Brody's Birth Story Part 3

Read part 1 & part 2 first.

Soon after our first few wonderful hours together, Brody was off to the nursery to get examined, poked, measured and watched by daddy, who was standing with a camera in hand eyeing Brody and his nurse's every move; he wasn't going to leave his side any time soon.

Meanwhile back in L&D, I was getting the treatment--getting cleaned up via sponge-bath which made me feel much better despite still experiencing the migraine.  Before I realized it, it was midnight and I was beyond delirious.

I had a new visitor--my dear friend Cami. She arrived just after her shift ended at work--Dodie's Greenville--, and bumped into Klay at the nursery.

"Brody's so cute," she said as she sat down and asked how I felt. The light was dim in the room to help ease with the sensitivity to light from the gruesome headache. Honestly, I don't really remember much of our conversation because I was so exhausted and OUT OF IT. I remember talking, though it could have been about politics, baby Jesus, who knows?



After Cami left, my nurses prepped me to move to a room upstairs. Lauren and Brandy, my two nurses of the day, were truly spectacular. I'd gotten so attached to them I was crazy sad to move upstairs. I felt like they were sending me off into the wilderness to fend for myself. It was almost as if they were my parents sending me to live in a new home with a new family. At least that's how I felt. They guided me through the most incredible, scary, up and down rollercoaster ride of my life and I didn't want to let them go. Through my labor I discovered one was from Forney and even got her contact info to meet up. I was attached.

But it was time for me to take my leap, start walking on my own and for them to let go of me, wave goodbye and let me  figure this thing out called motherhood. But I was so afraid that my next nurses wouldn't take as good of care of me as they did. But if they were so great, surely the hospital has more great nurses right? WRONG.

After our move to our newest digs, the nurses brought me my baby boy. I was so eager to hold him despite my exhaustion. I didn't mind feeding him, I was just happy he was with me; I didn't want him out of my sight.I looked back at Lauren as I lay on the portable hospital bed, grabbed her hand, and shifted my focus to Klay who was walked beside us.  Whisked me out of L&D, we were on the move, I closed my eyes opening them to only see glimpses of walls and florescent lights that skated above me.



While I was holding Brody once more, I felt my nausea resurface. Looking at the new night nurse in my room, I said "Get me something I'm about to get sick. I'm about to sick. Take him, take him." She just stood there looking at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Maybe I was? Thankfully, Klay stood up took Brody from me and handed me a hospital barf bag. Why they make those bags so small?!?

After getting sick again for the millionth time, I started to dose. Every three or so hours people would come check my BP. Then, my nurse came in and said my oxygen levels were low. Down in L&D, they'd put this thing on my finger which is supposed to monitor my oxygen levels. Well prior to delivery, Brandy (my L&D nurse) had trouble getting a good read on my finger. I'd gotten the shellac or gel nail polish (navy blue) and it wasn't reading through my nail. So, after trying it on my toe (which had gray polish), and that didn't work, they moved the monitor to my ear. When we got upstairs, they placed it back on my finger.

I told the new nurses this a thousand times, but they didn't listen, they continued to ignore me. I kept dosing off intermittently between nurses shuffling in and out of this tiny room.

Around 4 a.m., a specialist came in to check on me. I told him through the oxygen mask--feeling sort of Darth Vadarish--that'd I said 500 times to check it somewhere else but no one would listen. He simply took the clamp, opened it and turned it sideways so it was on my skin rather than the nail, and voila! it was normal. Thankfully that was the end of that.

We were eventually moved to a third room later that morning. Brody's tests were coming back normal with the exception of one--his jaundice test. With rising jaundice levels higher than normal,  we were going to keep good track of it, which meant more pokes and blood test on this heel of his foot.

Despite everything, he seemed to be taking to my breast well and everyone told me I was doing a great job breastfeeding. The lactation nurse even told me my milk was coming in. I was hopeful. I had this dream that I would be the mom that traveled everywhere with her kid in a baby bjorn, popping out the boobie when he got hungry like his very own milk vending machine. I was going to be the source of his food. It was my responsibility to be his one-stop shop for the goods. That was me, the milk-making mommy machine. I could see it.

What an idiot, I was...

Brody's Birth Story Part 1

This is the story of the birth of our sweet Brody, but before I start let me tell you about some of my medical history. I've had high blood pressure my entire life, even as a kid. Both parents have it and my grandparents (I think on both sides), so it figures I'd be the one of two Welch offspring who'd get the trait. My sis was blessed with the better traits--tiny bod, tiny nose, no migraines, no headaches everyday, no hypertension and she even got the skinny genes. I'd been diagnosed with high BP at a young age (though didn't start taking meds until 2009-ish).

