Breastfeeding attempts and sailing into PPD!

our breastfeeding *disguise* cap, knitted by lisa hughes,
modeled by andrew!!
works like this:

 okey dokey!! it is thursday, august 2, and baby girl is tenuously asleep as long as she has access to my left hand, so again typing only with my right one. sara catherine turned 20 weeks yesterday, and i think i have been putting off writing about the worst parts of the post partum depression. maybe i'm afraid it will "get" me again if i raise the spectre of it by writing about it. but i think that it will ultimately have been a cathartic exercise for me, and if it resonates with even one other person (in a comforting way), then i will be glad i put it all down. i also want it recorded so that, in 30 years, when sc is allowed to leave the house, date and possibly get married and have a baby, it might be helpful to her. some of the physical after c-section descriptions are graphic, so this is your warning to stop reading!
last blog post, i got back from the recovery room and into our hospital room (which was TEENY), about an hour after the surgery, so around 9am on wednesday, 3/14. now, some of that time period is fuzzy, either from the anesthesia and painkillers in my system, or me blocking it out, or both. i know that i immediately started to bloat up, which i didn't expect. one mistake i had made was to not research what exactly happens to your body after a c-section. i thought, yay, i only gained 19 lb over the whole pregnancy, and then the surgery will take away 8 lb, so i'm on the way to losing the weight already! but, i had the compression cuffs on my lower legs, which i didn't realize would make me feel 10 degrees warmer (and i'm already hot-natured), and my body started to re-absorb the 10-month build-up of fluids the baby had needed.  as your body re-absorbs, it also starts to purge, which is necessary, or i guess you'd just explode like a HUGE salt water balloon. so: i puffed up and could barely bend my fingers; the leg cuffs compressed to prevent blood clots and heated me at the same time, and my body started purging the fluid by sweating. not some delicate process like *glistening* or *perspiring*. i was dripping and pouring sweat so that my pillows and gowns kept getting soaked and had to be switched out every couple hours. i got used to feeling the sweat drops roll down my temple and my neck, and i just learned to keep my head back flat so the salt wouldn't get in my eyes. i also, unbeknownst to me till later because i was still numb and had a catheter in, was a champ at filling bag after foley bag (tee-tee!). understandably, i was thirstier than at any other time in my LIFE, and wasn't allowed anything but freaking ice chips, which are USELESS. i hadnt had my anti-depressant/anti-anxiety meds, effexor, since the previous afternoon. if you remember, my ob/gyn and i had decided that i would stay on the meds while pregnant, but cut down my daily dosage by 1/3, especially since my twin sister had suffered debilitating ppd, which meant my chances were that much greater that i would, also. at this point, the post partum depression (ppd) hadn't kicked in yet.

i was hooked up to the dilaudid drip, which had a push-button i could control. i used it sparingly since we had decided that we would do our best to breastfeed because of the tons of health benefits.  i was horribly thirsty and STARVING, but wouldn't be allowed to eat for another 24 hours (or 36 hours total between meals since i hadn't eaten since the previous evening). anyway, some nurse came in and took all my vitals and then another took blood, in the first of a series of round the clock *visits* by the nurses to check me and take blood. the nurses then brought the little baby in, and she was such a strange little creature! she was already beautiful, to me (what do you mean, "bias"?!), but she still felt like a little teeny stranger. i had zero experience with newborns, and especially with any that i would be taking home FOREVERRR. i think the tension started then, but i was drugged up enough not to really notice it.

sweet teeny barnacle
monkeymuffin

it was time to attempt to nurse! i hadn't noticed any actual milk yet, so i had no idea if this was going to work. everyone and their brother (or sister) got to witness my  40-D rack, as there IS NO MODESTY WHEN YOU GIVE BIRTH, and the nurse saying, "you really just need to JAM...her on there," and JAMMING the baby onto my nipple. it worked sometimes, and it didn't work sometimes. there was some milk that sc was able to get, but it was very little - though, at that young, her baby tummy was so teeny it didn't need much to be full. i will tell you that when we (joint effort of andrew, the nurse, and me) got sc to successfully latch on, the physical sensation of her nursing was one of the most dear, tender and special connections i have ever felt, or ever will. there was a comforting pull that i didn't expect, and that was one of the first 'tangible" glimpses i had into the all-encompassing love and fierce protection a mommy feels for her wee baby.

so! little baby sara catherine is awake, and i will write more later on, hopefully today!
happy thursday, y'all!!

to be continued.....

what? i don't see the problem.