February

February 19, 2002

We had a nurse come from a home visit yesterday and both Natalie and I got weighed. I've already lost 22 pounds - yay! But even better, Natalie weighed in at 7 pounds 2 1/2 ounces; that's above her birth weight, but more importantly, it means she's been getting enough to eat which was a big concern of mine. She hasn't had any formula or supplemented breast milk now since Friday night, so that makes me feel a lot better.

Phil got an office rented last week. It's going to be right here in Gahanna, just down the road from our house. He'll be moving in there sometime in March, so he'll be able to spend most of his time during these early weeks with us at home. Hopefully he'll still get work done. :-)

I've started posting pictures to Ofoto from the digital camera pictures we took. They will take longer to load up then the pictures in my other albums, but that's because they are bigger images so that prints can be made from them. You can order pictures right off of Ofoto, the prints they make look really nice. They aren't all on there yet, but I think we have about 30 up there.

And now the marathon, longest journal entry I've ever written:

February 16-17, 2002 (yes it took me two days to write this, that's life with a newborn)

I just can't believe that Natalie is one week old today. How is it possible that it was just one week ago today that she came into our world and changed everything? All the days are melding into one for me now, so it's hard to keep track of things. It seems like I have to ask several times per day -- what is the date today? It's been a real blessing to be able to have my mom with me all week. She's been taking care of me while I take care of Natalie. I don't think I would have made it through this last week with my sanity intact (as much as it is!) without her. It's definitely been one of the hardest, if not the hardest, week of my life, but also the most wonderful. Already I can't imagine what it was like without her. Often we just sit and stare at her beautiful face, and in the same minute I think, I have absolutely no idea what to do with this person, this completely dependent stranger, and then the next thought is it feels like I've known her sweet face all my life. We're still trying to decide who she looks like, but it seems like when we've figured one feature out, the next day she looks different already. We think that, as of right now anyway, she has my eyes (except we think they might turn blue), Phil's eyelashes, Phil's rosebud mouth shape, my face shape, Aunt Julie's hair color, Aunt Nanny's nose, Phil's hands and wrists but definitely my fingernails (yay!), Phil's feet and toes (but my odd shaped little toe), and I'm pretty sure she has my skin. Sorry about that one, sweetie. Get ready for people to make fun of your tendency to turn beet red at the slightest exertion or coughing spell, and prepare yourself to look like an 80 year old granny after five minutes in the tub or pool because of our wrinkly palms and feet. Oh, and I don't know yet if she got my legs (and my mom's and Grandma Hedrick's) but they are definitely very long! She has such long legs and long hands and feet and fingers, but we had known that from the ultrasound we had at 21 weeks!

It's been a really rough week. I haven't had time to do much of anything else except attempt to breastfeed and when not doing that, use the breast pump. Until I saw a lactation consultant on Thursday, I was using a manual pump and after attempting to breastfeed for over an hour, I'd then pump for an hour or more so I was quickly becoming very exhausted. . Natalie is a sleepy baby, caused by probably a few things rolled into one. Most people would probably say it's a blessing for her to sleep so much, because then mom and dad get their sleep, but when you've spent the last seven days agonizing over your newborn baby's health because she refuses to wake up enough to eat, it's not been a blessing. It's been very hard on us. According to our doctor and the few different lactation consultants we've been working with, her feeding problems are because she doesn't have the energy to eat. She has (had, it's starting to go away today finally) a moderately bad case of jaundice, which made her sleepy so she doesn't have the energy to latch on and suck, and even when she does she falls asleep within a few sucks. We had her bilirubin levels tested on Thursday and they were at 13, which was pretty high but our doctor said she would be okay and not need the light therapy unless her level was 15. It seems to be going away a little now, she's starting to pink up a bit. The jaundice might have been caused by her being a little early, but I'm just so glad she held out as long as she did; I can't imagine what kinds of things we'd be dealing with right now if she had been born on January 9th! The jaundice is probably the biggest thing, but also she has a small mouth so she doesn't open up wide enough to suck. Adding that to the fact that, very frustratingly, my milk didn't even start coming in until day 5, so she didn't get any benefit at all from putting forth the energy and effort to feed. When she was born she weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce, but when we left the hospital she was down to 6 pounds 6 ½ ounces, almost a 10% body weight loss. We had to supplement every feeding with formula, and that caused her to start refusing to breastfeed since eating from the bottle took a lot less effort. It's starting to go a little better now because her jaundice is going away, so she's waking up at least enough to eat, plus the lactation consultant gave me a nipple shield to use so that she could more easily latch on, just like if she was latching onto the plastic of a bottle. Now I've got to start to try weaning her off that because extended use of a nipple shield can cause a decrease in milk production (in the meantime we also rented an electric double pump to help my milk supply to increase too, so I pump for 15 minutes after every feeding) but at least in the meantime, she is finally starting to eat. I guess I'll write more about this later. I should start from the beginning of everything, the labor and delivery of our beautiful little girl!

