Tuesday, July 24, 2012

6 Weeks

Kaylee! You are 6 weeks old today!! How quickly time is flying by! These days are honestly the best days of my life. How I love our morning chats full of smiles, our tummy time, reading you stories, and playing music during carpet time. Oh Kaylee, I don't even mind when you spit up in my hair right after I get out of the shower because you always like the way I look and I am sure you think my hair smells much better with regurgitated milk splattered in it


Things You Love: Looking around! You are so curious about the world. Shadows, sucking your fist which you discovered around 5 weeks, snuggling, and nursing. You love pretty much anything your father does! He thinks of the craziest games that I would never think of. The other day you were hungry so you were sticking out your little tongue he kept trying to catch it. I thought it would annoy you, but instead you flashed him some of the cutest smiles


Things You dislikeWaking up which requires a lot of grunting, stretching, and funny faces.Having gas which I never found fun either. 

My favorite thing about this age: Although you are still tiny and snuggly the newborn in you disappeared and you now seem like a baby to me. You are curious about everything around you and always want to see what is going on. Watching you figuring out the world around you is so fun to watc. Also, the smiles and coos are showing up more often and I have to admit that it is pretty cool!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Cloth Bottom

Quick side note: I did not buy newborn cloth diapers because I though I might need some time to get acclimated to motherhood before requiring myself extra loads of laundry. It took a little longer than expected for my little Peanut to hit 10lbs. She was born at 6lbs 14oz and got chunky quickly- 8lbs 4 oz by 2 weeks, but I kinda thought we would be in cloth at 2 weeks prior to knowing her birth weight.

So I am not going to do a big review on the types of cloth I do (maybe some other post or feel free to ask if you are interested) instead I will tell you a little story....

None of my friends cloth diaper despite the fact that most of my friends are crunchy (I decided I like this word more than kinda hippyish). When I tell them I am/going to cloth diaper their response is usually something that involves both the word "eewwww" and "poop" (said in a disgusted voice). So for everyone that finds cloth gross because you come in contact with poop let me put the whole cloth diaper poop thing into perspective.

About 2 weeks ago my little Peanut had a disposable diaper on (that is now sitting in a landfill somewhere and will continue to be sitting in a landfill when my great grandchild is wearing diapers)! We were living our merry little life when all of the sudden I realized little princess pooped. She had a dress on so changing her was quick and easy. I set her in her crib so I could wash my hands and as I was returning to her nursery I just so happened to stroke the back of my pants....wait a minute...what was that? I had a big smear of baby poop on the butt of my pants. How you ask? Who the hell knows!!?? The disposable diaper obviously did not contain my princess' poop and maybe it leaked out the side avoiding her dress and dripped from my inner leg when she was on my lap, but honestly this is a life mystery I still can't figure out! So no big deal, I ripped off my jeans that really were almost as poopy as my daughters diaper and changed when it dawned on me....where was I sitting?? I ran to the living room to find a large yellow (breastfed baby poop is yellow) circle of poop on the rug. Oh shit! That, my friends,was really fun cleaning off!

So basically my point is when you have a baby they poop and when they poop you clean it. It is not like disposables make the poop disappear. And sometimes disposables leak..on the carpet, in the carseat, in the crib, you name it! Even if you have a leak proof disposable (which I don't believe exists) baby can still poop during bath time or right after you remove their diaper to change it or while naked waiting to be weighed at the doctor (happened with my friend's baby). So when new moms find I throw my disposable diapers in the washing machine and they give me that ewwww poop line I have to laugh to myself and think...you just wait!

BTW loving cloth so far!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

How CF Effects Motherhood Part 1

I wish I could say CF has no effect on motherhood, but as we all know CF is a huge part of our lives and so of course it isn't going to quietly step aside for the birth of a child. Luckily, most of the ways it negatively impacts life has no negative effect on Kaylee although I am sure the dynamics keep changing as the child grows older. Here are the 4 biggest annoyances with CF while trying to mother.

