Brooklyn’s Birth and First Few Days

So that I won’t forget all of the details of February 12th through 16th, I’m going to attempt to blog about it before any more time passes. Here goes nothing!

Monday, February 11th was the date of my last doctor’s appointment…when we found out I would be induced the next evening. All Monday night and Tuesday, I was nervous and excited. I did manage to sleep pretty good that Monday night, which was my last good night of sleep since! Whew! Tuesday, I spent the day doing laundry, organizing the house, and getting our bags packed. Travis was going to try to take off early, but it ended up being a pretty busy day, so it was late afternoon before he got home. After going to Firestone to pick up my car and bring it back home, we headed to Olive Garden for our last supper as a family of two! My instructions were to eat a big carb-filled meal, and where better to do that than Olive Garden, right? I was too nervous to eat everything on my plate, but I did manage to eat most of it before letting Travis finish off the rest. (Hungry boy is training for a marathon!). I have no clue what we talked about (because I was so nervous), but it was a good supper anyway.

After eating, we headed up to the hospital to get checked in. The waiting room was much more crowded than it had been on the night of our “false alarm” a few weeks earlier. We sat there before being taken to a room. Amanda was my nurse that night, and she was awesome. I got changed and settled, and then she started my IV, asked me a bunch of questions, and gave me a pill to take called Cytotec. The plan was that I would take that dose and then get another dose at midnight (4 hours later). Hopefully, the Cytotec would start the labor process and I wouldn’t need the Pitocin at 5 AM the next morning. Well, not too long after taking the first pill, Brooklyn’s heart rate dropped too low, and I had to lie on my side and breathe through an oxygen mask for a while. Her heart rate corrected itself pretty quickly, but my doctor decided not to have me take the second dose of Cytotec.

Mom drove up from Trussville that night because we thought I could have two people with me in the room overnight, but apparently we were wrong. After 9 PM, only one person could be with me until 6 AM the next morning. I felt really bad about that. We told Mom to go spend the night at our house and come in the morning, but she ended up just staying out in the waiting room all night.

I had mild contractions all night long…nothing that I would consider very painful. I don’t think I slept much if any that night (more because of how uncomfortable the bed was than anything else). Not sure who slept less…me or my mom! By 5 AM, I hadn’t made much progress. My cervix was still only about 1 cm dilated, although it was starting to thin a little bit more. And, Brooklyn’s head was still “really high up”. So, Amanda started me on the Pitocin. It wasn’t too bad at first because they start with such a small dose.

Not too long after that, it was time for Amanda to leave, and Kim was my next nurse. I knew Kim from working with her in pre-op, and I cannot overstate what a great job she did taking care of me. I don’t think I would have survived the rest of the morning and afternoon without her there!

My doctor came in to see me pretty early that morning and made several attempts to break my water to see if that would help Brooklyn’s head to drop down. Because I was only 1 or 1 1/2 cm dilated, this was no easy task. I can say without a doubt that this was the most painful part of my whole hospital stay. I hope I never go through anything like that ever again. And, I’ll leave it at that and spare you the details.

Not too long after that, the contractions started becoming more and more painful. We could all tell that this was not going to be a quick labor, and I decided rather than trying to tough it out for who knows how long, to go ahead and get an epidural. The anesthesiologist was great, and even with my scoliosis, he had no trouble getting it in on the first try. The epidural didn’t take all of the feeling away, but it did help a lot.

I had several visitors rotating in and out of the room, which helped the time go by, and suddenly it was early afternoon. My cervix was slowly dilating and thinning (I think I was 4 cm dilated by about 2 PM), but Brooklyn’s head still hadn’t dropped. I knew that things weren’t looking good, and I was starting to get upset about the possibility of having a c-section. That was what we were trying to avoid by inducing a week early! What really upset me though was the possibility of having to have a c-section under general anesthesia (meaning I would be completely asleep and not know what was happening at all). If the anesthesiologist couldn’t get me “numb enough” to do the c-section while I was awake, then I’d have to be asleep for it. Since I have scoliosis, it would make it more difficult to get me completely numb.

Of course, I’m a planner, and nothing was going according to my “plan” that day. I think the combination of that thought plus not sleeping well and not eating all day made me a wreck. I cried multiple times that day, especially as it got later and later. I was mad at myself for agreeing to be induced. Obviously, Brooklyn wasn’t ready to be born yet. We should have just waited another week. She might have come on her own then. I was second guessing myself and the doctor. She said I just didn’t have “birthing hips”…and that’s why Brooklyn wasn’t dropping down. Was that just an excuse to do a c-section? Kim was awesome and put up with my crazy emotions. Travis was also wonderful the whole time…very supportive  and encouraging.

By the time 2:15 PM rolled around, things were pointing more and more toward a c-section. My doctor came by and basically told us that’s what would have to happen. Of course, I was crying, and I begged for another hour. Just one more hour to see if that would make any difference. She agreed, knowing that it probably wouldn’t.

