Trouble adjusting

Here we are, 25 days into the new parent thing. Some days are easier than others. Some days are brutally tough. And I have HELP. I have someone I can turn to when I can't handle anymore. I didn't think it would be so tough. I truly feel for women (and men) who have to do this on their own. It is not an easy task.

I love this little bean. I mean, it's weird to feel like this about someone that you literally just met but I do. But that doesn't mean it's not a challenge. When you just can't figure out why she's crying and you've tried everything... and I don't even think I have a colicky baby, where she cries all the time for no reason. She doesn't cry excessively, it's just an adjustment. But then she smiles at you (it's just gas, I'm sure) and it's all worth it.

I'm still dealing with some issues though. I can't sit for too long, got a bit of pain in the bum. I won't go into details but it's f%^&*&^ painful and when all you have to do in your day is sit. On top of that, apparently I'm possibly bordering on postpartum depression, according to my midwife. She's a little concerned. Here I just thought it was hormones. The stress of learning to deal with a young one and on top of that, not working. I guess it could be more than that - weather, it's been cold, snowing, raining, gross. I need to be more diligent. I haven't been out of the house with just the bun, alone. It feels overwhelming. I'll have to do it soon though - I'm thinking that heading out to a new mother's/baby's group is probably a good idea. I need to know other people are going through some of the same things I am.

I know if physically I felt better, I'd emotionally feel better. Sure, having a bit of warm sunshine wouldn't hurt but it's winter after all.. it ain't going to happen. We've talked about moving down near my parents. I'm trying not to make any rash decisions at this point but it's hard in the thick of things. A few months will go by and I'm sure I won't feel so bad. Things will settle down. I'll look back on this and be surprised. I just have to take one day at a time.

On a bright note, M and I are celebrating our first anniversary on Wednesday. We might even take a friend up on her offer to watch the bean and go out for dinner. What a year it's been! I'm so happy, I've really married my best friend and a wonderful partner in this new phase in our life. Thank you, M. I love you.

Sleeping baby

How do I get anything done? It seems the day passes and I accomplish nothing aside from breastfeeding the wee one and writing thank you cards for the gifts we've gotten. I haven't actually sent any of those thank you cards, I've just written them. My mom is still doing the bulk of the work - she does laundry, she makes dinner, she cuddles the baby when she's fussy. My mom leaves on Monday. How are we going to do it?

I know the answer to that. We just are. We'll work it out. I'll get off my a$$ and get a bit more organized. I wonder how people go back to work - how do they do it? I want to work a little but the thought of having to breastfeed every 3 hours (the whole process takes between 30-60 minutes depending on whether she eats consistently or rests in between courses!) is keeping me from doing that. And then there's our trip to Ireland. Part of me just wants to rest the whole 3 months. Although I'm sure I'll be stircrazy by then.

It has rained exactly 13 days out of 16 since Emer was born. I don't mean little drizzly rain either, I mean Noah's Ark kind of rain where you are pretty sure you need a snorkel when you go outside. So, suffice it to say, I'm a little depressed. It could be hormones, it could be the weather, it could be this huge life change, it could be not working - it's probably all four of those things. We've talked about moving someplace sunny although I have told M that I won't make any hurried decisions since I'm sure it's just hormones talking right now.

I've noticed exactly how tiny our house is the last few weeks too. Four people and a baby shouldn't share the same space in a house like this. Since we only use one floor currently, we are talking 800 sq feet, approximately. There's no place to get away, especially in this weather. Today is nice, but maybe not nice enough to cheer me up!

I keep meaning to post photos but as I may have said, there aren't a lot of moments when her eyes are open, hence, not a lot of "different" photos. The only thing that changes are the outfits and the blankets. lol I know, I know.... enjoy every moment because they don't come along again... and I am. It's all good.

10 days on...

I can't believe it's 10 days since she was born. It's also exactly one year since M moved to the U.S. to be with me. Our anniversary is the end of the month. Some would say it's been a busy year. I know I would.