Treatments
So all new moms are tired and sleep deprived, it comes with the territory. The thing mothers don't tell you when they warn you that you will never sleep again is that you get a mothering high which makes you able to function off basically no sleep. I swear if for any other reason I didn't get more than 2 hours sleep at a time for a month I would be dead. Seriously, I would die! Somehow motherhood makes you a little bit like superwoman and I am still alive. Okay, back too CF and lack of sleep. So everyone says sleep when baby sleeps. Great advice except you have to live life too. You have to eat (and you know we really need to eat!) and you need to shower (trust me on this) and you need to stare at your baby for several hours a day (because hell you made something pretty amazing so why not!). These are all things ALL women deal with, but tag on a few hours of treatments and pretty much every hour your baby is asleep you are busy! I would get at least 2 more naps a day if it wasn't for treatments. *yawn*

Enzymes

I can't tell you how many times I sat down to a meal, popped my enzymes, was about to eat and little princess decided she was pretty hungry as well. I have no idea the negative effects of taking enzymes and then not eating, but as of now I am still alive and my intestines haven't died off so I guess it is okay. I now take half a dose when I start a meal and then if it seems like I can eat most of it before little princess needs me I take the rest.

Startling

This is my least favorite. So when I was pregnant many CF women told me their babies didn't even flinch when they coughed since they were so used to it in the womb. Not so, with little Kaylee. Her little startle reflex got a lot of use during the first few weeks. Eventually she wouldn't startle when she was on me and coughed, but would startle if someone else was holding her. My uneducated theory is that she could feel my large pre-cough inhale and prepared for it, and when others were holding her it caught her by complete surprise. Now at 5 weeks for the most part she ignores my cough. I even do my treatments with her nearby, but every once in a while when she is sleeping on me and I cough she will let out a little whine or startle. Poor baby!

Four

I know I had a fourth when I started writing this, but somehow it escaped me. I blame my forgetfulness on the sleep deprivation...


Click  here for Part 2  and here for Part 3 here.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

1 Month

I can't believe it has been a whole entire month since Kaylee came into our lives! I realize I have totally neglected my blog, but a snuggly little someone likes to distract me from my blogging. So here is a quick update on us.

  • Kaylee now smiles which melts my heart into a big puddle every time she does it! She is most smiley in the morning. In fact, this morning we had a little cuddle on the couch and we were chatting it up and she threw about 5 smiles my way. There is literally nothing better in the world than your baby's smile.
  • Kaylee had her first play date yesterday with a 2 1/2 months old. Although the day consisted of the mommies chatting there was a little squeal fest that happened between the babies.
  • Kaylee is making a bunch of sounds now, but my favorite is her little owl sound, "whooo" So cute.
  • Kaylee still has yet to really cry. I swear I was given the easiest baby ever (knock on wood). She grunts and wiggles when she has gas, when she is hungry she sticks her tongue out of her mouth then roots and if for some reason I haven't given her food yet she lets out a loud mew. When she is overtired she wants to nurse (tongue comes out to let me know) and then passes out soon after latching. She lets me know what she wants, but she really doesn't cry. To this day we have never had her cry and not know why and I think the longest she has cried was a few minutes when she really wanted out of her carseat.
  • She HATES pacifiers and gags when we try to give them to her, as in she gags if they even touch her lips! She can be slightly dramatic!
She is the love of our lives and I can't even picture what my life was like before her. I have only been a mommy for one month and yet I feel like she has been a part of me forever.


Saturday, July 7, 2012

Kaylee's Birth Story

This will be long, but Kaylee's birth was the most amazing day of my life and I don't want to leave out any details. I want to burn every single minute of the day into my memory because I never want to forget the day I met my daughter. It was honestly the most beautiful experience I have ever been through and even 3 weeks out my husband and I talk about some aspect of her birth at least once a day. Everyone is so fearful of childbirth, of the pain, of the unknown. I never felt that fear which I believe made the experience much more enjoyable. I think having CF has taught me that we are much stronger than we give ourselves credit for and somehow no matter how challenging something may seem we always pull through. Besides everyone came to the world this way so it must be doable, right?


