Week Two

Today my sweet girl is 2 weeks old and practically perfect in every way. The last week has gone very smoothly. Liana is very easy going. We hardly ever hear a squeak out of her and she sleeps very well. My only complaints at this point would be that she frequently gets the idea that she needs to eat every 1.5 hours and that usually that happens from about 10 pm to 3 am. Then she will sleep about 4 hours. She even slept 6 hours straight on Wednesday morning, which I would have been much happier about if I didn't wake up in significant pain from engorgement. Thankfully she has been breastfeeding very well and was able to fix that problem by the end of the day.

So far, my recovery seems to be going quite well. I had a terrible, painful, drawn out recovery with Keira so I expected the worst, but I have been pleasantly surprised this time around. I was a little sore the first few days, but I am just about pain free already. Thank heavens for that or else there is no way I would be able to deal with Keira. Art goes back to work in a couple days, so we'll see how well I do after then. I will probably be singing a different tune.

One Week Old

Liana Isabelle Martinez

Liana Isabelle Martinez

Born May 11, 2012 at 10:19 pm

7 lb 11 oz 20.5 inches

Friday, May 11th... it was a toasty afternoon and I was getting showered and dressed to go to the grocery store when I noticed my vision was really blurry. It felt like when you walk into a dark room after being in the bright sun and there was a big half-circle in the right side of my vision that was all wiggly and I had a dull headache. My feet were also more swollen than their normal swollen state, so I was concerned that I might be developing pre-eclampsia. The vision disturbances could be from swelling in my brain so I called my doctor and they told me to go get checked out at the hospital. I checked in to labor and delivery for a "non stress test" at around 3:30 pm. My blood pressure was fine and there was no protein in my urine, so they were about to send me home, but since my doctor wasn't on call they decided to check my cervix before discharging me just to make sure. The nurse felt around and looked increasingly surprised. She said, "If I'm not mistaken, you are dilated to 6 or 7." I was absolutely baffled. How could that be possible? I was in no pain. My contractions had not been timeable or painful. By the time I was at 6 cm with Keira, I was asking for an epidural. Yet, here I was absolutely comfortable. She got another nurse to check me to be sure, and the second nurse confirmed that I was at least 6 cm. I asked if I was going home and they responded sarcastically that yes, I could go home and have my baby at home. They explained that pretty much all that was holding the baby back was my bag of water and that I was really lucky it didn't break at home or I might have had the baby in the car. At my last checkup, my doctor said my cervix was surprisingly soft. I'm guessing that's how I managed to be so far into labor without knowing it. It was so soft, it just opened with no pain. Now I know how lucky I am that I had the headache and blurred vision that caused me to go to the hospital. God was definitely looking out for me.

Here I am dilated to 7 and totally pain free.

36 minutes before she was born.

Art sleeping between my contractions. I had to hit him every couple minutes to wake up and hold my hand.

They decided to monitor me for an hour and see if I was dilating any more on my own or if they needed to  induce me. An hour later I was at 7 cm, so the doctor broke my water around 8:20 pm to go ahead and speed things up. My contractions started kicking in within about 15 minutes and quickly became very strong and painful. At this point, it was becoming more real that I was in fact in labor and having my baby. My contractions were coming in sets of twos every couple minutes. The nurse came in to see how I was doing at 10 pm and I asked her to check me and give me some good news, because I was in a significant amount of pain and trying to make it without medication. She checked and said that I was at 8 cm and that the baby's head was "well engaged" but not ready to come out yet. 20 minutes later, I felt her head drop into position and felt like I needed to push so I hollered for someone to get the nurse. She came running in just in time to urgently summon the doctor and catch the baby. I desperately shouted for some pain medication in those last moments, but they told me it was too late- she was already coming out.

Art cutting the umbilical cord.

Holding my sweet girl for the first time.

So, much to my disbelief I delivered my nearly 8 pound baby with no pain medication whatsoever. Looking back it makes me extra angry that it took them 5 tries to start an I.V. and I didn't even need it. I may have also set a record for making it to 7 cm without any pain or discomfort. After she was born, Art got to cut the umbilical cord and I got to hold my baby for the first time. Then they took her to clean her up while the doctor painfully fished out a piece of tissue that was stuck in my uterus and stitched up a tear. It would have been nice to have an epidural at that point so I didn't have to endure that pain. Liana LOVED her first bath. It totally relaxes her to have her hair washed. Then they put her on the warmer for a few minutes then back to mommy. She was so alert and trying to suck on my fingers, so I decided to nurse her and she latched on within a minute and nursed very well from the start.

Her first bath at the hospital.

A couple hours later, they transferred us to another room and Art went home to get some sleep (since he was the only one who looked like he could possibly get any sleep) and my mom stayed with me overnight. She went home the next morning and Art came back. We were bummed because Keira wasn't able to come visit me at the hospital because of the flu-watch no children under 12 could come in. But when Dr. Jones came to examine Liana, he brought Keira back to our room for just a quick minute to see her sister saying, "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than get permission." Dr. Jones deemed Liana perfect, and we were able to go home around 12:30 that afternoon.

