fun with needles and boobies. :)

i can SENSE your disappointment. and, yes. my boobs were bigger than her head.

so, last post, the little baby sc had nursed a couple of times and did pretty well. i had a very tough time positioning her correctly, but when i did it right, she was a champ at latching on. of course, there's no way to tell how much she's getting, so we just decided to keep up with how many minutes she nursed. my awesome friend lori gave me a Brest Friend Nursing Pillow, which was a true lifesaver in the hospital. if you haven't had a c-section and were then expected to nurse, even if you PLANNED it that way, it's extremely difficult. first, you're still numb in a large portion of the incision area, but the pain is starting to kick in. so trying to sit up in the bed, which takes using your abdominal muscles, just makes you feel helpless and useless. especially when a nurse is standing there with the baby, waiting for you to wake-up from your drug-induced stupor, all but tapping her foot impatiently, while you and your husband try to figure out how to get you lifted without further injury or pain. WHICH THE NURSE SHOULD BE DOING-UH. and i didn't want to complain because wouldn't that make me sound like i was not motherly? shouldn't i be 100% gung-ho to cram my baby's head onto my boob despite being just about the most uncomfortable i've ever been in my life? anyway. during all this, i was still sweating profusely and purging tons of fluids, trying not to sweat on my poor tiny newborn, not allowed to eat, barely allowed anything to drink, in pain, super-groggy and not allowed to take my daily medication yet, which would've done wonders for my anxiety, i believe. also, a nurse came in and showed andrew how to change sc's diaper and how to swaddle her. yes, i was sitting there watching it, but since i could barely see over the bassinet, i had no idea what they were showing andrew. thinking back, i believe some of the panic started at that point. it was my first day of being a mommy, and i already felt like i was falling behind in the baby lessons because i was stuck in the hospital bed. i wonder if andrew felt any panic, realizing that he was 100% responsible for correctly learning how to do whatever the nurses were teaching him, knowing he'd have to teach ME at some point. throughout the day, the nurses continued to take my blood and check my vitals, and i wasn't going to be able to eat or take my meds until the NEXT morning at 7:00am. bleh. they had to change my sanitary pads every 2 hours or so because of the lochia, which is the lining of the uterus comin' back out in a landslide.
at some point that day (wed, march 14), andrew left to get something to eat because the hospital cafeteria closed after lunch. i had so many wonderful messages and posts on facebook, and i posted this:

 i realize I probably shouldn't delaudid and status update, but i have to say how glorious you all are for all the wonderful texts, comments, posts and emails! i have read every single one of them, and made Andrew read them to me again, and i am so overwhelmed by all of your well wishes. i will respond when i can. i'm recovering slowly but surely, and sara catherine is 100% healthy as of the peds check this morning! Hallelujah! we are having some success with the nursing, so just praying through it, and of course, Andrew has been our knight in shining armor, changing diapers and helping our lil monkeypants latch on. SC is trying to be very patient as mommy tries to learn this sh*t. :) will post more when we're home, but just, thank you all for your prayers, kind thoughts and positive energy. y'all rock the casbah. :)

and i had the baby by myself for a little while.  i felt a little helpless with this teeny stranger. i had her on my lap on the nursing pillow. she was sleeping and i think i was just STARING at her, like, what ARE you? how do i pick you up without plucking your skinny little limbs out? she was 6 lbs 10 oz (6 lb 1oz by the time we left the hospital), and felt so fragile to me. she was very twitchy and squirmy and i didn't expect that, despite her very active moving and kicking in mah belleh the last few months of my pregnancy. i was relieved when the nurse came and got the baby because i felt very little confidence in handling her without andrew there, plus i couldn't change or swaddle her.

