My little baby girl is 17 days old today. And the past 17 days have been nothing of what I would expect.
Things started out much harder in some ways and much easier in other ways than from what I had expected. I really expected labor to be much different from what I experienced. It started out harder than I thought, thanks in part to Gwen being positioned posterior, but then pushing was much easier and more rewarding than I had anticipated.
The next thing that was harder than I thought was recovery from labor. I guess I should have expected that it would be difficult for your parts to recover from pushing out a 6 pound baby (thank goodness she wasn't any bigger), but for some reason when I was planning how things would go, I didn't think past the birth. I had envisioned giving birth to my baby, and even the potential stitches that I would have to get immediately after birth. But for some reason, it didn't occur to me that I would have to recover from giving birth. While I was pretty sore when I left the hospital, I was kind of surprised that I was given discharge instructions including items like "Don't lift anything over 10 pounds" and "Don't drive for 1-2 weeks. I guess pushing out my little watermelon was pretty traumatic to my body, but I never thought that there would be restrictions to my activity. Which is why, within 1 hour of getting home from the hospital, I left Keith and Gwen at home by themselves while I went to the grocery store (this was a necessary trip as we had no diapers at home, and a desired trip as, while I love my daughter, I wanted 1 hour away from her as a little break). I drove 55 hours after giving birth and lifted grocery bags that weighed more than 10 pounds (the bagger decided to put all of the cans and bottles in one bag). It is no wonder than I was sore and bleeding more the next day. The pain continued for several days, and I got mad at myself each time I forgot that I had stitches in a sensitive zone and flopped down onto the couch. The bleeding and stitches, unfortunately, still continue. Bleeding was supposed to last for about 2 weeks, but has persisted longer most likely because I ignored my discharge instructions. The stitches should hopefully dissolve by the end of the week.
The next thing that was easier than I thought was my beautiful baby slept through the night the second night we had her home (she likely would have the first night, but we faithfully woke her up every 3 hours to feed her as instructed by the hospital lactation consultants). The second day that Gwen was home, we had to take her to the pediatrician. I was so happy that we went to the pediatrician on Gwen's 3rd day of life rather than her 7th day of life because the pediatrician told us to just let the baby wake up when she was hungry and to not worry about trying to wake her up every 2-3 hours. We joyfully applied this advice and got in a 5 hour stretch of sleep (Gwen slept for over 6 hours, which technically applies as "sleeping through the night" as a trick to mothers who realize that actually sleeping through the night would require a full 8 hour stretch of uninterrupted sleep). Since then, however, he sleep habits have deteriorated. I have tried following the pediatricians advice for good sleep habits: keep her awake before bed. Do her last feeding. Wake her up slightly so she learns to go to sleep in her own bed rather than being held until she falls asleep. This would be great advice if it worked. But each time I put my baby down she screams. She might make it for about 20 minutes before she realizes that no one is holding her, but once she wakes up and realizes that she is in that bassinet all by herself she has a colossal meltdown. I learned last night that as long as I sleep in a chair with her on my chest, she will sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time. I think she may have been a bit exhausted from the past several nights of very little sleep because she slept from 9 pm to 3 am. She may have slept for 6 hours, but I woke up about once an hour since I was worried since I hadn't heard her cry yet.
Another area that has been more difficult than we had anticipated is with Gwen's health. She has had a difficult couple of weeks. Since she has been born she has had jaundice, diaper rash, a cold, and a plugged tear duct. First was the jaundice. The jaundice appeared shortly after birth due to an incompatibility between her and my blood types. It lasted for about 10 days. While I felt a little concerned, I knew it would subside on its own as her liver took care of clearing away the hemolyzed blood cells, and the jaundice came with the blessing of making Gwen a little bit sleepier than a typical newborn allowing us extra sleep at night.
At about 10 days, Gwen went from "pumpkin" to a more normal skin tone and developed ailment number 2: diaper rash. It was understandable that she had diaper rash. She pretty much constantly poops herself and gives us no indication that she has a dirty diaper. We check periodically, but usually we only know if she has a dirty diaper if we hear it becoming dirty or smell it after the fact. So we pulled out all stops trying to get rid of her diaper rash: we stopped using baby wipes, started using diaper rash cream, and did our best to keep her clean and dry. We even tried to let her air dry a couple of times each day, but this ended up being much more dramatic than just leaving her in a diaper full time. You see, she does not like being naked. The first time we tried to let her air dry, we placed her on her belly on top of a towel. Immediately, she started screaming. The bad part wasn't the screaming - we can handle that. The bad part was that each time she screamed (about once a second), poop shot out of her bottom, past the towel by about 1 food, and onto the carpet. She became a poop sprinkler. We didn't know if we should be horrified or laugh since it was funny and disgusting all at the same time. Thanks to our quick work, we wrapped her up in the towel and obtained carpet cleaning spray from our cleaning supplies. We haven't tried air drying her since then, as she not only made a mess, but never got dry since she spent the whole time crying and launching poop cannon balls. Thankfully, I remembered that my mother-in-law had off-handedly mentioned that he kids couldn't wear certain brands of diapers because they would cause irritation. Keith and I had noticed that the Pampers, while fitting Gwen better than Huggies (newborn diapers are too big on her and I couldn't find premie diapers at the store), had a mesh layer that stuck to her skin whenever her diaper was dirty. I decided it wouldn't hurt to switch back to Huggies, and within 48 hours of being back in Huggies the diaper rash was gone.