Click here to read Phil's version of the birth story.

Natalie's birth story

Thursday, February 7th was the last time I posted an update to my journal. I had called the doctor's office to tell them about my excessive swelling and continual contractions, so they had me go into St. Ann's labor and delivery. Once again we were showed to Triage Room 1, a room that was beginning to feel like a second home. They checked me and I was dilated to about 3, a little more effaced, so the nurse told us to go for an hour walk around the hospital. That was hard on its own; I had gone to the hospital right before eating lunch, so my stomach was already empty and I wasn't aloud to eat just in case I was going into labor, so every time we walked by any food it drove me nuts. Phil hadn't eaten either, so he got an egg sandwich and tried to eat it quickly. I wanted him to have his strength in case this was going to really be it! We plodded around the hospital floors for an hour, and the contractions got a lot stronger during this time. There were lots of times I had to stop and lean against a wall rail or Phil's arm and do some slow breathing. When we got back after an hour, I didn't know if I had dilated anymore, but I was definitely exhausted and my feet were even more swollen! They checked me and I was dilated to 4! Good, but not good enough. They sent us on another hour walk. We started getting to know all the nurses pretty well by this point, plus we now definitely know our way around St. Ann's! The only hallways I couldn't go down were those with sick patient rooms; the smell was too much for me because right away it brought me back to Nan's hospital experience and my phobia of hospitals. As long as we stayed around the babies in the maternity floor or the general hospital areas though, I was okay. But boy did my feet hurt after doing all that walking! When I got back they checked me again, and I hadn't dilated anymore. They called Dr. Teague and she told them to go ahead and send me home with a sleeping pill. It was SO frustrating to be sent home after all of that, and being dilated to 4 which is more dilated than a lot of women come into the hospital to have a baby, but it was for the best because I hadn't slept well in about three days with all the contraction pain I'd been having. So Phil and I left the hospital and went to Red Robin for a good, filling dinner of cheeseburgers and fries (I now hadn't eaten in about seven hours) and then we went home. Phil painted my toenails, which is something we had been trying to find time for him to do for a couple weeks (I wanted painted toenails for labor) but hadn't gotten around to, but this time we knew labor was coming this weekend so we had to do it now! I then added the little update to my webpage and then went to bed with my sleeping pill at about 9:30. I woke up the next morning (Friday) feeling very refreshed but definitely still having strong contractions! I didn't time them but just like the several days before, they just seemed to be coming all the time yet not "regularly". For lunch Phil went out and got us Taco Bell: a very big mistake that I would come to regret by night's end! At about 2:00 I called my doctor's office and Jane (her nurse) told me to get a sweet drink, lay down on my left side and do fetal movement counts. She wanted me to feel 10 movements within the hour. So I got a big glass of cherry KoolAid and lay down on the couch, and proceeded to count only one movement in the entire hour. I got up and went to the bathroom, only to see something I had been waiting to see for a few weeks a little bit of reddish mucus (I hate that word) that showed finally maybe things were progressing. I got some more KoolAid and then sat down for another few minutes to see if I would feel any more movements, and I felt one more. At 4:00 I called the office back to talk to Jane. By then, since it was Friday, the office was closed so the call was directed to the answering service. When I told her I needed to talk to Jane, she told me she was sorry but the office was closed, I should call back on Monday. I responded, Jane told me to call into the office at 4 with fetal movement counts and I'm in labor so I need to get through to her! She said, "Oh, oh, no problem! I'll put you right through!" When I talked to Jane and told her I had only felt two movements in over an hour, and plus I had gotten the "bloody show", she put me on hold to go tell Dr. Teague, then she told me to go on back to St. Ann's! She told me "If they send you home this time, I'll buy you lunch, because you're going to have this baby!" So, Phil and I drove back to St. Ann's and back up to Labor and Delivery.

