The First Week

Ellie is now a whole 7 days old!  Wow what a week it has been!  I will try to break it down in a couple of categories for easy reading ;)

Right after birth
Right after Ellie was born they put her up on my chest for a quick minute or so.  I was surprised that she wasn't very gooey - I figured she would be covered in blood or something, but she wasn't.  They broke my water shortly before I delivered so maybe she didn't have time to "get dirty" in there, who knows.  

Then the special care nursery folks took a look at her (the delivery nurses had them on sight in case she had any issues due to her size) and luckily she was looking great!  They weighed her and measured her and gave her right back to me.  Then we got to do some skin to skin time with her on my chest and a blanket over us.  This was an amazing time.  Brian was at my side and Ellie was on top of me - all warm and snuggled in.  After a few minutes she started "bopping" over to my breast and so I helped her latch on a bit and we had our first breastfeeding session!  

While all of this is going on the doctor is still "down south" delivering my placenta.  I wasn't sure if this was something I was going to have to push out or not, but luckily the nurse just pushed on my stomach a bit and the doctor pulled and eventually it came out.  The doctor then sewed me up a little bit because I tore a little during pushing, but nothing major.  I don't even know how many stitches I got and none of this bothered me because I didn't feel a thing and my new baby was sitting on my chest.  

They let her hang out there for a while and allowed the epidural to wear off as they started to take out all my "cords"  basically all the monitors, catheter, etc that were attached to me.  Once the epidural wore off enough so that I could walk, the nurse helped me into the bathroom and onto the toilet.  Sorry for the TMI but there was a lot of blood coming out!  But I wasn't really in pain - just sore.  

Then they wheeled us across the hall to the mother baby care unit for the rest of our stay.  

Personal Healing/Body
The first 48 hours after giving birth are tough.  You have just been through a lot of body trauma of your own and you are immediately responsible for caring for your new baby too (well the nurses and dad help quite a bit too, but if you are breastfeeding a lot of it is on you).  The nurse had to put a catheter back into me the first night because I wasn't able to pee on my own and my bladder was filling up.  Surprisingly getting it put in while not medicated wasn't too bad, and it was kind of a relief once it was in, but it was annoying being tied to the catheter bag for the next 12-15ish hours.  

There is definitely a lot of blood outflow the first 24-48 hours.  The nurse helped me put on a "three pad system" which consisted of 3 giant maxi pads stuck to a "pee pad" sheet, then these were put into some of the mesh underwear I have heard so much about and then up they go onto me in large diaper form!  As bulky as this was, it was a great system.  I wore this system until I left the hospital and then went down to 1 giant maxi and now I am on some smaller pads of my own at day 7.  They say the bleeding could last up to 4 weeks I think, gosh I hope it doesn't take that long, although I have noticed a significant decrease since leaving the hospital.  When you breastfeed your uterus contracts at that time and pushes more blood out as your uterus goes back to its normal size.  So each time I breastfed, I would get up from the bed and there would be a gush.  

I was pretty sore down south for the first 48 hours, then coming home I was sore walking around and going up stairs.  Yesterday I took the dog for a walk with my mom and I felt much better - and I haven't had to take any advil for pain today.  They said I should try to walk around, but don't do anything like lifting weights or running for 6 weeks.  

Baby is the boss
We quickly learned that this little 5 lb angel is our new boss! Ha her word (or cry) is our command! The biggest thing is her feeding schedule - looking for cues that she wants to feed and trying to get her to latch on correctly.  While in the hospital she would nurse quite often - every 2-2.5 hours.  At this point she was getting colostrum and doing a pretty decent job of latching on.  The hospital was great with lactation help - the nurses would help me with the technique and we went to a breast feeding class while we were there.  I must say that breastfeeding is not easy.  There is a lot of worry about whether I was feeding her enough, whether I was doing it correctly, etc.  Luckily Ellie is an excellent feeder and let me know when she was hungry.  

It was a bit painful at the beginning and my nipples were quite sore, but they are doing better now.  She had dropped from 5 lbs 5 oz at birth to just over 5 lbs on the day we left, but since the weight drop was under 10%, the doctors were not concerned.  The day after we got home my milk started to come in and hello engorgement!  Whoa my boobs have been huge and rock hard for the last 48 hours.  I am hoping this goes away soon, but I am very happy that my milk came in quickly and that Ellie continues to feed well and grow (she was almost back to birth weight on Monday which is awesome).  

