Life As LD's Mom 72+ Hours...

These last 72+ hours have been a mix of so many emotions, good ones, bad ones, and most important overwhelmingly amazing ones!!

First I'll bang out the bad because really all it takes is one of those overwhelmingly amazing moments and the bad is long forgotten. Plus if you don't want to hear someone as lucky as I am whine about things feel free to skip the rest of this paragraph. Physically I feel like LD drove a Mack truck to get out of me which makes for some interesting maneuvering at times. I cannot compare this to a c-section, as I've never had one, but I imagine that not being able to use your ab muscles after they've been sliced is similar to not being able to use the nether region muscles after they've been sliced, only ab muscles are involved in so many more things I'm pretty sure that takes the cake. The worst part in my case is the stitches, inside and out, being located in an area where you put pressure on them by sitting all day. I'm experiencing a little tingly numbness in my tailbone region too, thinking the epidural may be responsible for that. Nursing has been a challenge I'll address a little further down but since we're covering my physical discomforts right now I'll mention that chapped nipples are not your friend. The sheer exhaustion of the first 48 hours was also one of the bad parts, I'm not sure there's a way to escape that. I think it's part of the initiation into parenthood. We've developed a system that is working for us right now and the three of us have been able to sleep at the same time and wake for feedings basically all together. Yes it takes three of us for feedings right now, again addressed further down. I've only had a single meltdown and though it was a doozie it was immediately after we got home from the hospital and I hadn't slept more than 3 hours in 2 nights, gone through labor, and my body was adjusting to the sudden drop in hormones. I suddenly felt like a complete and absolute failure at everything and just lost it. My DH had been doing such an incredibly amazing job calming LD when he cried and taking care of all of LD's needs when it seemed like I couldn't. It was fatigue driven and completely irrational, but at the time it was what I was feeling. Things looked and felt better after a two hour nap. Which by the way felt like a 7 day vacation. I was so refreshed afterwards.

