One Week

Today is Keira's one week birthday! I can't believe it's been a week already, and quite an eventful week at that. We got home from the hospital on Monday and the next day we went to her checkup at Kaiser and they told us that her jaundice level at the hospital was borderline high and they wanted to do a blood test to see if it had gone up or down. We got a phone call with the results that evening and they told us her levels were so high that they wanted us to go back to the hospital for 24 hours of light therapy. This news was very unwelcome. In addition to her jaundice levels being high, they told us she had already lost 10% of her birthweight and that's not supposed to happen until about day 6. I also told the doctor that she won't latch on to breastfeed and they determined she has a high palate and weak suck but didn't offer any advice other than to keep trying and supplement with formula. So we went back to the hospital and I cried all night. It was so hard not being able to be with her all the time. Plus, my milk was finally trying to come in, and for those of you who don't know, it feels like lightning bolt cramps shooting from your armpits to your nipples and your boobs turn rock hard and are so sore you can't move your arms. I was SO miserable and just wanted to be home with my baby. Thankfully her jaundice went down by the next evening and we were able to take her home.

With my milk supply lagging, the lethargy caused by jaundice, and baby's inability to latch on, I have been having a heck of a time trying to feed her. Instead of being able to just breastfeed or just bottlefeed, feedings consist of all of the above plus pumping. Every time I try to breastfeed her she gets really impatient and frustrated that she can't latch on and starts crying, and you can't get a crying baby to close their mouth and suck! I have been praying and praying that she will catch on to breastfeeding and she seems to be making some improvement.

On Wednesday night, I was running a fever all night and by morning I realized I had a bladder infection. Back to the doctor again! I was so upset to have more pain and discomfort down there than I already had. I've been taking my antibiotics for four days now and they don't seem to be helping much, but the doctor over the phone is convinced that this antibiotic should work and wants me to keep taking them until I hear from my doctor tomorrow. I'm hoping to feel better soon. I had never put much thought into what recovery from childbirth would be like and it's worse than I anticipated. The first several days I could hardly walk. Now I'm gaining speed, but I'm still in considerable pain especially when I'm standing. Art is getting really impatient with me and has a hard time understanding why I'm not up and running like normal. My response to him was, imagine if you just pushed a melon out of your rectum! You would be in pain too! I think that just because he can't see how I hurt, he can't imagine what it's like.

As far as my labor story, it all started Saturday night after I dropped off my sister at the church dance. I was driving home and noticed I was having a lot of strong contractions. I started timing them at 10:00 pm and they were at 8 minutes apart. I didn't think too much of it yet but kept writing down the times. By 11:30 they picked up to 6 minutes apart, and by 12:30 they were coming every couple minutes. They tell you to wait at home while your contractions are 5 minutes apart for an hour, but mine were getting so fast, strong, and painful that I knew I better not procrastinate getting to the hospital. I texted Art at work and said, "Baby you need to come home now. These contractions are the real deal!" He couldn't believe it. I called my mom and she and Art were at my house by 1:00 am. Art drove like a mad man to get me to the hospital and we arrived at 1:30. At this point it was all I could do to walk and talk between contractions and they were coming every 2 minutes. When they checked me I was dilated to 4 cm. By 2:30 they transferred me to a delivery room and checked me again and I was at 6 cm. By this point I was in a LOT of pain and asked for some pain medication if only to keep Art's hands from being broken from me squeezing them and yelling. They gave me stadol which made me throw up almost immediately and didn't do much for the pain. My water broke on it's own sometime around this point. It was a lot more fluid than I thought it would be! They brought the anesthesiologist in to give me an epidural and it didn't work right even with a double dose. They probably couldn't get it in right because I had such a hard time holding still from the pain of my contractions which were back to back with no break in between. Another hour later and I was dilated to 10 cm when the epidural finally started to take effect and when it did, it almost stopped my labor! The nurse had me try pushing for 15 minutes to see if the baby would come down and she really wasn't moving so they had me rest for an hour while they stopped the epidural so my contractions would come back. It wasn't a very restful hour because every time I would doze off, I would stop breathing then jolt awake to breathe. I was also still very nauseous and throwing up. A new nurse named Terri came in after the hour and had me start pushing again. She came in the room with such a positive attitude and said, "Ok, I can see from your contraction pattern that it's time to get this baby out now!" She told me not to doubt that I can do it, to just focus all my energy on pushing instead of complaining and yelling. I really internalized what she said and even when I thought I couldn't work any harder, I kept going and stayed focused. Thankfully the epidural wore off enough for me to push but not so much that I was in unbearable pain. My mom was holding one leg while Art held the other and I pushed for about 45 minutes. I told them not to peek but I don't think they listened. They were concerned that the baby's heart rate was dropping and I was tired and wanted a way to get her out faster so I suggested using a vacuum. They went and got a doctor and he said it looked like she was running into a bone and we just needed to help guide her head in the right direction. I was probably having such a hard time getting her out because she was born face up. 15 minutes later, with the help of the vacuum and a few more pushes, out came my beautiful baby girl at 8:31 am. I only got one tiny tear and needed a couple stitches. I was in labor at the hospital for 7 hours.

When she was born, I immediately started bawling. I just couldn't believe that was my beautiful baby and that I had created her. She was absolutely perfect from the start. She didn't have a cone head, even with using the vacuum, and she hardly had any white vernix coating on her even though she was one week early. She was not crying and was a little purple so they took her under the warmer to try to get her to cry to increase her circulation. Getting her to cry was not an easy task. They tried suctioning out her lungs and even that wouldn't work. She is too easy going I guess. She had a round blue mark on her left arm that they thought was a bruise at first but when the pediatrician looked at her he told us it is a birthmark called a Mongolian Spot which should disappear within a few years. He said that Mexican babies get them. She had a full head of dark hair which was surprising to me, but it suits her well since her name means dark-haired. Speaking of her hair, it is totally curly when it's wet and straight when it's dry! It will be interesting to see if it ends up curly or not.

As intense as my labor was, I know God lets us experience things the way we need to. It's like the difference between hiking to the top of Half Dome and enjoying the view versus being flown to the top in a helicopter. You get the same reward in the end, but you have a strong sense of accomplishment if you hiked instead of flew. I know now I was not meant to experience a pain free labor and I wouldn't trade my experience for any other. I endured and accomplished more than I ever thought I was capable and I know it was thanks to the support I got from my mom, husband, the nurse, and my Heavenly Father. You wouldn't believe how great of a coach Art was. He was right by me the whole time, talking me through each contraction and each push and reminding me to keep my breathing slow and steady instead of panicking. I couldn't have hired a better helper. He said the worst part of everything was holding the puke bucket for me. In the end, I was soaking wet with sweat and amniotic fluid, and absolutely exhausted but so happy to have my little girl in my arms. It's amazing how fast you can love someone so much. I wouldn't trade her for anything and I would go through that pain for her a hundred times over if I had to.