at long last, i emerge from the fog to dispense random thoughts and advice

Oh, my darlings. It has been far too long. A summary of how I have spent the last three and half weeks includes: applying ice packs to my crotch, being waited on and loved and supported by Manny and my parents and one of my sisters (the other arrives tonight), dealing with sore nipples (that is perhaps the biggest understatement I have ever made), surviving somewhat nice but utterly exhausting visits from well-meaning friends and family, crying tears of gratitude, crying tears of frustration and overwhelm and exhaustion, trying not to nurture the resentful thoughts that pop up when Manny says that “none of us has gotten a solid night’s sleep in the last few weeks” cause I can tell you that his sleeps look pretty damn solid from where I sit propped up and nursing my voracious offspring, showing off this creature with whom I’m more and more in love every day, making up nicknames for C (there are a LOT), and trying to figure out how time has suddenly started moving so damn quickly.

There is more, of course. Much of it is a blur, much of it is a bore, and even the interesting bits are hard to put into words.

I’m still working on the birth story. For now I will just say that I got absolutely everything I wanted in a birth except an intact perineum. I was amazed at how supportive the hospital environment was – everyone involved was completely respectful of my wishes and of this being an important and sacred experience for me and Manny and C, once he emerged. I imagine that having a doula (actually we had two, because we invited a doula who is still in training to attend) helped to send a message that we were prepared to do this our own way, but I really have to credit our nurse and the rest of the staff for just listening to me and mostly just letting me be. Manny was awesome and so were the doulas – they were all quietly supportive and let me do my thing, which is exactly how I had envisioned it beforehand. I had pretty clear instincts about how the birth would go, and that’s pretty much how it went. not that I believe in “the secret” or anything, but I believe that working through things with my doula before the birth really helped me to access my own wisdom about what I needed to birth safely and calmly – that is really the biggest benefit to having had a doula, I think. I remember thinking right after C was born that the doulas didn’t really do very much – like they didn’t talk to me much, or do much physical work of supporting me in different positions, or even touch me all that much. But for me, the important work was all done in advance – it was all heart work, not body work. Damn, I’m grateful for that.

As always, I’m hopeful that I will write more, but reality and past history says that it might be a while. I do want to get the birth story up, but I haven’t completely finished it for myself yet, and I want to do that first before putting it up here. For now I will leave you with my golden pieces of advice – for those of you about to give birth or welcome a little one into your life especially:

• The most golden piece of advice ever – counter-pressure on the perineum while you poop. If you have stitches, pooping may suddenly become the scariest thing ever. This really, really helps. Use a pad or a dampened cloth to press firmly on your stitches while you poop. Go slow, relax your body as much as possible, and keep the pressure on there until you’re done. I don’t know how I would have survived the first two weeks without this trick, honestly. Also, painkillers and stool softeners are your friends.
• Get breastfeeding support lined up before the baby comes – don’t wait for a problem. I don’t know if there are many other people who were as prepared as I was for breastfeeding a newborn, in terms of information and exposure, and still it was rough. We were lucky that C was clearly getting enough milk and I didn’t have to worry about him, but the pain was hard to take at times. In my case, it was a matter of simply getting through it – by two weeks, I was healed and it got a lot easier. But if I hadn’t had people to turn to with my questions, it would have been hard to keep going. So if you want to breastfeed (and by no means am I saying that you have to), build that network early and don’t be shy about using it if you need to. Breastfeeding is natural, but it is hard work and sometimes it is just plain hard.
• Accept all offers of help. Every single one. Every gift, every meal, every offer to walk the dog, every offer to do housework. Every single one. Okay? And if you are not getting offers, ask. Because this caring for a fresh human being is hard, hard work. Joyful and wonderful and gratifying, but undeniably hard.
• Sleep when the baby sleeps – it is harder than it sounds. Because you want to do something fun or useful when the baby sleeps. Just one more load of laundry. Just a few more pages of this great book. And soon, your baby is awake. If you can’t sleep, just lay down and rest. Really. It helps to make up for the times (hopefully there are not many) when you need to spend 20 minutes pooping and your baby is screaming.

Alright, dear ones. That is all for now. In light of my last piece of advice, I will go and enjoy from a horizontal vantage point the sleeping baby who is currently strapped to my chest.