To add to the difficulty of having diaper rash, and to make my first night alone with her memorable (Keith had to work night shift at the hospital), Gwen got a cold when she was 12 days old. I had no idea what was going on at first. I just knew that she wasn't sleeping at all and that there was no one else in the house to help me calm her down. But as the night dragged on I noticed that she sounded more and more snuffly. I also realized that when I held her on my lap with her head propped up higher than the rest of her body that the sniffles would subside somewhat. When I would lay her flat in the bassinet, the sniffles would come back and she would wake up crying. By the time I put together all of the pieces of the puzzle and figured out that it was a cold, Keith was on his way home from the hospital. He set up the humidifier, we put her in her baby seat, and she was finally able to sleep. She didn't sleep well for the next couple of days, but she slept much better in her seat than she had lying down.
The diaper rash is gone, and her sniffles are minor now. But I woke up yesterday morning to notice that her right eye was completely crusted shut with yellow crusties. I immediately called the pediatrician since I was worried that she had pink eye. They reassured me that as long as the sclera of her eye was not red that it was likely a plugged tear duct. I had no idea if her eye was red or not when I was on the phone with them because I couldn't get her eye to open because of all of the crusties. After learning that it was likely a benign problem, I ran a washcloth under warm water and wiped away all of the crusties. The good news: her eye was white. The bad news: plugged tear ducts can take months to get rid of, and during those months you have to wash the eye several times a day and massage the tear duct, both of which seem to be the end of the world to baby Gwen.
Breastfeeding has been easier and harder in several ways, but I will save that for another post as that has been an adventure in itself.
Things started out much harder in some ways and much easier in other ways than from what I had expected. I really expected labor to be much different from what I experienced. It started out harder than I thought, thanks in part to Gwen being positioned posterior, but then pushing was much easier and more rewarding than I had anticipated.
The next thing that was harder than I thought was recovery from labor. I guess I should have expected that it would be difficult for your parts to recover from pushing out a 6 pound baby (thank goodness she wasn't any bigger), but for some reason when I was planning how things would go, I didn't think past the birth. I had envisioned giving birth to my baby, and even the potential stitches that I would have to get immediately after birth. But for some reason, it didn't occur to me that I would have to recover from giving birth. While I was pretty sore when I left the hospital, I was kind of surprised that I was given discharge instructions including items like "Don't lift anything over 10 pounds" and "Don't drive for 1-2 weeks. I guess pushing out my little watermelon was pretty traumatic to my body, but I never thought that there would be restrictions to my activity. Which is why, within 1 hour of getting home from the hospital, I left Keith and Gwen at home by themselves while I went to the grocery store (this was a necessary trip as we had no diapers at home, and a desired trip as, while I love my daughter, I wanted 1 hour away from her as a little break). I drove 55 hours after giving birth and lifted grocery bags that weighed more than 10 pounds (the bagger decided to put all of the cans and bottles in one bag). It is no wonder than I was sore and bleeding more the next day. The pain continued for several days, and I got mad at myself each time I forgot that I had stitches in a sensitive zone and flopped down onto the couch. The bleeding and stitches, unfortunately, still continue. Bleeding was supposed to last for about 2 weeks, but has persisted longer most likely because I ignored my discharge instructions. The stitches should hopefully dissolve by the end of the week.