Emer (pronounced Eemer) 's name is Irish. M and I actually had come up with girl names, even though we thought we were having a boy. We went through a lot of girl names, I wanted something short with at least 2 syllables. The name needed to flow. lol Anyhow, at first M wasn't sure about Emer, as it was an ex-girlfriend's name, but to me, it didn't matter. No one has heard the name Emer before - aside from the Irish side - so it's fun to have some 'different'. The name doesn't really have any meaning, in particular. M says that Emer was the queen of mythical Ireland way back when. She's certainly a queen! Rose is my maternal grandmother's name - M came up with the middle name and I think it's perfect. It fits her!

So the first week has been a bit of a trial. We went to the pediatrician on Monday and of course, she'd lost weight. She also was a bit jaundiced which of course, sent her mother into fits of crying (of course, that was hormonal but the guilt didn't hurt to keep it going)... I'd been crying uncontrollably for a few days anyway. I guess the hormones that change after pregnancy were worse for me than the one during pregnancy. Anyhow, after that appt, I asked to see a lactation consultant because we were pretty sure the wee one wasn't eating (it's hard to tell when you are feeding from the boob). We saw her 3 times last week and she gave us some great tips, she also prescribed a breast pump and it seems like my milk is finally in! If dirty and wet diapers are any indication... lol By Friday, she'd gained back 3.6 oz (after losing 12oz) so I'm feeling pretty good about that. We're getting into a routine.

Thank god for my mother and M. They have made life easy for me in the last 10 days. I don't have to cook, clean, and could sleep whenever I want. I have someone to hand off the baby too when she's fussy, someone to change diapers, to help me get in place when I have to breast feed. It's made things sooooo much easier and I'm truly blessed. This morning I was even able to get up with Emer, change her diaper and feed her while everyone else was asleep. It's the little milestones that I'm happy with. I don't know how single mom's do it, even how women without their mom's or husbands do it. If I had to be alone all day, doing it all myself... oh my gosh, I can't even think about it. I definitely have a lot of respect for those mother's out there.

Well, it's about that time.. I need to wrap this up. I'm going to take a quick bath and get ready for the feeding frenzy that commences soon. I can see my little girl making the 'I'm almost awake' movements! I promise more photos later. We still have our damn camera with the constantly dead batteries so we had to take photos with the camera that uses film. Needless to say, we have to get them developed....

I guess I spoke too soon

As you all know by now, the bun came out of the oven! However I mentioned feeling on Halloween was justified, I really wasn't feeling right. After I finished working, I told M that we had to leave the house because I couldn't sit around feeling like I was - kinda crampy and uncomfortable. I wanted to get my mind off of it and as we needed a smaller place for the bun to sleep, we headed down to Bab1es R u$ (that last s as the dollar sign being particularly fitting!). We bought the thing we were looking for and the lady at the register asked when I was due. I laughed and said, due Friday but might be having him tonight. (See, I still was thinking boy even though the last few days I thought girl was a possibility). We laughed and went on our merry way. I didn't really think I was having him that night. We headed over to Red Robin and had a dinner consisting of mainly junk - chili cheese fries, onion rings and we split a burger. If I'd known I'd be seeing those things later, I probably would've picked some more appetizing colors or something!

We headed home after food - it was probably about 9pm - and I was starting to kind of keep track of the feelings I was having. I thought they might be contractions. It felt like particularly bad menstrual cramps and having not had those since I was 15 or so, it didn't feel good. They started out about every 15 minutes and pretty soon, I was standing up and trying to "breathe through them" because they weren't feeling particularly good. I called the doula about 11:30 (by the way, she didn't pick up right away...argh) and she finally answered after I called a second time. I told her what was going on, the contractions were about 10-11 minutes apart at this point, which means basically I *could've* been in labor or not. We had to wait and see. She told me to get some rest, sleep if I could and drink tons of liquids. Pretty soon, every contraction had me running to the bathroom, thinking I was going to throw up. I didn't at that point. I just knew I needed to.