I was the prime candidate for pre-eclampsia. Throughout my entire pregnancy, my doctor was concerned and warned me that'd I'd most likely develop it. I was even a participant for a pre-eclampsia study that the hospital was conducting at the time. They had to draw blood every time my BP was up. But I got $25 for each poke! Ayeee!

Fast-forward to 30 weeks: I was working and we were about to move into our remodeled house so my stress was high. My doctor put me on bedrest. "You will have this baby somewhere by 37-39 weeks," she said. "It's too risky for you to go full-term."

Not only did I have weekly appointments with my doctor, but now I had to go to a specialist  (located in the same building thankfully) to get weekly sonograms to check on Brody's progress, ensure everything was developed before delivery and that if I had pre-eclampsia it wasn't affecting him. I did receive a steroid shot to help his lungs mature faster (and ensure they were fully-developed).

36 WEEKS: Doc said, "We will have this baby next Wednesday."

37 WEEKS, Tuesday, Feb. 21: I'm supposed to spend the night at the hospital to get some pill-thing inserted in my cervix which is supposed to help soften my cervix to prepare it for labor and improve my chances for a smooth induction the next morning. My doctor said I couldn't eat past lunch, and I was supposed to be at the hospital til 8 p.m.

We took the dogs to mom's house and while I'm sitting on the couch chatting I start having contractions (though they were braxton hicks). Klay and mom watched my stomach contracting. "We should probably get going," Klay said.

Klay was hungry and went through Whataburger en route to the hospital. I'm in a pissy mood because I'm starving and can't eat while the smell of french fries wafts in the air. Seriously, dude?

When we get to the hospital and they hook me up to machines, the nurse starts looking at the papers coming out like receipts assessing them closely. "You're definitely having contractions alright. But they aren't consistent, so are more likely braxton hicks," she said.

I asked them if I could eat, and they said it was fine since I wasn't going into labor. I ate some hospital food. It was the best damn burger I've ever eaten or it tasted like it anyway. I was just so hungry.

They inserted the vagina pill and repeatedly interrupted the tiny amount of sleep I was getting in the middle of the night to take my BP.

5 A.M.--I start putting on makeup before they took me off to the delivery room. I wanted to have some make up on so I didn't scare my child once he got a glimpse of me. They came in and prepped me to head downstairs.

6:30 A.M.--I now have my own room in Labor & Delivery. It's big and spacious, and this is about to get real. I start to get nervous.

7:30 A.M.--Pitocin was administered and I start having contractions. OUCH. Some visitors (Klay's dad, Susan and Nanny come in to see me).

9 A.M.--I'm given magnesium. This is to prevent me from seizing if my BP starts to rise. Side effects, include: headache, fever symptoms, vomiting, and a catheter pre-epidural, which means I felt it, plus it slows down labor. I immediately have a headache (which later develops into a migraine) and once the catheter is inserted and the nurse leaves the room, I lose it.

"I can't do this. They have to find another way to get him out. Not a c-section and not vaginal, I can't do this. I can't, I can't." I'm sobbing hysterically to Klay. It was all so real, and the catheter was so uncomfortable. On top of all of that, I'm burning up, feeling nauseous and having contractions.

2 P.M.-- The doctor comes in checks my cervix. OH MY GOD. OUUUUUUUCH! "This will be the most painful check of the day," the doctor says. She wasn't lying. It was excruciating. I was dilated to a 2.

She breaks my water with some sort of rod, through the tiny space where my cervix was opening. POP! I hear like a flood coming out. Britney and Klay who are in the room don't even notice as they talk to the doctor hounding her with questions. Despite me wanting to press further without an epidural my doctor goes ahead and orders one.

"You're in pain?" she asks.

"Yes," I reply.

"Then, why not? It will make you feel a lot better, I promise. I'll order it. There's no reason for you to be in pain and uncomfortable. That's what these drugs are for."

15 minutes later... A guy comes in and gives me a whole lot of info about the risks (which scared the hell out of me), how still I had to be, orders everyone out of the room and told me to sit up. I still have a catheter in, my legs and entire body are shaking from adrenaline, I've got the worst headache and I'm extremely nauseous.

I lean up clenching on to a pillow and he sticks the needle in my lower back, and BAM! it's done. Didn't hurt a bit. "That's it?" I say. I immediately feel relief. A few minutes later, I can't feel a thing.

6 P.M.--I'm dilated to a 4, not much progression. My doctor puts some device up my GOODS to try to measure the severity of my contractions. This device helped me somehow because I immediately had stronger contractions. And they were consistent and progressing within minutes. "I'll come back in a couple of hours, and if you're not close, we will talk about other options," the doc says.

So here I am laying in the hospital bed in pain with wet rags on my face, oxygen mask on (Brody was doing better with extra oxygen), but also with a migraine, throwing up and burning up (from the magnesium). I'm just hoping this kid would be pushing his way down and out of my body. After the painful cervix checks from the doctor, and putting devices up in places to monitor my contractions, I was ready for people to leave that part of my body alone (stop sticking things up there) and eager to push this kid out.