Okay enough about the physical issues. On to a baby related issue. Let's tackle the biggest challenge so far...nursing. Baby LD was born on a Saturday afternoon and me being a complete newbie to nursing when the nurse in Labor & Delivery told me he had a nice latch after he didn't hesitate at all to launch himself onto the boob I wasn't worried. Fast forward to the next morning and I was hoping a lactation consultant could be arranged as the latch was quite painful. Apparently the only day there wasn't a lactation consultant is Sunday, though the nurse thought there was supposed to start being one on Sundays but wasn't sure when. We were told we could stay until Monday to attend the latch class and also to see a lactation consultant, but I was ready to go home Sunday. Suddenly there was a lactation consultant in the room, despite it being Sunday, but LD was sleeping. She said she'd be gone in 1/2 an hour for the day so we should wake him up so she could see him latch. So we stripped him down and woke him up and waited for her to return, of course he fell asleep while we waited. I have to say that happened a lot when someone from the hospital came to our room or even during labor, we were told someone would be right back or back in an hour or back in X amount of time and that's not really what happened. When she finally returned she watched LD latch and said he needs to be deeper, but didn't provide any assistance. I told her I was planning to have our home visit ASAP from the Breastfeeding Center I went to during pregnancy and she basically said that was all the help she could provide and left. She was not helpful at all. I continued to feed him despite literally feeling like knives were being driven into my nipples when he nursed. Part of my breakdown when I got home was centered around feeling like a breastfeeding failure and wanting the pain to end while I nursed. The sheer desperation I had to stick with breastfeeding despite the pain was being overcome by my exhaustion. After my nap I was refreshed and ready to try to get LD to latch better. We fed him and it was still just as painful, but by this point he wasn't seeming to be satiated when he was done. He was getting aggravated and I was starting to worry he wasn't even actually getting any food. He fell asleep, which to add to the confusion and frustration can be a sign nursing is going well or failing terribly. So I was really starting to worry. At the 3am feeding he latched, suckled for a while, but suddenly became frantic and inconsolable. I was convinced something wasn't right and he wasn't getting any food. I began to cry too. My poor DH had a frenzied baby, a mess of a wife, and no real clue what to do at 3am. When we had seen the OB to discharge me from the hospital she mentioned to us in passing that her nursing moms sometimes choose to formula feed with a syringe while they are waiting for their supply to come in, because sometimes colostrum doesn't fill a baby up. She said if we wanted details to ask the nurses before we left. When she mentioned it neither one of us thought much of it because we were still at the hospital and he still seemed to be full when he was eating, it was just painful. So we didn't ask the nurses, but at 3am while your world is falling apart and your child is starving you can figure stuff out pretty quickly. Thankfully I had bought 100 syringes when I got the Heparin so DH immediately grabbed a syringe and filled it with the formula we'd been given when we went to one of our prenatal classes. I latched LD and DH immediately got the syringe in the corner of his mouth and fed him that way. LD nursed like a champ and fell asleep. The next morning I called the Breastfeeding Center and asked them to send a lactation consultant for a home visit. At this point I was sure that I wouldn't be able to supply LD with what he needed and that we would be formula feeding. Let me say that I have no problem with formula feeding, at all, whatsoever. I wanted to give breastfeeding the best try that I could and if it didn't work for us, I was switching to formula because what is most important is that LD is well fed and healthy, which he can be on formula just as on breastmilk. PCOS can really affect supply and I was resigned to the fact that my problem was because of that. I had pre-paid the home and office visits for the lactation consultant so we needed to use those before I completely gave up on breastfeeding. Monday evening the most kind and incredible lactation consultant showed up at our house and helped to restore order to a situation that felt completely disordered. Immediately she looked at my nipples and said it should have never come to that. They were sore, chapped, and bleeding. She reassured us that the formula syringe was the absolute best thing to do and was impressed we had done it with little prompting on our own. She reiterated that feeding the baby is always the most important thing. She watched LD latch and said he does have a shallow latch. She gave me tips and tricks for helping to improve the latch, but also reassured me that his mouth is pretty tiny right now and as he gets bigger he'll be able to latch better. She gave us a much better syringe feeding system, we were using a tiny 1ML syringe and it was taking more than 1 to feed him, she gave us a big old syringe with tubing and taught DH and I how to best feed LD. She helped with different positions to help ease the pain. She weighed LD and explained to us that he was basically starving and the best thing to do is to keep on supplementing him and for me to get a pump ASAP to help increase and establish my supply. She helped me check and see that I had indeed moved on from colostrum to transitional milk and that at any point my milk would be in. She was so calm and helpful and reassuring. She understood our fear and helped us address what we were dealing with. That night it was the most amazing thing, we fed LD and we all slept for 3 hours until it was time to do it again. We did this through the night and we all woke up feeling so much better. So for now LD's feedings take 3 people, but my DH has been so amazing and he does such a great job!! I am so thankful that he is here for us!! He is the most incredible father and husband. So for now we're working through some feeding issues that have been difficult to deal with, but hopefully are on their way to a wonderful resolution for all of us. So when someone tells you breastfeeding can be challenging, it can be. They aren't lying.

Like I said in the beginning the overwhelmingly amazing moments are so much more frequent than the challenging ones and they erase the difficult ones in an instant. LD is such an amazing little character and I just keep staring at him and wondering what the hell I did to deserve to raise an angel. Being a mom is so much harder, and so much more rewarding that I ever imagined it could be. Just like labor it's one of those things that is hard to describe but when you're there it's just the most incredible thing. Holding his newborn weight is surreal and cuddling him close is the closest to Heaven on Earth that I've ever experienced. When he looks up at me it melts my heart and I want nothing more than to protect him and take the best care of him that I can for the rest of my life, yeah even when he's all grown up. :) Today when DH was changing him he let his guard down because LD hadn't peed on anyone while having his diaper changed yet. Well LD picked this moment to hose down DH!! That's my boy!! :)