Keira instantly fell in love with her baby sister. She loves to kiss her and "pet" her head and hold her. In fact, it's hard to get her to leave her alone. It took a little convincing to get Keira to believe that Sister was no longer in my belly. She had to conduct her own investigation by pushing on my tummy and glancing back and forth between me and Liana.

Her first bath at home.

Liana is one week old now and doing fantastic. She had her checkup with Dr. Jones on Wednesday and she weighed 7 lb 1 oz, which the doctor says in bare minimum weight loss. This was excellent news to know that she is succeeding at breastfeeding since Keira wasn't able to breastfeed. We also learned that Liana has a big head like Keira- 95th percentile. Somehow I'm not surprised. Big heads seem to run in the family.

This week has gone relatively smoothly considering we are adjusting to having a newborn in the house. The biggest obstacles have been Keira acting up and the emotional rollercoaster of hormones I have been dealing with as is typical after delivery. Liana, however, has been a perfect baby. She eats well, she sleeps well, and is very content all the time. We are very grateful and blessed to have her in our lives.

 

39 Weeks and Waiting

After spending a few weeks on bed rest, I got to resume normal activity at 36 weeks at which time I had my baby shower. My mom hosted a lovely open house shower at my apartment with an impressive spread of food and desserts. We had a nice time even though we had a terrible turnout. Baby showers have a way of showing you who your true friends are.

So, I have been spending my time since then waiting for the baby to be born. I celebrated when I made it to full-term, then celebrated again when I made it all the way to May (the month of her due date), but now that I'm 39 weeks I am done celebrating and ready to have this baby! Keira was born at 39 weeks, so I don't expect to go past my due date, but apparently Clovis Community Hospital is so busy that they set an appointment for your induction just in case you need one. So I have an appointment for the 17th, if for some reason I don't go into labor on my own by my due date which is the 15th. So far the most consistent contractions I have had were 6 minutes apart for 3 hours, but then they went away. It was just enough to keep me up all night and on edge wondering if I should grab my hospital bag and call my mom in the middle of the night.

My mood has varied over the past few weeks, starting with a week-long burst of energy around 37 weeks, then back to exhaustion and irritability at 38 weeks, now at 39 weeks I am still exhausted but trying to make an effort to keep my house in order knowing that any day I could be leaving and coming back home with a newborn baby. Physically, I am having a tough time. Could be worse, but I am definitely having a hard time getting around. My feet and hands are super swollen. It seriously looks like my feet have a good half inch of playdough underneath the skin. You can push on them and indent them like playdough. It feels like I'm walking on someone else's feet and even my loosest flip-flops leave indentations across the top of my feet. It's been all I can do to keep up with Keira, so I am glad that I did all of the baby preparations in my second trimester.

Me at 38 weeks and my Sister-in-Law Sophia at 34 weeks.

Baby girl cousins in the making.

I had a checkup with my doctor on Tuesday at which time he checked my cervix and at first had trouble "finding it" then after a series of "Wow.... oh wow.... wow"s he told me that my cervix was REALLY soft, which is a good thing. Not very dilated at just over a centimeter, but soft is good, and definitely effacing. He doesn't expect me to have a long labor, and I am hoping he is right since I plan to not have an epidural and probably not stadol either since when I had Keira the stadol made me throw up and the epidural both didn't work and stopped my labor. I think I would have easily had her out in 4 hours instead of 7.5. The thought of having a baby without the pain relief is frightening, but I feel like the benefits are lesser than the ill effects they caused when I had Keira.

Keira was born on a Sunday morning and I had a constant stream of visitors in and out of my room from about 2 hours after she was born. I didn't get any time to rest, and was having a difficult time getting Keira to breastfeed which was further hindered by the constant guests coming and wanting to hold her. Then after we got home from the hospital, they called us back to put her on light therapy for 24 hours because she was jaundiced. So, I really didn't get to hold her for the first 3 days of her life and I feel like that seriously delayed our bonding and contributed to some postpartum depression. I decided back then that when I have another baby I am going to make the hospital experience totally different than it was, so I made the decision to only allow my mom and Art's mom to visit at the hospital- mostly for my support. Then after I get home from the hospital, I will allow other family members to start visiting as I feel comfortable, though I will not be passing around the baby to be held. Art, Keira, Art's mom, my mom, and I will be doing the holding. This is certainly nothing personal against any of my friends and family, but Art and I both feel like we need to take a little more time for our family to bond quietly and for me to recover from giving birth. Most of my friends and family have been supportive of my decision, which I have been very grateful for, but some people are less than thrilled about the idea. To them, I would just say IF YOU LOVE ME- SUPPORT ME. You will get to see my precious baby, just not the moment she emerges from my womb.

Well, I better get back to what I was doing... waiting. It's hard work, you know?