8:20 P.M.--My doctor checks my cervix one last time to see if there was any progress, (thankfully I couldn't feel it due to the epidural). "You should be something more," she said.

I stared up at her face trying to gauge her reaction. Please let me be at a 10, please Brody, do it for mommy! Gazing at her face, I thought I saw a glimpse of disappointment. He didn't do it, I thought.

Then very softly, she said, "Ten."

Read part 2 of Brody's Birth Story here.

 

To breastfeed or not to breastfeed? That really is the question.

During my pregnancy, many women often asked me if I wanted to breastfeed. Before I got pregnant, the answer was originally "hell no." I'd heard horror stories about what it does to your boobs and how horrible they are after, but then I got pregnant and my answer changed rather quickly.

After seeing the effect pregnancy had on my body, my boobs were the least of my concern. But more than that, feeling my little nudger kick and squirm around in me changed things. I wanted what's best and most natural for my child, but I didn't want to become obsessed about breastfeeding. "I'm going to try," I'd respond to the inquiries. That was the truth, I had every intention of trying, but I told myself and everyone else that I wouldn't get my hopes up and become some crazy mom who would cry and get upset if it didn't work out. But by day two of breastfeeding, I'd become a liar.

Let's be honest...breastfeeding is no joke. It's tough and in the beginning the odds are really against you. A 2008 report from Brigham Young University shows "while three out of four mothers start breastfeeding, only 36 percent of them continue for at least six months," according to a NY Times blog. So naturally I didn't think breastfeeding would actually work out for me for several reasons.

1. I didn't think I'd like or enjoy it. The thought of a baby on your boob is weird to some people, and I thought I might feel the same way.


2. People told stories of how it would solidify the bond between mother and child, but I didn't buy it. I'd been surrounded by formula feeding moms and babies who seemed to have a great bond. So, I never truly believed or understood how it really could breastfeeding could create an essential, powerful and stronger bond than a non-breastfed child.


3. The baby may not take to it and learn to latch on. It's a fact that sometimes babies don't learn to latch properly or struggle with the whole breastfeeding process. I didn't want to get my hopes up.


4. People told me I'd have to watch what I eat and couldn't eat/drink certain things. If anyone knows me, they know I love to eat. I was afraid I might get tired of having a restricted diet and having to watch what I eat and drink (and medications I might take).


5. I'd heard it could be painful. Some friends told me that they stopped because breastfeeding was extremely painful and unbearable. Some had even gotten a breast infection, like mastitis. This was a little scary.


6. Breastfeeding is a lot of work for you and the baby. I didn't want to be the only person who was able to get up with my baby. I wanted my husband Klay to get up and have the opportunity to feed and help out in the middle of the night. I know me and I'd start to get resentful that while he gets to sleep, I'm still up all night with our son.

Needless to say I felt the odds were against me. But I wanted to try and hoped that we'd succeed at it.

When they first put Brody on my chest for our initial two-hour skin-to-skin time, I was in awe. This sweet little boy was so beautiful, and I wanted to do everything I could for him. So when my nurse said it was time to try breastfeeding, I was completely ready and excited to try. To my surprise, he naturally latched on to my breast and it wasn't at all weird. It was one of the sweetest and most precious moments I've experienced.

By the second day, I was eager to try to feed him every 2-3 hours and enjoy our bonding time together. Amazingly, he seemed to be doing pretty well at it, or I thought he was. We'd have our occasional struggle, and either Klay or Brody's baby nurse would help me with getting him to latch, but once he was on, he stayed on for a while. By day three, a lactation nurse came to visit and showed me all of the proper ways to hold, cradle and position him, how to get and recognize the proper latch, how to get him to stop sucking and release my breast when I wanted and taught us about proper storage, when to pump and deciding how long we should breastfeed.

While the lactation nurses were with us, they made breastfeeding seem extremely easy and nursing was a cinch. The more I breastfed, the more I enjoyed it but I'd become what I'd feared--extremely attached to it.

On day four, we had experienced our first night at home alone, and had a follow-up appointment with a lactation nurse to check Brody's jaundice levels. Unfortunately, my baby had lost too much weight, getting down to a mere 5 lbs 8 oz from his birth weight of 6 lbs 4 oz, so the nurse insisted on watching me feed. She wasn't happy with what she saw and feared that he wasn't getting enough because he appeared tired and frustrated while feeding. She said he was working so hard to get little colostrum, and in order to lower those jaundice levels, we needed my milk to come in asap. Since Brody's jaundice levels were rising and we needed to make sure he was getting plenty to eat to poop out the bilirubin, she advised us to rent a pump to help stimulate and speed up my milk-production and feed the expressed breast milk to Brody via a bottle.