The night of the 11th (Monday) I went to prenatal yoga as I do every Monday. I was having some Braxton hicks throughout the week and was told the past Wednesday I was 1-2cm and 70% effaced. I was beyond excited to meet my little girl and since we were only a few days away from her due date I decided to go all out and try to get this baby into the world. After yoga I went for my usual 30 minute walk and then was inspired to weed the garden which required me to squat for quite some time. After all that activity I felt nothing! Not even a Braxton hick so I came to terms that my baby was not ready to come into the world yet. Boy, was I wrong! 


Around 2:00am I started waking to a few contractions here and there. They were strong enough to wake me up, but not painful. By 5:30am they seemed to become more regular, but still not very painful and I was able to sleep through them. At this point I started to wonder if this was the beginning of real labor. By 8:00am I couldn't sleep very well anymore and decided to get up and eat and drink to make sure I wasn't in false labor. After eating I went back to bed to rest and save energy, but sleep didn't last long and I soon needed to breath through some contractions and started using the yoga positions that are meant to open the pelvis and allow the baby to descend. If this was real labor I wanted to help baby along as much as I could. I used this time to talk to my baby. I told her not to be scared about the changes happening and that she would soon be in my arms. It allowed me to remember the purpose of my labor and focus on the exciting part of labor rather than the upcoming pain. I closed my eyes when I felt a contraction and used the pain to visualize how my body was working to bring my baby into the world. I also tried to focus on where I felt the pain and pictured that part of my body in orange. I wanted to acknowledge the pain and allow myself to visualize the purpose of my pain.

Before long the contractions got harder and were about 8 minutes apart. As the contractions got harder I found the only way for me to be comfortable was to grab the base of my belly and walk! I was starting to get excited and my husband was beyond excited singing little songs and talking about meeting the baby. Around 10am my contractions had completely stopped! We were both so disappointed that we were in fact, not getting closer to meeting baby. Again, I was so very wrong in thinking that we would have to wait much longer to meet baby.

I had an NST at 11:00am and they were picking up contractions on the monitor. They told me if they become stronger and closer together to call labor and delivery. I was glad I was contracting still, but they were painless and I wasn't really expecting to have the baby anytime that day. We went home and I was more than a little disappointed.

It Might Be Time

By 2:30pm my contractions had not returned and I told my husband he should go to his scheduled dentist appointment as nothing was happening. I told him, jokingly, I would call if my water broke. By 3:00pm I regretted telling him to go! My contractions came back out of nowhere. I decided to distract myself (believing it was false labor again) and watched The Bachelorette on Hulu while hydrating and bouncing on my labor ball. Every time a contraction came I had to pause (their  voices drove me crazy while contracting) and pace around the room. I started to feel like I was pausing nonstop so I started timing my contractions. My contractions were only 5 minutes apart. I tried calling my husband, but no answer. By 4:30 they were 4 minutes apart. I started calling his phone nonstop and he finally answered (in the denstist chair- of course the day I go into labor they are running super behind). I told him that I thought he should come home, but I wasn't really sure that the contractions wouldn't stop again.  The dentist was about 30 minutes away and so my husband said he was coming leaving immediately. Part of me worried that I wasn't really in labor and the contractions would stop again. I didn't want him to miss his appointment because of false labor. The contractions were hard and painful, but I imagined the pain to be so much worse so I felt very confused. I got in the shower to shave my legs and because I read the shower can be soothing when in labor. By the time my husband got home my contractions were only 2 minutes apart and I was so relieved when he walked through the door because I realized at 2 minutes apart this was the real deal.