When we got there, they were cleaning out Triage Room 1 again and were going to put me in there to check my cervix, but it was taking a long time to get it all cleaned up and I was standing there very uncomfortable, so they went ahead and directed me to Birthing Room 4. I asked about rooms 1 and 5, the rooms with the hot tub and the shower, but they were both being used. They said the room with the shower had a woman who was about to deliver so I might be able to get in there in a little while, but for now I would just be in room 4. I was disappointed, but I did ask for a birthing ball so at least I'd have that to use. The nurse came in and checked me, and unbelievably, I was still just a little past 4 dilated! After all that! She went to call Dr. Teague, and then came back in and said we were going to go ahead and induce, it was apparent my body was not cooperating. They hooked me up to the external monitors and then called in the resident to break my water. At 6:30 pm, my water was broken. That was a really strange feeling. It didn't hurt since I was so far dilated already, but then the gush of warm water was just an odd feeling, and I remember thinking, well, this is it! My baby's warm cozy living space was now forever removed so there was no turning back now. They started the pitocin drip too, to try to get my contractions to get to the level that they would actually do something. At about 7 my mom showed up and the contractions were just starting to get going. The birthing ball was wonderful to use. I sat on that, leaning up against the bed, and Phil stood behind me and rubbed my back. When the contractions came, rocking back and forth on the ball helped a lot. Unfortunately, since I had the pitocin, I had to be on the monitors continuously and they wouldn't stay put since I was moving around on the ball. The nurse told me I'd have to have the internal monitor, which really upset me because it looked so barbaric when we saw, during our childbirth class, the monitor that they literally have to screw into your baby's head. There was nothing I could do about it though, I had to be on the monitors and the external monitor wasn't staying in place. It wasn't even finding any of my contractions; according to the screen, I shouldn't have been feeling anything at all. Ha! So I had to get back in bed, which is where I stayed the rest of the time. Also, the idea of using a shower or tub was now out too. I would be delivering Natalie in Birthing Room 4. Putting in the internal monitor was really painful too, plus I think they decided to wait until I was in the middle of a contraction to dig around in there. It was awful. When it was over, we could hear the heartbeat really well (a beeping now instead of the shwoosh, swoosh of the external ultrasound monitor) and it was tracking all of my contractions. I asked if there was any way it could fall out and we'd have to go through that again, and the nurse said yep, that was a possibility. I couldn't imagine going through that again. Now I felt like I had tubes and cords going in and out of me everywhere, and I knew my "birth plan" was right out the window. When they checked me while putting in the monitor, I was still only dilated to about 5 or so, so they increased the pitocin and so my pain dramatically increased quickly too. The low point was probably when the pain got so bad that I finally lost my lunch. Phil had gone down to the café to quickly get something to eat (bad timing) but fortunately my mom was there so she was the lucky one to catch my Taco Bell and cherry KoolAid. At about 9:30, I decided I wanted to accept a drug to take the edge off, so I got a shot of Nubain. For about 30 or 40 minutes, the contractions became tolerable again, and I thought, well, if I start to progress at a good rate, I could do this. I could definitely still feel the pain of the contractions, but the Nubain just took the edge off. It was for less than 40 minutes though. Soon the medication started wearing off and my contractions were really, really strong. When they checked me again, I still wasn't progressing at a good rate. It was going to be an even longer night, and I was beginning to get really exhausted (afterall, I'd now been in active labor since the day before). The good bit of news was that the baby was moving down though, so at least I knew even if I wasn't dilating, that she was easily moving down into my pelvis, so I knew they probably wouldn't have to do a c-section even though I wasn't dilating very fast. It was just going to be a long labor. At 11:30 I just couldn't take it anymore. Between every contraction my body would start to shake violently; I was completely exhausted and there was still no end in sight since I wasn't even dilated to 7 yet. There was a lady in the room next to me at about the same stage, and she was with the anesthesiologist getting an epidural, so the nurse asked me if I'd like to consider it. I was still really torn about it, because I did NOT want to slow down this labor anymore, but at the same time, my body was really starting to shut down on me. It had just been too long. I told her to let him come in and talk to me when he was done with the other lady. By the time he got there, I don't know how much later, I had already decided. The pain of my contractions was coming nonstop. There were several times that they never went back down, I would just have 4 or 5 in a row with no break, so I couldn't even catch a breath. One of the very few details I remember from this whole time was when Phil said to me during a contraction after I was crying "it hurts!!" he said, "I know it does", meaning, of course, he could tell I was really in pain, and I knew that's what he meant even at the time too, but I responded with "NO YOU DON'T!" :-) That was as bad as I got with yelling at Phil though, I never said anything I regret now. :-) The pain was so bad that I remember it feeling like my insides were turning out. The anesthesiologist came in and they started telling me about it and I remember saying something to the effect of "okay, please stop talking" (I couldn't stand hearing voices droning on and on by that point). I didn't want to hear anymore about it, I just wanted to get some pain relief. I was so nervous about it though, because I'm so squeamish about my back with the scoliosis. Plus even with the contractions coming nonstop, I had to be completely still while he put it in. That was really hard, but I leaned up against Phil and tried to breathe through them as best I could, and soon he was done. I leaned back on my bed and started feeling the epidural take affect really quickly. It was a really odd feeling; I could still feel the contractions and my body was still shaking nonstop, but I felt somewhat removed from the pain. It was wonderful, and I don't regret getting it now for anything. I don't remember much more from that point on, other than Phil, Mom and I sat there and talked and I started to actually feel human again. Though I could still feel the contractions, I was able to relax, and I think that helped my body to finally progress too. They checked me a few times, and finally, I was dilated to 10. I could definitely feel, even through the epidural, that it was time to push. I felt a LOT of pressure, like I had to go to the bathroom really bad. By this time, a much nicer nurse, Beth, had come in (they had to call in someone else since me and the woman in the next room were at just about the same point) and I really liked her a lot. Maybe it was just because I'd gone through the most painful part with the other lady, but she really annoyed me. I really liked Beth though. Anyway, she told me to try a test push to see how long she should wait to call Dr. Teague. She got me into position and with the next contraction told me to push. I pushed three times through that contraction and didn't make much progress, so she said she'd wait a bit to wake up Dr. Teague. Phil then reminded me about something we had learned during lamaze class, which I had forgotten because I wasn't aloud to practice pushing since I had been in preterm labor. He reminded me that when I push I should pretend that I have a seatbelt over my belly and to try to "pop" it off of me using my abdomen. A few contractions later, Beth came in and said we'd try another test push. This time I pushed using Phil's suggestion, and I only got one push in that time (instead of the set of three) and Beth was yelling at me to "stop pushing!!" and she ran to call Dr. Teague. Apparently my technique was much better that time and the baby was coming quickly. While we were waiting for Dr. Teague to get there, it was all I could do not to push, I could feel so much pressure. I'm really glad about that too, because lots of times when you get an epidural you don't have any desire to push. While we waited for her to show up, Natalie's heart rate started to go up really high, to 180, so I had to lay on my left side and they gave me an oxygen mask to get more air to her. I don't know how bad it was, but everyone was really monitoring it closely. Finally I saw Dr. Teague walk through the door. Apparently (I was unaware of this of course!) when she came into the area she heard the woman in the room next to me pushing and mom saw her run frantically into that room, thinking she was missing it. When she saw it wasn't me, she then calmly strolled into my room! She walked in, got all scrubbed up and got me set up. The nurse was on my right, Phil was on my left, and my mom ran the video camera from behind me (so nothing would be taped from a bad angle). One thing I really did like though, is that the room had a big mirror on the ceiling that was aimed so that I could see the whole thing as it happened. I think it was really motivating to be able to see the progress I was making with each push, and it was so amazing to see her head for the first time. I pushed about three times and suddenly between contractions, she started coming out all on her own! She'd been trying to get out for exactly a month, so I guess she decided she finally had enough and was going to come meet us. A few more pushes and she was out, at 4:20 am. She didn't look anything like what I had expected a newborn to look like, I had prepared myself with all the descriptions of what a newborn would look like, squished and purple and bloody and such, but she was just so absolutely beautiful. She was completely perfect and so pretty. I was just in awe of her. They put her on my tummy and I got to look at her and touch her all over for a few minutes while we waited for the placenta to come out. When it did (and I got to see that too), Dr. Teague clamped off her cord and then Phil went around to her side to cut it. He said it wasn't nearly as tough to cut through as he had been expecting. After that, they took her away to the corner of the room to get her cleaned up and checked out. Her apgar scores were 8 and 9. I remember hating this time, all I could see was the nurse and mom and Phil standing around the baby so I couldn't see Natalie. I just wanted to see my baby! Meanwhile, Dr. Teague had to stitch me up. I didn't have an episiotomy but I did tear a little, toward the front. I had asked that I not be cut and just tear naturally, because all research has shown that you tear less when you aren't cut (like the difference between the way cloth tears when you rip it versus when you make a cut into it first). So she did have to stitch me up and it's been really sore in healing, but I still think it isn't as bad as it would have been if I would have gotten cut. After that was all finished and they were done with Natalie, they bundled her up and gave her back to me. We took a few pictures and then they left us alone for about an hour to get acquainted. Phil and I mostly just sat and stared at our newborn, beautiful little girl. After that time, Phil left with Natalie to go to the nursery to get bathed and weighed, and they got me cleaned up and ready to move to my postpartum room (room 278.) That's about it. After that, Natalie stayed with us and we all slept until my breakfast came at about 8.

