whole procedure.   What a trooper but how disgusting!    Most people in our lives guessed the baby would be a girl and Jesus and I both had dreams of a baby girl but Jesus saw that baby come out and told me in a very surprised voice that it was a boy!  We both couldn't believe it!  Even the old wives tale of holding the wedding ring above my belly to see which way it swung failed us.  I always wanted my kids to have a big brother like I did and we are both so happy to have gotten our little boy!

Unfortunately I spent the whole day in nausea and throwing up so I could barely hold my new little baby.  Jesus did a great job of being there for him while I was so sick,  I just cannot hold my anesthetics especially morphine!  Anyone that visited us the first day kind of got the shaft as I was out of commission but they still got to welcome Joaquin to the world.  It was also very tough being in the hospital with nurses having to help me walk as the drugs wore off and help me go to the bathroom and clean up my bodily fluids.  I am very familiar with seeing family members in the hospital and helping them but never was it supposed to be me; I felt so disgusting as they had to clean me up!  Luckily each day got better and I even got in trouble one day for walking around too much when I was supposed to be resting and letting my incision heal.  Now that I'm home, it's even harder to just rest but I think I'm healing still each day.  The hardest part was not being able to take care of my baby in the beginning but I just keep reminding myself we have the rest of my life to bond.

Reflections on pregnancy

Has everyone realized that pregnancy takes up almost a year of your life?!  People say it's 9 months but the actual 40 weeks of pregnancy sounds more like ten months to me.  Being an elementary teacher and doing the math,  there typically are 4 weeks in a month and 4 times 10 equals 40 all equating to a 10 month pregnancy! Since there are only 12 months in a year this event really is time consuming and significant.  Throughout the pregnancy, I often wondered what I was like physically before.  How was my health?  Was it normal for me to feel constipated or nauseous or have a headache?  I thought I would never remember!  The funny thing is now that I have been un-pregnant for a week, I'm starting to feel like my old self again...slowly of course but the pain in my ribs from the baby's head and the pain in my back from the rib cage expanding has been gone and that helps me to feel a little more normal each day.

Overall I don't think my pregnancy was too bad although there were plenty of days it wasn't easy.  I consider myself lucky bypassing much sickness and other symptoms.  Things didn't get really hard until about the third trimester when little JAG's head felt stuck in my ribs causing lots of pain to sit at my desk all day, etc.  Let's be honest, because of this, I spent most days working on my laptop from my bed as I am an online teacher who works from home.   In addition to not having much to complain about, I also missed the fun stuff!  The one thing I always dreamed about being pregnant was to have cravings!  I was so excited to see what interesting things I would want to eat.  I even looked forward to desiring "pickles and ice cream" but sadly I had no cravings.  For a lot of the time I just wanted mashed potatoes, how boring!  My husband says I already order the weirdest thing on the menu every time we go out, so there really wasn't much room for me to get any more adventurous cravings than my normal eating habits.

Fast forward to 36 weeks pregnant.  At 36 weeks pregnant, I went to the doctor to be told that she thought my baby was still breech (hence that head in my ribs) and made me schedule an ultrasound to know for sure.  She then told me if the baby was indeed breech, which it was, I would need a c-section.  Whenever my husband and I had talked about writing a birth plan, I told him I really was ok with whatever the doctors wanted to do as long as I didn't need a c-section and all within an instant, the one thing I wanted was no longer an option.  Only 5% of babies are still breech at 36 weeks.  The doctors offered me the option to have a version where they physically try and turn the baby from the outside.  They also told me this was a painful procedure, could lead to an emergency c-section if the baby's heart rate is affected, works better if it's not a first pregnancy, and my placenta was in the front allowing even more room for risk.  All in all I had a 50% chance of this working.  I cried on the way home from the doctor's that day not knowing what to do.  My husband and I talked and decided the risks and the pains from the version procedure were not worth a 50-50 chance and so we scheduled the c-section for 39 weeks.  This may have been the most emotional week of the pregnancy although I did get to skip labor and pushing and this whole thing turned out to be a great decision for our family after all.  Obviously it was most important that we got our Joaquin in the safest way possible.

Our New JAG!

Although it would be sweet if my husband and I could say we upgraded to the latest 2013 Jaguar S-type automotive, our new JAG is way better!  Our new JAG is Joaquin Anthony Gonzalez born 11/11/12 at 9:01am weighing in at 7lb. 4 oz. and 20 inches long.  The initials "JAG" have been quite significant in my life over the past couple years.  It all began with my whirlwind romance with Jesus Alberto Gonzalez really sparking up in the summer of 2010.  We were married in March of 2011 and by default I became part owner of his JAGuar S-type automotive, what a lucky gal!  Now it's November 2012 and our first child has been born with these same special initials of JAG and to be honest, it wasn't even planned that way!

As lovely as this all sounds and really really is, I am going to bypass discussing any bumps in the road thus far including the couple times I crashed our JAG vehicle.  Never had I crashed a car until this one...Instead I am going to reflect on our new JAG and essentially our new life.  Stay tuned for reflections of the pregnancy, birth and our first week at home.