The first time I saw Brody take a bottle was devastating for me. It took every ounce of strength I had to not cry while Klay fed him a bottle of my breast milk at the appointment. The idea some thing, some plastic bottle, was feeding him and not ME was completely appalling. On top of that, I'd maybe had a whopping two hours of consecutive sleep since he was born, I was completely exhausted and in pretty bad pain from giving birth. I had a hard time walking, sitting and doing everything else, and my hormones were going crazy.

After several tears that day and feeling like a I failed my first mommy test, I quickly realized giving him a bottle of breast milk was a lot easier than putting him to my breast. I still had to try to breast feed, so he wouldn't show preference to the bottle and to increase my supply, but the struggle and repetition of both feeding and pumping began to take it's toll.

There are many things I'd learned on my own about breastfeeding.

1. The images of these smiling mommies with calm, perfectly latched babies wasn't at all what I'd experienced most of the time. Sure, I did get my good and decent feedings in where Brody and I appeared like one of the moms you'd see in parenting magazines, but majority of the time I was fighting a squirmy, floppy and incredibly strong newborn who'd go nuts when he couldn't find my nipple. He'd repeatedly let go from not getting a good latch or just randomly release my breast for no reason, and I'd have to readjust and try again. The process was extremely taxing and time consuming.


2. People talked about the pain the actual feeding could cause, but I discovered there were other pains that came along with breastfeeding. During the first week of feeding, your uterus contracts when you feed and you often feel a passing of blood from the uterus (or I did) when feeding. These contractions were pretty freaking painful! There was a time they lasted 10 to 15 minutes and I was in so much pain, Klay googled to try to find ways to relieve the pain. He told me I needed to stay hydrated. After the first week, the cramps ceased, but the pain of Brody's nails digging into my boob or scratching my nipple was yet another frustration I'd have to overcome.


3. Breastfeeding is based on supply and demand. Your body adjusts and produces how much your baby needs (based on how much they are at your breast and eating). After all of the feeding and pumping, I was producing enough milk to feed a hospital nursery. But after a while, the exhaustion and frustration began to set in and I'd grown tired of fighting my baby while he was at my breast, so I just pumped and fed through a bottle. And once I was tied to my pump a few hours a day, (and having to pump in the middle of the night after feeding Brody), I began to pump less and less. I didn't know what skipping a pump session here or there would do to my supply. My supply eventually decreased immensely to only a few ounces (if I was lucky) each session.


4. The process of building back up my milk supply is hard work. To stimulate my body to produce more, I'd to putting Brody back at my breast, for skin-to-skin. Plus side to this, drink dark beer! It somehow helps you produce more breast milk, according to my pediatrician.


5. My loss of appetite greatly effected my breast milk production. After Brody was born, I was too tired and exhausted to make myself eat (plus I hardly had the time). Nothing sounded good except graham crackers and apple juice (I was really sick and vomited a lot in the hospital and that was the first thing that I held down, so I think that's why I crave that). Being sleep deprived and having my focus be taking care of my child, and because he came first, my nutrition and taking care of myself fell to the wayside. I looked forward to the 500 and some odd calories you burn with breastfeeding, but Klay had to force me to eat to make sure I was taking care of myself and it wouldn't hurt my milk supply.


6. Frustration with leaky and hard, painful boobs. While I'd begun leaking colostrum during pregnancy (at 5 months), and woke up many nights with giant wet spots around my breasts and on my sheets, continuing to have to deal with leaky breasts on top of everything else added to my frustration. And while breastfeeding, I'd be leaking over Brody if my other breast wasn't covered, or milk would drip on my clothes (even after pumping) and get everywhere. And if I didn't feed, my boobs would hurt and get extremely hard and engorged. The only relief--to feed or pump. If you are out and about and can't find a place for privacy to do either one, the pain becomes distracting and annoying.


7. Weird things happen to my boobs when my baby would cry. It's amazing what your body knows and reacts to. When Brody would cry, my breasts would leak or my nipples would begin to throb or have a stinging sensation like my body was saying "go feed your child."


8. Breastfed babies eat more often than formula fed babies. This didn't matter so much to me because of the nutrition my child was getting from breastfeeding, but after two weeks of hardly more than two to three hours of consecutive sleep, I'd do anything to sleep another hour. As time went on, formula began to seem more appealing.

Through all of my struggles and my low production of breast milk, we were eventually forced to supplement with formula. We are currently still supplementing, but it's become mostly formula now, and we give little breast milk as I'm not producing much.

I'm still pumping and I like to still have my options open on what I can feed him. I'm not fully ready to close up shop just yet!

I'll keep you all posted as this journey still continues...now I'm off to pump!

Cassidy