After that, it's pretty much all been a blur. I have trouble even knowing what day of the week it is. Monday was really hard on me because I think baby blues hit me pretty hard, for one, plus we were all so exhausted from coming home. I definitely did not feel ready to come home, since I hadn't even gotten her to eat yet. I really now see the benefit in longer hospital stays. On Tuesday we went to see Dr. Kern and found out she'd gained a little bit of weight (thanks only to the formula I was feeding her, my milk didn't even start coming in until day 5, and even then I couldn't get her to eat since by then she was used to the ease of the bottle) and her jaundice was starting to get a little worse too. (We had seen the jaundice showing up the last day in the hospital but they didn't think it was bad enough to get a bilirubin test done then.) On Thursday we had another appointment with Dr. Kern. She now weighed in at 6 pounds 13 ounces, which was a great increase, but now she had started turning really yellow, and she was really sluggish. He told us to go to Children's to get the bilirubin test done. When they pricked her heal, she didn't even jump she was so sleepy. That day we also went to see another lactation consultant, Bonnie, at Mt. Carmel East and she was really helpful. I got set up with a rented Medela electric double pump to try to get my milk supply going since Natalie wasn't sucking hard enough to get it going. The past couple days it's gotten a lot better and her jaundice is almost gone now, so when she wakes up to feed it's not so hard to keep her going. The biggest thing now is that Natalie has gotten used to breastfeeding with me using the breast shields so she has more to latch onto, so I need to call Bonnie back tomorrow to ask her how I can now wean her off of those. (They can cause your milk supply to decrease because they also slow down milk flow.) Friday night was really hard because she decided to feed CONSTANTLY from 8:30 until about 2:30 in the morning. Nonstop eating. She must have gained about 7 ounces alone that night with all she ate (from me and from bottles, I just couldn't keep up with her demand that night), and it was really tiring for me. Last night (it's Sunday now, see, this is how my days are going, I started this on Saturday and now it's Sunday) I was worried she would have another marathon session but apparently she just was making up for lost time on Friday and she was finally really hungry! Last night was just fine, she pretty much wakes up to eat about every three hours now. Sometimes she eats for a good hour or more though, which is very exhausting for me, but other times she just does about twenty minutes and then I pump for the next 15 minutes.

Overall it's been a really exhausting week but I think Natalie is starting to get feeling better so I hope her feeding will come along now too. Phil and I still just sit so often and stare at her beautiful face. I don't yet know what to do with this perfect little person, but I'm learning more about her every day. I think it's been just as rough a week for her too, it's been hard work for her to learn how to eat when all she's wanted to do is sleep because she hasn't felt well. We've just been praying over her a whole lot; we know God is watching out for her as well as us.