M and I tried to go to sleep. He had no problem zonking out but every 10 minutes was awakened by me getting up, or getting on all fours to breathe through the contraction. I was making a lot of noise because my yoga breathing was all I could remember to do! I was sure our nextdoor neighbors could hear. Pretty soon, we just gave up sleeping and came back to the living room, listening to music, drinking a cup of tea, trying again to time the contractions. They were at 5 minutes apart for what seemed like quite a while - still, I didn't know if I was in full labor and didn't want to wake my doula for nothing, so we just kept working through them. It was about 2:30 in the morning when I had a contraction that made me lose my dinner. Having been drunk before I knew all about throwing up - god it felt good! lol M was convinced I needed to call the doula so we did. She didn't pick up right away so he called the hospital. They said he could bring me in and we could see how far I was - he felt better about that because he thought I was getting dehydrated. So by the time the doula called, we were packed and heading to the hospital. She was going to meet us there.

We arrived after an uneventful time in the car. It was 3:30am and we laughed about all the times/routes we'd practiced getting there during rush hour. We needn't have worried, there wasn't a spot of traffic out at that time! We arrived and they made me lay on my back - the worst position by the way - to put a couple monitors on my uterus and the baby. It's the law they do this when you come in, for twenty minutes. It was a brutal 20 minutes. Everyone was doing fine, sure enough I was having contractions...

The midwife on call arrived and it was one of our favorites. She checked me out and told me I was 5cm dialated! I had managed to get most of the way at home (which was a goal) and without my doula (not necessarily what I'd hired her for!). I was still not close though - usually it takes 1 hour per cm to dilate - so was forced to lay on my back for what seemed like forever. They decided to move me from the monitoring room to the place I would give birth and stay in afterward. I got the gown on and they found me a birthing ball to sit on. The contractions were intense and uncomfortable. I was still making a LOT of noise to get through them. Because my water hadn't broken, I wasn't allowed to push yet. That was probably the hardest part of it all - not allowed to do something I really needed to do to feel better. I was using all these other breathing techniques I'd never thought I would because they were so silly when we were learning them. But I had to keep from pushing and that's what they did for me.

I guess at one point, I was sitting on the ball and my legs were shaking so hard. I couldn't stop them. I didn't know at the time that this meant I was in transition, the point before you start pushing the baby out. All I knew was that I didn't think I could go much longer. I could feel myself wanting the drugs. lol At one point, they suggested I get on the bed again. I was lying on my left side with M at my face and my doula close by. I don't remember too many details but when my midwife checked me again, I was 10cm dilated. We were surprised at how fast things were moving. It was only 5:30am. It wasn't long before my water broke. God, what a gorgeous feeling!!! Relief for that moment anyway. Now was the work.

I had completely planned on laboring standing up or something else to use gravity to pull the baby out but here I was on my side, really the only position I could be comfortable on. Finally I was allowed to push. My gosh, the sounds that came out of me now! I remember pushing, I remember everyone saying they could see the baby's head, I remember M leaning over and looking at it, I even remember me touching her head. I remember the midwife telling me to change the pushing noises to push down rather than out (I can't explain it better than that) - instead of pushing out with my grunts, the focus needed to be down and out. It seemed to do the trick. Emer came out in about 20 minutes of pushing. The relief was incredible!

The midwife laid her on my chest as I'd asked and we set our eyes on our daughter (by the way, M got to announce it to me) for the first time. I was just amazed and thinking of it now makes me tear up a bit. I had to have a few stitches because she came out pretty fast but I didn't even notice the rest of the labor. We did get a good look at the placenta about an hour later, and I have to say how incredible it is to see something that kept your child alive for 10 months.

Don't worry, we didn't bring it home with us, nor are we cooking it. That's just too gross.