Oh, and here are some photos. Love you all and my infinite thanks for all your comments and sweet messages of welcome. You are shining stars, every single one of you.

about twelve hours old

three weeks, two days old with fluffy, post-bath hair

shaken, then stirred

This is a story in two parts. The first part is the bad news. The second is the good news. So there is no need to hold your breath while reading the first part.

Thursday evening, we had a bit of scare. I was having a poop (my current obsession with apples is doing wonders for my digestion) and I looked down to see a drop of blood fall in the toilet. My mind froze on just one thought: “no, no, no no, NO!” There was some more blood when I wiped – not a lot, but it was bright red and terrifying. I made my way upstairs and told Manny, and somehow managed to have the presence of mind to call the health line nurse who, like all health line nurses, is an angel in disguise. As she listened to me and started to ask me questions, I could feel myself calming down. No cramping, swelling of feet, hands or face, dizziness, blurred vision, abdominal pain, fever. Nothing other than maybe 1 or 2 milliliters of blood, which by this point had stopped. She said I needed to see a doctor within 24 hours, and that if I felt I needed to go in right away, I should do that, but to watch myself carefully and if the bleeding got worse, or I was cramping or anything else, I should go to the ER immediately. I was surprisingly calm by this point; for whatever reason, I just felt like everything would be ok. The bleeding did not continue or resume, although there was a tiny bit of brown spotting through to the next morning. She also suggested I call the OB/GYN on call at the hospital, which I would never have thought of on my own, although it’s on the voice mail message of my clinic if you call them after hours, which I have inadvertently done at least a dozen times. So I did call, and spoke to the OB, who said I could come in and he could see me, but he wouldn’t be able to to an ultrasound until the morning, so it would probably be better just to come in first thing in the morning.

So that’s what we did. Manny and I were at emergency at 8 on Friday morning. After waiting for 2 hours, we finally got in for an ultrasound. My panic had returned pretty much as soon as we walked in to the hospital, and as we were waiting for the u/s, it was at its peak. For all my excitement to have my first scan on Monday, we were about to find out whether all was indeed well, and the circumstances were not at all as I had imagined. They called my name, and Manny and I went into the little room. The very nice tech told me to hop up on the table, and I had a weird moment of cognitive delay, cause I had the urge to take off my pants. I started to laugh and shared this with Manny, who laughed, and the tech, who looked at me a bit weird until I told her we had done fertility treatment to get pregnant and that I had done lots of follicle tracking scans. She tried to do it abdominally, but my bladder was completely empty, so she wound up having to ask me to remove my pants anyway. Ah, good old dildo cam – how I missed you! She had the screen angled towards her for about half a minute, but then she turned it around so we could see, saying that we didn’t have to be holding our breath.

I saw the heartbeat before she even pointed it out and I’ve never been happier or more relieved to see anything in my life. It was AMAZING! She then proceeded to give me a very thorough wanding, pointing out all sorts of things along the way – looking at both ovaries, my uterus, the baby’s arm and leg buds, the bones ossifying in its face, the developing brain. We got to see the baby moving around and gaze in wonder at the flickering heartbeat. She printed us out two pictures which I will try to scan and post a bit later. According to their calculations, I was 9w3d, and the baby was measuring 10w exactly, with a heartbeat of 176.

I then went out and waited some more – before they’d let me leave, I needed to see the OB on call. They did some blood work as I waited, but it was still nearly 3 hours between getting the u/s and seeing the doctor. However, the waiting was much easier knowing the baby was ok, and the OB was very nice. She explained that the scan showed I had a very small bleed under the placenta, and that while it could be risky if the bleed got bigger, it was not that  uncommon and would most likely resolve on its own. I was smiling to myself as I held back from saying, “Oh, a subchorionic hemorrhage, right, gotcha.” We bloggers are just so damned well-informed! She answered my questions and then told me that she was on call until 8 the next morning, so if anything else happened or I was concerned, I could call and speak to her directly. She, and everyone I dealt with in the hospital on Friday, was amazing, and I am so fortunate to have been so well cared for.

As we were seeing the baby, between little bouts of teariness from me, I was thinking about how this is my child, MY child, my CHILD. A child to whom I could one day relate this story about the first time we saw her. And how much joy we felt when we did.

I know we are a long way from holding this child in our arms, and I am not taking it for granted that we will. But the sense of connection I am starting to feel to this baby – it humbles me as it sweeps over me. I am grateful. I am in awe.