Getting Better

Things are getting a bit better. I'm definitely feeling better, not 100% but the worst of the pain/muscle weakness seems to be over. Eleanor and I are still figuring each other out but it's a little easier. She cluster feeds from about 8am to 12pm and then goes down for a long coma like nap after that. I can put her in her bassinet and get some things done or take a nap. Her most wakeful time is from about 1am-6am, she'll only sleep if I hold her. She likes going outside for walks, even if we don't make it out the door until early evening. She doesn't seem to be a big crier (at least not yet). She mostly cries if she doesn't get fed fast enough when she thinks she's hungry or if she is having some tummy issues. She settles down right away when you fix the problem though, I'm super grateful for that. Every time we've gone out somewhere she's been super good and people always tell me how beautiful she is. It's nice to have confirmation for what I know to be the truth. ;) I'm still tired but it's not as bad as it was in the beginning. As a matter of fact, she's sleeping peacefully now so I'm going to take a nap too.

Pictures!

Thanks!

I'm trying to get a picture posted of Eleanor. My digital camera is pretty old and the hardware needed to upload the pictures to the computer is so old that windows can't find a driver for it. I"ll find a way to get a picture posted soon.

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has stopped by to visit or sent e-mails/texts/cards wishing us well. I especially want to thank those of you who have delayed visiting because of my surgery. I know how hard it is to wait to see a new baby but I am eternally grateful for those who waited days or are still waiting to see her. I also want to thank my cousin Mark. He brought me chocolate while I was in the hospital, you rock!

Surgery is hard, way harder than I imagined. I felt so terrible the first several days I was in the hospital I really didn't want anyone to visit, not even my parents. I sucked it up for my parents but it was really hard, I was barely functioning. I'm a little better now but moving is hard and getting things done even harder. I have a weight lifting limit of 12 pounds. Yeah, my baby weighs just about 9 of those. As you can imagine, I can't put her in her car seat and pick it up. I either need help to go to doctor visits/errands or I have to put her in/take her out of the carseat while it's in the car. The only one really getting any sleep in the house right now is Eleanor. She's more wakeful at night and she eats about every 2 hours. She doesn't seem to like her pack and play (where she currently supposed to sleep in my room). She has a bassinet downstairs that she seems to tolerate for a little while each day. That reminds me, I'm not supposed to be using a lot a stairs either. Hmm, we do a lot of living downstairs but all her stuff, and most of mine, is upstairs. We are doing our best to adjust, everything just seems to take a lot longer now that I have a baby. It took me 3 hours to get ready, get her ready and be out the door for her weight check up today. I know things will get better as they become more familiar so please have patience with me if we have plans, I try my best but I don't have everything figured out yet.

The Details

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for hanging in there and waiting for details. Ending up with a C-Section was of course not in my plans and the recovery from surgery is just as difficult as I feared it would be. My head felt disconnected from my body for about 24 hours after surgery which makes my first memories of Eleanor pretty foggy, I think that is the most disappointing part of this whole process. So, on to the specifics.