I have been extremely fortunate that breastfeeding has gone as well as it has.  Many people deal with supply issues, or baby issues, but we have not had those troubles.  It is a lot of work, and very tiring, but I am so glad I am able to do it.  The best thing is feeding her and then seeing her pop of my breast with this look of full contentment on her face kind of like her saying "thanks mom, that was good" ha. With my milk in I have definitely noticed the "leaking factor"  especially at night when she sleeps a bit longer and doesn't feed as frequently.  I have had to use pads in my sleeping bra so that I don't "wet the bed."  And after showering I sometimes look down and find myself leaking.  I have to just laugh at these events, because what else can you do!  I definitely need to invest in some more breastfeeding clothes - because I don't have a lot that are easier to get in and out of for ease of breastfeeding. 

She is growing well, but we couldn't find anything in newborn size that would fit her!  My sister in law went to babies r us and picked us up some preemie clothes and those fit her great!  It is so nice to put her in things that actually fit! We also picked up some preemie diapers that fit her better too.  I can't wait to show her these preemie clothes when she is older (and much bigger) and say "can you imagine you were ever this small?"  the clothes are truly very tiny!

It is funny to see how her poops have changed over the past week.  They started with the black tarry meconium ones, then went to a greenish black and now have turned mustardy.  My day revolves around recording how many wet diapers, poopy diapers, and feedings that she gets to make sure she is on the right track! 

Sleeping started off pretty shaky in the hospital and the first few days we were home.  In the hospital she didn't really like the clear plastic "crib" she slept in and we were nervous she was going to get out of the swaddle and roll over, plus there are nurses coming into the room all through the night to check on her and check on me, so there wasn't much sleeping in the hospital.  

Once we got home we tried to put her to sleep in the rock n play in our bedroom, but she did not seem to like it at first.  She really wanted to sleep on us, which I don't blame her for - she went through a lot coming out into the world. The first few nights she would nurse every 2-2.5 hours through out the day and at night, then she wouldn't want to go to sleep on her own, so Brian and I were up quite a bit feeding and trying to soothe her.  Brian felt bad he couldn't do more to help me with feedings, and every time he tried to soothe her, she wanted to eat more so he had to hand her off to me anyway.  

The first few days were really tough and getting 3-4 hours of intermitten sleep per night were not going to fly for very long. Luckily the past 2 nights have been really good.  Last night we were able to feed her and then put her down in the rock n play at 9:45 pm then she slept until 1:45 am then I took her downstairs to feed her and brought her back to bed at 3 am (takes a while because she feeds then tries to pass out and I sort of burp her to get her to wake up and take some more milk.  She feeds really quickly, but I try to get her to eat as much as possible so she stays asleep longer.) Then she slept from 3-6:30 am and at this point I got up for the day.  I let Brian sleep during these because there really isn't much he can do with the feedings, and I figure one of us should get a full nights sleep!  Plus once she reaches 3-4 weeks I will introduce one bottle of breast milk during the night so she gets used to using both a bottle and breast.  I was pretty proud of her for her 4 hour followed by 3.5 hour stretches!  During the day she seems to feed more frequently (every 2 hours I would say) which is much better than doing that at night!  I am sure there will be some regression and sleep challenges, but right now I think she is doing great.  

Family Help
 I feel extremely grateful that we have so much family around us and that they are so very helpful!  Each night someone has dropped off something for us to eat for dinner, how sweet is that?  And my mom stops by every day to check in on us and see what we need.  My cousins and SIL have been dropping off baby items for us to borrow.  I can not imagine how tough it must be to bring home a new baby without other family support.  

Brian gets 2 weeks of paternity leave from work and so he has been home this whole week too and plans to take some more time off between Christmas and New Years.  This has allowed us to settle in and get some stuff done around the house (he is getting my car inspected as we speak).  I am a little nervous for when he goes back to work next week, but since my mom and SIL are only blocks away, I know they will be helping me out.  

Wow I sure wrote a lot!  I really wanted to get all of this down before I forgot!  Congrats to you if you read it all.  

Here are some more pictures!

Ellie in one of her cute preemie outfits!

 

Making her content just fed face