Tag: Baby

E’s Unconventional Conventional Birth

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E will be 2 years old in less than a month. In honor of that, here are some details about his birth.
I always thought it would be so cool to have the whole, water-breaking going into labor, rushing to the hospital with my pre-packed bag business, but both my kids were scheduled. E was a planned c-section. I woke up that morning feeling like I was going to throw up from nerves. Two years ago, I had this painful surgery, painful recovery, and then I have to do the exact same thing again. It was terrifying driving to the hospital knowing that in t-minus 3 hours I was going to be sliced open and have my baby cut out of me.
They checked me in and told me they were running behind. I was, honestly, a little relieved about that. I felt like I needed just a little bit more mental prep time. (MP is what my family calls it. Before you go to work, you have to have an hour of MP.) My family was there with me. Like parents, siblings, daughter. They were supposed to get there when I was in surgery, but because the hospital was running behind and my family was being super impatient, they came and waited with me in the pre-op room. The nurse got me ready, and I lied about my weight. Just by a few pounds. Who doesn’t? You feel at your worst, and then they ask you how much you weigh. They should just give you a paper to write it down on. Somehow saying it out loud is so much worse.
Finally my nurse came in and said it was time to go to the operating room. I asked her where the stretcher was, and she said we would just walk to the OR, and she could hold my IV bag. It’s terrifying enough to get cut open, but at least wheel me in! Walking myself into the OR was like the walk of death. The frustrating part is that the husband can’t come in until after you are all ready to go. So, I walk in the freezing OR and they are all just talking, like this is so normal and not terrifying. I know I have used terrifying a lot in this, but that is what it was, terrifying. They told me to hop up onto the table. “Hop up.” I felt like I was a little kid at a doctors appointment. “Just hop on up and we’ll stick this giant needle in your spine.”
They got that over with, and gave me some information about what was going to happen. Who the baby’s nurse would be, etc. They also asked me if it were okay if they had a high schooler in on it. She was thinking about being a doctor. “The more the merrier,” I said. They started giving me the medicine in the spinal block and warned me that a small percentage of women have blood pressure drops with it, and if I am one of those women, they would just give me a drug to counteract it. “I guarantee you I am one of those women,” I told them. On a good day my blood pressure is 90/60. I had a doctor tell me, “You’ll live forever with blood pressure like that, but on a side note, do you pass out a lot?” The answer is yes. I blackout a lot. That is a tangent though. Back to the story. They were about to start cutting and they still hadn’t sent for Eric. I asked them if he could come and join, and they said, “Oh yeah, the husband. Someone go get him.” He finally was there and they started. My blood pressure did drop, and they did give me the drug. About 6 times. I would start to fall asleep and they would get it back up. They got Baby E out quickly, and he started to cry. After the fear surrounding the Cholestasis*, it was joy hearing my little baby cry.  It felt surreal to finally see this baby, that we spent the last month protecting. Doing ultrasounds, NST’s, watching him.

Side note: Did you know they take out some of your organs sometimes during a c-section? I had heard tales, but didn’t think there was truth to them. I started to get shoulder pain and the doctor ever so casually told me it was extra air intake due to a certain organ being on my stomach. Eric was engrossed in all of this. He had asked me previously, if this time could he not stay by my head and maybe get closer to the action. He just felt like last time he didn’t get as good of a look as he would have liked. I told him no, obviously, that his number one duty was to stay with me and keep me from being terrified.
After they whisked the Baby E away and brought him to my waiting family, they started to stitch me up. They asked me how I was doing, I told them bored. I just wanted to get out of there and go hold my baby. It takes like 3 minutes to get the baby out and then you have to sit there for 20 minutes while they stitch you up. They finished, and transferred me to the stretcher. The doctor came over and shook my hand, and said, “Congratulations” and walked out of the OR to her next waiting c-section. I’d had surgery before I had my babies, but I can’t say until that moment, that I had ever had the good fortune of a doctor shaking my hand afterward right there in the OR.
The hospital stay was good. The nurses were nice, even the one who hid the formula in a cabinet because she did not approve of my supplementing with formula. I’ve had good experiences with my c-sections. Definitely not something, I’d choose, but my babies were healthy and so was I through it all.

 

*http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cholestasis-of-pregnancy/basics/definition/con-20032985

Introducing Baby E.

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So. I have a memory. Baby E was three months old. My sister and her husband were over for dinner. Baby E started to cry and my husband rushed over to calm him down. E was not an easy baby. He cried. ALL THE TIME. My sister remarked that his soothing method seemed quite complicated, and expressed some sympathy for our situation. Eric quickly reassured her that it actually wasn’t all that bad. To get E to stop crying he just had to physically vibrate his rock n’ play a certain rhythm with an insane intensity and he would stop crying while he was doing that. This was one of those moments when you realize how crazy your life has become. It was absurd what we had to do to keep our baby from crying, but it seemed so normal. It was like looking at some other family. I started laughing at the absurdity of it all. With no sleep, I couldn’t explain to them why I was laughing. They thought I finally cracked.

I heard tales of crying babies. I had plenty of friends who had “the crier.” I was terrified of this happening to me. How could I possible deal with a baby crying for 3-4 hours a night?

Before both babies, I equipped myself with my preventative colic gear. Special bottles, gripe water, and anti-gas drops. Everything I needed.

When E was two weeks old, he woke up and started to cry. I was a little surprised, but it was nothing that I couldn’t handle. I swaddled him and put him down for a nap, but he would not sleep. I tried again an hour later. Nothing. The rest of the day. Nothing. The next day, E started to cry more. Everyday when I woke up I thought it couldn’t get worse than the day before. It did. I tried all my special remedies. When they didn’t help, I downloaded sleep book after sleep book to get him on a good pattern. I tried those 5 S’s. I shushed that perfectly swaddled burrito boy until I was blue in the face. I mimicked the womb, helping him feel comfortable in his fourth trimester outside of the womb. Nothing. I stalked the Mommy Forums. I tried a trick they suggested where you hold him as tight as you can to your chest and don’t let him move. Eventually, “they” say, he will feel so safe that he will fall asleep in your arms. Yeah. Didn’t work.

Everyday I had a new theory on why Baby E was crying. I was so sure every time that this would be the cure. I would call my mom and tell her “how obvious it was and how did I not realize this before?” I went to the doctor. Probably colic they said.

I felt so helpless to help my baby. I couldn’t relate to him because he just cried all day long. I couldn’t do my basic job, which was to nurture my baby and make him happy.

It was never-ending. I felt like after so many failed methods, and doctor appointments that nobody could help my situation. After all my research, help finally came. Doctor Ferber.  I know his methods are controversial, but it was actually nothing in his method. It was a “when everything else fails” chapter. He said basically, when everything else fails, you have to consider a medical condition. There was nothing super crazy in what he said, but none of the other books had that as an option. They swore by their methods and if they weren’t working, then it had to be colic, which you can do nothing about.

I took him to a pediatric gastroenterologist. He was able to identify several things, including food allergies. Milk and soy being two of the highly sensitive ones. He gave us a hypoallergenic formula to use. He added in medicines for his other conditions. I was doubtful that any of it would work, but it was worth a shot.

The next day. Silence. He napped and he slept through the night.

E smiled the next day for the first time. After four long months, I finally felt all was well in the world again.