a lot of the time in the hospital is blurry and fuzzy, and i wish i'd had the balls to tell the nurses that i was too tired to breastfeed and i needed sleep, but i didn't. i was judging myself already and finding myself lacking as a mommy for even thinking about more sleep, despite the anesthesia hangover plus the delaudid painkiller. i didn't want the nurses to judge me, too. they brought sc back in every couple hours to try to nurse and i did the panicked wake-up, again soaked in sweat, trying to be cheery and bright-eyed at 2am OH OF COURSE I FEEL LIKE NURSING RIGHT NOW and andrew would spring off the horrible seat-bed and try to find the nursing pillow in the dark so he could help. poor andrew having to sleep on that pathetic "bed." not only that, but because of those leg compression cuffs i was wearing, which just made me sweat even more, i kept asking andrew to make the air cooler in there. i didn't know till we left the hospital that our room temperature was around 55 degrees for most of the time, to make ME comfortable. andrew never ever complained even though he was freezing, on that plastic piece of crap fold-out chair-bed, with crap-ass hospital blankets. my sweet man.

at one point in the middle of the night, sc was with us and was just crying her little head off, maybe because she wasn't getting enough milk, which we didn't realize till a couple days later. but andrew took her out into the hall to walk her around and try to calm her, and probably also to let me try to sleep because he's just awesome like that. he TOTALLY got busted, however, because apparently parents aren't allowed to take the baby out of the room. um. okay, i understand that sc's little ankle monitor bracelet set off the alarm when andrew got too close to the elevator with her. but, for REAL? those rooms are closet-sized, and if the nurses insisted that we keep sc in there as long as they did even after nursing, then we were gonna need more room to try to calm the little muffin. some night nurse stopped andrew and was all "you're not supposed to be out here, for the baby's safety," and andrew's all, "well, there's nowhere she's going to be any safer than right here where i have her." and then he came back to the room and the nurseguard brought us a copy of the rules. they were apparently on a slip of paper included in the registration packet we were given WHILE I WAS IN LABOR. mofos.

anyway, around 4am the bloodseeking nurses came in and woke me up to draw blood. one was a teacher and one was a student. so, awesome, i was going to be a pincushion guinea pig. i said, okay, just please don't tell me what you're doing because i get sick and pass out sometimes when people take my blood. no f*cking kidding - EIGHT NEEDLE STICKS LATER, after listening to some barely-graduated-high-school chick say to the girl trainnig her, in backwoods southern "oh, nooooo, it keeps on rollin'. here, i'mo try to stick it again. <stab stab> DERN, i just cain't get it. <STAB STAB STAB> uh oh. i thank i just blew that vein. should i try the first hole i tried again?" finally i was like, "okay, really? you're really hurting me, i'm getting nauseated and i might throw up," and finally they quit. they seriously covered my arm then with 4 bandaids to try to hide the damage. when i removed them the next day, i had a blown vein, pain, swelling and bruises that lasted 8 weeks:


awesome.
also the next morning, when the head nurse, who we liked, brought the baby in, i remarked to andrew, "goodness, our baby sure is a squirmy mcsquirmerpants!" the nurse gave me a frown and said, "yeah. that's probably because of the effexor."
and THAT was the trigger of my post-partum depression. i had only DECREASED my anti-anxiety/anti-depression medication, Effexor; i hadn't stopped it, after my doctor and i determined that was best. but all i knew at that minute was that i was a horrible, selfish mother who wasn't even willing to give up my medication and now it had caused my baby to flail, and fling her arms out stiffly, almost like a seizure. if that sounds familiar to you mommies, it's because that's the freaking MORO REFLEX, which almost all babies demonstrate and is NOT caused by the mommy taking effexor. but i didn't know that then, again because i hadn't researched well enough what to expect from a newborn. now, i think i was GOING to have PPD at some point, since it runs in the family somewhat and i myself have suffered from clinical depression for years; the nurse's comment just happened to be the thing that triggered it. it was like my world became suddenly a little darker and skewed somehow, and i was flooded with guilt and fear. so.
that was the beginning of one of the hardest times in my life. which i will delve into into the next post. thanks for reading!! :)