We decided to eat before we went to the hospital because neither of us had eaten in a while and we weren't sure when we would be able to eat again. I got the last minute items for the hospital bag and he cooked. After I packed everything up I went into the kitchen to find him chopping vegetables. In my head I was thinking, "What the hell are you doing? My contractions are 2 minutes apart and your chopping vegetables?" Instead I used my filter and simply said, "You don't need to make anything fancy." Which he replied, “Oh I am only making eggs.” I felt like saying so scramble the dumb egg and lets go. We ate out “fancy” eggs and black beans. I needed to stop every 1 1/2- 2 minutes to labor, but we made it through the meal and packed the car. My contractions slowed on the drive (which was fine since it torture to be stuck in a seat while laboring and I was really self conscious that other drivers would see me wriggling around in pain) and I kept saying the whole 25 minutes there, “I hope they don’t send us home. Please be at a 4…”

At The Hospital

The labor and delivery was crowded and we had to wait in the hall because nobody was available to check me to see if I could stay. The nurse kept calling back on the phone saying it looked like I was in active labor and they really needed to check me. They finally called us back where I was monitored and asked a million questions. Again, sitting was awful. To me nothing felt worse than sitting or laying in labor the only relief I got was when I was moving so this and the car ride were the worst parts! The midwife came in and checked me. She smiled and said, "You are a tough girl, you are just about 7cm." I was beyond excited we weren't going home! I also realized that labor wasn't that bad (hell I wasn't even sure I was in real labor) and I only had 3cm left to go. I realized at that point a med free birth was pretty realistic. 

 I was put in a room with a laboring tub (which was more like a pool) and got right in. I loved the tub! I was able to have the baby's heart rate monitored while I was in the tub and only had to get out for a few moments because I chose to have a saline lock (when they place an IV in case of emergency, but don't access it) which they covered with a glove and let me get back in the tub. I asked the nurse about a hundred times if my baby was okay. I am sure she thought I was crazy, but both my husband and I had our cords wrapped around our necks when we were born so I was so worried that our daughter would have the same issue. Our nurse kept reassuring me that our baby was doing just fine.

Soon I hit transition labor. Transition labor was significantly harder than active labor! I went from feeling in control of my contractions to a little frantic with this new degree of pain. Everytime a contraction started I would try standing, sitting, squatting  but nothing brought relief. My husband tried some of the distraction techniques we learned in our classes, but they were the last thing I wanted. At one point I told my nurse I wasn't sure how to cope with these new contractions. My nurse was awesome and assured me I was in transitional and that baby would be here very soon. She then gave me some tips on dealing with the pain. Nobody ever mentioned any pain medication which I appreciated. I kept telling my husband that I really needed a break from labor so I could nap because I was exhausted! 

Around 10:30ish I told the nurse I felt so much pressure I was worried I would go to the bathroom in the tub. My nurse had me get out of the tub (you can't birth in the tub at my hospital) and she checked me since she said feeling that kind of pressure usually meant baby was getting close. She said my water was still in tact and bulging so she couldn't tell how far along I was without popping my bag and that it was better not to pop a bag that is intact, but she guessed I was about a 9-9.5cms. I  looked at the clock and was trying to decide if the baby would come on the 12th or the 13th. I really wanted to have her before midnight since 6/12/12 sounded way cooler than 6/13/12. I asked the nurse if she thought I could have the baby before midnight and she told me it was very likely. Since I couldn't be in the tub I started laboring over the back of the bed, but my nurse was afraid I would fatigue since I had been standing or squatting the whole time so she put on the squat bar and told me to use it during contractions and sit back and rest in between contractions.  I ended up standing on the bed during contractions hanging onto the bar (completely naked cause I never got dressed after the tub!) and laying down between them and my husband was massaging my legs. I don't think that was what she had in mind, but she went with it! At this point I was ready for labor to be over. I was so close and yet I knew I wasn't at 10cm yet. I knew the nurse couldn't tell me how much longer it would take, but I needed some reassurance. I told her I was nervous to push. She reassured me that I would do fine and even told me most people find pushing a relief. Although this eased my fears, again I wanted a timeline. I wanted an endpoint. I knew she couldn't give this to me so I instead asked if she thought pushing would take hours. I was looking for answers I knew she couldn't give. She told me that she really didn't think it would take that long. Oddly enough this satisfied my need to know when it would all be done and I went back to focusing on the task at hand.