And, it didn’t. So, everyone started making plans for me to go to OR. I was still upset, but I knew that the end result was the most important thing…a safe birth and a healthy baby. I think we rolled back to the OR around 3:30 PM. It took quite a while for them to get me numb, but thankfully, they were able to. I was so glad that I didn’t have to be put to sleep. Travis was able to come into the room after they had me all ready. I remember being pretty groggy the whole time they were working before Brooklyn was born. It was too hard to keep my eyes open, so I kept them closed until I heard her cry for the first time. It was a surreal sound. I almost couldn’t believe it was a real baby that had been inside of me, if that makes any sense. After a minute, they brought her around the curtain to weigh her and let me see her. I started crying when I saw her. She was so beautiful. Travis was snapping photos like crazy the whole time, and he got a lot of really good ones. They let me touch her and kiss her before taking her to nursery to be bathed and checked out.

After a little while later, I was taken to recovery for an hour, and after that, I finally got to go to my post-partum room. It was great to see Travis and our families again. They had all gotten to see Brooklyn in the nursery while Travis helped give her a bath. He was so focused on snapping photos in the OR that he didn’t really get emotional until he held her in the nursery for our families to see. I just love the pictures of him holding her there. I finally got to hold Brooklyn and get a good look at her once I got to my room. It was still unbelievable that she was our baby.

The next few days all run together in my mind. I was in the hospital from Tuesday night to Saturday mid-day, and we had wonderful nurses the entire stay (with the exception of one on the last day). I also can’t say enough about the lactation nurses; they were definitely awesome. It took Brooklyn several days to get the hang of breastfeeding, and the lactation nurses were a huge help when we were having trouble. We had visitors almost non-stop during the days while I was there, and it was great to have so much support from our family and friends. The only regret I have about my stay after Brooklyn’s birth is that I didn’t try to take more naps during the day. I think I only took one nap the whole time, and we weren’t getting much sleep at night between trying to breastfeed and getting woken up for vital signs and medications. I guess my adrenaline was going strong for a few days because I didn’t really feel exhausted until Saturday (the last day we were there). More on that in a minute…

Saturday was a crazy day. We had a bad experience with our nurse, and it may have been partially because Travis and I were both so tired and ready to go home. Brooklyn also had a horrible time breastfeeding on Saturday after she’d done pretty well the day before. We had to resort to giving her formula because even the lactation nurse couldn’t get her to latch. By the time we were discharged, I was just worn out. Getting home, though, didn’t make things much better. I think I was just acting crazy because I was so tired. Remind me never to let myself get that tired again. Travis can attest to how crazy I was that day. He probably wondered what happened to his semi-normal wife. Brooklyn still wouldn’t breastfeed all evening and through the night on Saturday, and the harder I tried, the more I got stressed out. And, as tired as I was, I couldn’t sleep very well because I was so worked up.

Somehow, the three of us survived that night, and every day since then has been much better. Brooklyn has turned the corner on the whole breastfeeding thing, and we’ve gotten into somewhat of a routine during the day and at night. She is a great sleeper; she sleeps almost the whole time in between feedings. She slept in our room for the first few nights, but now she is sleeping in her crib in the nursery and doing great. She is eating about every 3 hours, and we are pretty sure she’s gained some weight since she’s been home. She gained 4 oz from discharge on Saturday (6 lbs 7 oz) to Monday (6 lbs 11 oz) when we went to the pediatrician for her first visit. We go back on Tuesday for another checkup, so we’ll see how much she weighs then! Hopefully she’ll be back up to her birth weight (7 lbs) at least.

I’m feeling much better these days! The c-section itself really wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I was sore for about a week, but I’m not having any pain anymore. I feel like I can do just about anything, although I’m not supposed to do strenuous exercise for about 4 more weeks. Guess we’ll be walking around the neighborhood between now and then! Travis has been a huge help since we’ve been home. Brooklyn is definitely a daddy’s girl already. He can pick her up and hold her, and she just loves it. If she’s crying, he can calm her down much better than I can.  Although he is a pretty heavy sleeper (especially when he’s sleep deprived anyway), he’s been doing his best to get up and help me in the middle of the night. My mom also came and stayed with us for several days this week. She was a lifesaver. She helped us with laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, and all those little things we couldn’t seem to get done between feeding Brooklyn and trying to get a little sleep. “Rae Rae” also got in lots of snuggle time with Brooklyn, which they both enjoyed. Thanks so much for all your help, Mom! Ladies from church have also been bringing food to our house just about every other day, which has been wonderful. It’s been so nice not to have to worry about cooking something for supper! We are so blessed with wonderful family and friends.

We are already in love with Brooklyn so much. It seems weird now to think about the way things used to be before she was born. We are trying to soak up every minute because as everyone keeps telling us, “It goes by too fast!”.