PostPartum ~ Day 1

She slept in our room
the whole time

The Day After Birth

As I sit to share my first week with you postpartum I am fourteen and a half weeks in to this whole parenting adventure, I have a hot cup of tea, a glass of milk, two kinds of cake, flowers on my table, a caramel maple candle burning and the baby is napping. 

Fresh Babe

I tell you this in case you're in your first week postpartum and you think you may lose it or die from the lack of sleep or your baby won't stop crying or you're simply overwhelmed by all of the changes etc (because honestly I could keep going with all of the feelings that are felt in those first few days, weeks and even months. Thanks hormones). 

Getting ready to go home

So I've just pushed a baby out of my vagina (sorry if this is too graphic of a word / not sorry) and I've held her, fallen in love and now what? For myself it wasn't smooth sailing after that. I remember my doula handing me a haemorrhaging sandwich sandwich sandwich me to eat (because I hadn't been allowed to eat in the last 36 hours and was starving) but my nurse on the other side of me saying "no, no - you can't eat yet" and I just got frustrated. I was beyond tired, hungry and super emotional, hello, I had just given birth. So I look at the two of them and in a stern voice I say "can you please figure this out, I want to eat and I can't have two people giving me two sets of info right now." Eventually I was allowed to eat and during all of this my baby is being weighed and swaddled and then placed back into my arms for a nursing lesson. 

Mommy is ready

It gets worse.

Getting her in the car seat
for the first time

I'm holding my baby, gazing at her, trying to believe that she's mine and that I get to keep her, love her and take her home, plus I'm trying to latch her (who knew this would be super hard?) and so the midwife is making adjustments here and telling me to do this and try that and I'm getting stressed out! The next thing I know she's grabbed my baby out of my arms and is speaking to me in a very stern voice about how if this isn't going to work then she'll get someone else if I'm not happy with her.... I looked at R (my husband) and I say, "what is happening, what did I do? I'm so confused, why is she mad at me" and R replies with a helpful "I don't know." The midwife saw my frustration with the nurse and doula over the sandwich and then decided that I was mad at everybody and wasn't in the frame of mind to be able to nurse my daughter and to be honest it was a very confusing, stressful and a little traumatic of a situation for me. I really wanted to nurse Samara the right way (haha, now I know there are so many ways, positions etc and you just have to work together, mommy and baby to figure out what works best for you two) and I had never nursed a baby before. It was a stressful situation and could have been handled better with kindness and understanding from my midwife. Anyway we got it sorted out and she gave Samara back to me and we re started our nursing journey.

Nursing will have its own post because it is a story of itself. It was hard, painful and so worth it. 

Freaking out at the elevator,
they're letting us take her
home!      

FINALLY AT HOME!

After that I nursed Samara while she got her blood taken 2, maybe 3 times to check her blood sugars to make sure she wasn't crashing since I had been a diabetic while pregnant. She passed with flying colours. Can I just say, 'PLEASE NURSE your baby' while they are getting any type of blood work if you can. It's so less traumatic for them. Samara didn't cry for any of them and when I got her checked for the list of 21 diseases (by the midwife at my home - totally recommend this) again, she was calm at my breast, no crying or trauma. However, before I had Samara I had to get a blood test at the hospital and there was a brand new baby there getting it's 21 disease check. They milk the blood out of the heel of your little and the baby is laying there, in pain, screaming, and nobody is holding it or cooing or soothing or anything. This is going on and on and on because the baby's heel won't stop bleeding once the nurse was able to get it started (that took an awfully long and painful time as well.) The nurse in charge is all "just keep holding the cotton puff on the heel, apply pressure" and this new dad is starting to panic a little. His wife (this new mom) is sitting outside of the office on her IPAD trying to block it all out. I thought, how sad that she isn't in there supporting her little baby, holding him and soothing him. She thinks she's not allowed. Let me tell you, YOU ARE THE PARENTS. You are in charge, the medical professionals are only there to support you and help you make good decisions for your children, but ultimately the decision is yours. So get informed and hold your children. I'm not saying be rude or mean or to not get the check because it will hurt your baby. Pokes hurt, we know that, but usually a little pain is so much better then the actual disease and so allowing your baby to go through that little pain is WAY BETTER then them possibly catching or having whichever disease is being tested for or vaccinated against but as the parent, protector, comforter, their world, you can still do those things. It will make the process a lot less stressful for your babe as well as shorter crying time and little to no trauma as they know you are there and therefore they are safe.

One Day Old

A couple of things that we did that made this whole exhausting process and it's steep learning curve a little easier were we waited for visitors and we checked out of the hospital in 24 hours. When Samara was born it was 6:23 AM and we hadn't slept very much if at all (I'm including Raymond here) and so we did what I had read about earlier. When your baby is in its first 24 hours it tends to sleep a lot and the second 24 hours is when it gets hungry and tends to begin to wake up and figure this whole "life on earth" thing. I think we texted our families and a few close friends (we were SO PROUD) but everyone already knew not to come to the hospital until we were ready. We had sent an email out before (maybe a week before) to let family and friends know what we would like for meeting our new baby. So we slept. I woke up to try and nurse her of course but we darkened the room and had her with us in the little bed and we all slept. Another thing we did was we checked out 24 hours after she was born. We could have left immediately after but we were told it was best to wait 24 hours after delivery to make sure I wouldn't start haemorrhaging. So on Thursday at 7 AM we were checked out and by 7:10 AM we were in the car driving to A&W for some breakfast and going home. We thought it would be a lot less stressful being in our own home / bed when people came over. Initially we weren't going to have anyone over for a few days to try and get a little used to having our new bundle but the excitement of a fresh babe won out and my sister and her little and my mom made the trip out to meet little Samara. I'm so glad we did this because it was so special for them and us and now I have some really great pictures of Samara at one day old.

The youngest 2 cousins
meeting for the
first time!

Meeting Grandma at one day old

There is more but this is turning into a really long post and I have so much more to tell you, so I'm going to cut it off here and continue in a different post.

Keep searching for healing and sunshine,
Love your friend,
Laura