I was headed into Sparrow to try some induction medication on Saturday evening. This was not a "go for broke" leaving the hospital with a baby induction but more of a "let's try to move things along" induction. About 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave for Sparrow my labor actually started. After I checked in my doctor found that not much had progress had been made since Thursday, the last time she checked. I was put on the meds to get things moving. They worked, sort of, effacement but not much dilation. Sometime in the morning hours my water broke which guaranteed I was in the hospital for the long haul. They then put me on Pitocin to help with dilation. As any of you know who've been on this lovely medicine, it's super painful, so in went the epidural. Can I tell you how not sorry I am about that, my contractions were absolutely horrible from all the meds and I wasn't going to put myself through that any longer. So anyway, about 4/4:30 ish about 5 medical staff come rushing into my room. They slap an oxygen mask on me and tell me that Eleanor is not tolerating the pitocin well, her heart rate keeps dropping. They tell me they need to loose the external monitor and need to implant an internal monitor into her scalp in order to watch her better. They decide not to wait for my Doctor to respond to their request, the OB resident on staff decides the situation is too dire. They turn off the pitocin and her heart rate returns to normal. There has been no change in dilation. They wait about a half hour and turn the pitocin back on, the same thing happens again. They turn it off. My doctor gives me a choice, we can keep trying the pitocin and see what happens, most likely ending up with an emergency c-section if Eleanor is in too much distress or we can go ahead a do a c-section now while she's in good shape. Since there hadn't been any change in dilation for almost 24 hours I decide to go ahead and do the c-section while we were both doing ok. Can I tell you how scary surgery is? I haven't had any type of surgery, except for Lasik, since I had my tonsils out when I was a kid. I was shaking so bad, both from labor and fear, that I felt like I was having convulsions. The process took a little longer than everyone would have liked but the anesthesia wasn't working. They had to put "a lot" of medicine into the epidural to get my body numb for surgery. The anesthesiologist thinks the catheter must have been pointing down rather than up so the medicine had to go all the way to my toes and build up to take effect. So, they finally were able to start, she popped out rather quickly and she was healthy and not in any distress, totally the most important things. The doctor felt that due to her head and shoulder size it would h ave been a really difficult labor and we may have ended up in the same place anyway, even if I had dilated all the way. I feel pretty good about my decision, as most of you know I've pretty much been terrified for 40 weeks that something was going to happen to her, that she got out safe was a bigger priority than anything else.

Eleanor is amazing. She's sleeping in the bassinet next to me as I type. I can't possibly explain what having her means to me and how freaking lucky I feel every time I look at her.

Eleanor has arrived . . . .woo hoo!!!!!!!!!

Eleanor finally arrived on Sunday, October 3 at 6:56pm. She weighed 8 lbs 14 oz (whoa) and was 21.25 inches long. She was born via c-section. Both Nora and I are doing well. Surgery has made the recovery process a bit more intensive, so we really appreciate everyone being willing to delay visits until I am feeling a little more lively. We expect to be home soon, more updates to follow. Thanks for all the well wishes!

Big Fat Nothing, Part 2

Eleanor is completely uninterested in joining us in the outside world, she is totally happy where she is and shows no signs of trying to get out. It's unlikely she'll be born by her due date either. For those of you wondering about induction, conditions are not favorable at this time. If you try inducing an unwilling body you are on a crash course with a c-section. My main goal right now is to try to avoid one of those. So, like me, you just get to wait and see what happens.

I do have a favor to ask of everyone though. I'm begging you to stop asking me questions. Please don't ask me how I'm feeling, I'm usually doing ok or really crappy, flip a coin to guess which one. And please, please, please stop asking me if she's here yet. I assure you, she isn't. If she was you'd know about it via text message, e-mail or phone call. This wait is making me crazy enough and pretty much anyone who spends any time with me knows I'm getting more irritable as the days go on. Questions only became ultra irritating about a week and half ago, now they make me want to scream. Perhaps if only one person asked me a question every day I would have a little more patience, but it's everyone, literally everyone who lays eyes on me and a lot of people who don't. And when did the condition of my cervix become a public interest topic, at about 37 weeks. Seriously people, gross. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, I appreciate all the care, concern and excitement, I really do. But this time is super stressful for me right now, with work and being anxious about Eleanor getting here safely, I just need people to back off and give me some breathing space right now. I promise, you'll be the first to know when I have something to share.

Big Fat Nothing

I had so hoped Eleanor would be here by now but alas, she is not. She still looks good on her non-stress test so that is reassuring. For the first time the second recording device (that picks up uterine action) was busy, no giant spikes but better than almost a flat line. This is not called contractions but "uterine irritability". I can assure you, my uterus is not the only thing that is irritable. I'm now of the opinion that she'll have to be forced out. I feel less like delivery is imminent now than I did two weeks ago. But this is my first full term delivery so what do I know, I'm just guessing. I have another appointment and non-stress test next Thursday. I'd be surprised if she showed up before then so I'll let you know what the doctor says. Have a good weekend everybody!!