Around 10:45 the midwife came in and the amount of pressure I felt was insane. I told her I thought I needed to push so she looked at me and said, "Go for it!" Nobody told me when or how long to push. The atmosphere was very calm and my midwife kept telling me to listen to my body and that's what I did. Pushing felt so much better! I was squatting and pushing when suddenly I felt a pop and my water broke! Things went really fast after that. I sat back in the bed (which was all the way up like a chair rather than a bed) and the midwife said she could see hair. All of the sudden my husband exclaimed he saw hair too which got me excited because if he could see hair then baby must be close. When I asked about baby's hair color they offered a mirror. AMAZING! I saw my baby emerge with every push. It was a great way to know when I was pushing correctly because I saw the results! Soon Kaylee's head popped out and I was saying how beautiful she was and my husband was crying. It was the coolest experience to see my baby's little face the second it came into this world. It was surreal to see her in between two worlds, that of the womb and out of the womb. She was on her way to becoming independent of me and yet for those last few second her body was protected by mine and my II was still providing her oxygen and life. After another push the midwife told me to reach down and I was able to help pull my baby out of her safe place in the womb to the next safest place, my arms. It was the most beautiful experience! I was alternating between kissing Kaylee, saying how beautiful my sweet little girl was, and saying how cool delivery was. 

Almost 4 weeks later my husband and I still talk about how amazing it was to watch her come into the world. I would hate to have missed witnessing that! We did delayed cord cutting and my husband who was worried that cutting the cord would gross him out, was a proud papa taking those scissors and cutting her cord! I did get a 2nd degree tear, but luckily there was so much pressure down there that I didn't feel the tearing. The midwife stitched me up after I delivered the placenta, but honestly I was so busy kissing my baby that I didn't really feel anything that was happening.

I was able to have 2 hours uninterrupted skin to skin time with my baby with the exception of weighing her (they need to weigh before breastfeeding) and I was able to breastfeed within 1/2 hour and she latched right on! Everything else was done after the two hour snuggle time. She never left our sight and we never even set her in the bassinet. She was held skin to skin the entire first night (which turned into the entire first month since I couldn't put her down and now she sleeps on my chest every night)! The whole labor and delivery experience was so much less medical than I thought. The nurses were available, but really stayed out of the way unless we needed them. I told my husband I feel like I had a home birth at the hospital! There were no interventions and the fact that they wouldn't even break my water was amazing to me. We were able to leave 24 hours after arriving. They told us we could stay one more night, but who can rest in a hospital so we opted out after our required 24 hours. They really let my body do what it needed to do and didn't intervene at all. I am still in awe at what a woman's body can do. My husband was pretty in awe too!


CF and Delivery

Luckily CF didn't really effect my delivery although when I was 9.5 cm laboring (naked) over the back of the bed a poor respiratory therapist came in to do my treatments! I turned around when she came in and said, "Can we please do them after the baby is born!?" The poor girl ran out of the room as fast as humanly possible!!

Also, when pushing one of the nurses asked me to take one deep breath between pushes, but my midwife quickly interjected by saying I was to do whatever my body needed in order to get oxygen into my lungs. Honestly, I have no idea how I was breathing since i was focused on pushing, but I think I was panting a little between pushes. Regardless she was born and I didn't pass out so it must have been okay!

As for recovery- I had a 2nd degree tear as stated above which was sore for the first 2 weeks. I did find it quite uncomfortable to cough which was a little frustrating. I was given numbing spray and used it religiously before treatments, but by the end of the 2nd week the pain was pretty much gone.