The next thing that was easier than I thought was my beautiful baby slept through the night the second night we had her home (she likely would have the first night, but we faithfully woke her up every 3 hours to feed her as instructed by the hospital lactation consultants). The second day that Gwen was home, we had to take her to the pediatrician. I was so happy that we went to the pediatrician on Gwen's 3rd day of life rather than her 7th day of life because the pediatrician told us to just let the baby wake up when she was hungry and to not worry about trying to wake her up every 2-3 hours. We joyfully applied this advice and got in a 5 hour stretch of sleep (Gwen slept for over 6 hours, which technically applies as "sleeping through the night" as a trick to mothers who realize that actually sleeping through the night would require a full 8 hour stretch of uninterrupted sleep). Since then, however, he sleep habits have deteriorated. I have tried following the pediatricians advice for good sleep habits: keep her awake before bed. Do her last feeding. Wake her up slightly so she learns to go to sleep in her own bed rather than being held until she falls asleep. This would be great advice if it worked. But each time I put my baby down she screams. She might make it for about 20 minutes before she realizes that no one is holding her, but once she wakes up and realizes that she is in that bassinet all by herself she has a colossal meltdown. I learned last night that as long as I sleep in a chair with her on my chest, she will sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time. I think she may have been a bit exhausted from the past several nights of very little sleep because she slept from 9 pm to 3 am. She may have slept for 6 hours, but I woke up about once an hour since I was worried since I hadn't heard her cry yet.
Another area that has been more difficult than we had anticipated is with Gwen's health. She has had a difficult couple of weeks. Since she has been born she has had jaundice, diaper rash, a cold, and a plugged tear duct. First was the jaundice. The jaundice appeared shortly after birth due to an incompatibility between her and my blood types. It lasted for about 10 days. While I felt a little concerned, I knew it would subside on its own as her liver took care of clearing away the hemolyzed blood cells, and the jaundice came with the blessing of making Gwen a little bit sleepier than a typical newborn allowing us extra sleep at night.
At about 10 days, Gwen went from "pumpkin" to a more normal skin tone and developed ailment number 2: diaper rash. It was understandable that she had diaper rash. She pretty much constantly poops herself and gives us no indication that she has a dirty diaper. We check periodically, but usually we only know if she has a dirty diaper if we hear it becoming dirty or smell it after the fact. So we pulled out all stops trying to get rid of her diaper rash: we stopped using baby wipes, started using diaper rash cream, and did our best to keep her clean and dry. We even tried to let her air dry a couple of times each day, but this ended up being much more dramatic than just leaving her in a diaper full time. You see, she does not like being naked. The first time we tried to let her air dry, we placed her on her belly on top of a towel. Immediately, she started screaming. The bad part wasn't the screaming - we can handle that. The bad part was that each time she screamed (about once a second), poop shot out of her bottom, past the towel by about 1 food, and onto the carpet. She became a poop sprinkler. We didn't know if we should be horrified or laugh since it was funny and disgusting all at the same time. Thanks to our quick work, we wrapped her up in the towel and obtained carpet cleaning spray from our cleaning supplies. We haven't tried air drying her since then, as she not only made a mess, but never got dry since she spent the whole time crying and launching poop cannon balls. Thankfully, I remembered that my mother-in-law had off-handedly mentioned that he kids couldn't wear certain brands of diapers because they would cause irritation. Keith and I had noticed that the Pampers, while fitting Gwen better than Huggies (newborn diapers are too big on her and I couldn't find premie diapers at the store), had a mesh layer that stuck to her skin whenever her diaper was dirty. I decided it wouldn't hurt to switch back to Huggies, and within 48 hours of being back in Huggies the diaper rash was gone.
To add to the difficulty of having diaper rash, and to make my first night alone with her memorable (Keith had to work night shift at the hospital), Gwen got a cold when she was 12 days old. I had no idea what was going on at first. I just knew that she wasn't sleeping at all and that there was no one else in the house to help me calm her down. But as the night dragged on I noticed that she sounded more and more snuffly. I also realized that when I held her on my lap with her head propped up higher than the rest of her body that the sniffles would subside somewhat. When I would lay her flat in the bassinet, the sniffles would come back and she would wake up crying. By the time I put together all of the pieces of the puzzle and figured out that it was a cold, Keith was on his way home from the hospital. He set up the humidifier, we put her in her baby seat, and she was finally able to sleep. She didn't sleep well for the next couple of days, but she slept much better in her seat than she had lying down.
The diaper rash is gone, and her sniffles are minor now. But I woke up yesterday morning to notice that her right eye was completely crusted shut with yellow crusties. I immediately called the pediatrician since I was worried that she had pink eye. They reassured me that as long as the sclera of her eye was not red that it was likely a plugged tear duct. I had no idea if her eye was red or not when I was on the phone with them because I couldn't get her eye to open because of all of the crusties. After learning that it was likely a benign problem, I ran a washcloth under warm water and wiped away all of the crusties. The good news: her eye was white. The bad news: plugged tear ducts can take months to get rid of, and during those months you have to wash the eye several times a day and massage the tear duct, both of which seem to be the end of the world to baby Gwen.
Breastfeeding has been easier and harder in several ways, but I will save that for another post as that has been an adventure in itself.
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