VBAC – The After

Posted on March 16, 2012 1 Comment


I love new baby smell. New baby smell will cure practically any ill. I can still remember being in the hospital that night with Piper after Josh had gone home, just soaking everything in.

That first night also taught me two things – I hate hospitals. Just moving from the birthing suite to the ward took hours and I was starting to feel faint because I just wanted to get out of the air conditioned box and into some fresh air. And the second thing is that when you are recovering from a c-section they give you awesome drugs and when you are recovering from severe bruising and some tearing they do not. And they were stingy with the panadol and nurofen which meant I had trouble sleeping on that first night.

I checked out the next day because the day after that was Riley’s birthday and because I was more than happy to self-administer my pain medication. After a week I didn’t need it. But for the first few days taking both panadol and nurofen every four hours helped to build up the pain relief effect and I was much more comfortable.

I loved that I could pick up Riley and carry her like a baby when she came to the hospital. I loved that I wasn’t attached to anything and I could move around. I loved that I could leave the hospital as soon as possible and get home. And when I was home I could just bask in the happiness of her birth and I did exactly that. I loved that Piper was born away from the harsh environment of the operating theatre.

But more than any of that I loved being a mother second time around. Everything was so easy. I was able to really enjoy her newbornhood and her babyhood.

She might be nearly one, but I still smell her head and the back of her neck and she still smells like baby to me.

And now? Now I think I could do it again.

 

 

© Copyright

VBAC – The Birth

Posted on March 15, 2012 6 Comments


Pushing seems like a fantastic idea at the time. It seems like you are so close to the end.

And then I realised that the pain into my hips when I pushed made me want to die. It’s probably because I tend to have dodgy hips and a twisted pelvis. I’m sure that didn’t help matters. Remember when I said I should have kept up with pregnancy yoga? Well I regretted that decision when I was pushing. I have no idea if it would have helped or not but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt.

The pain was so overwhelming that I actually didn’t want to push. And we landed in an inbetween limbo. I knew that I had to push but the hip pain was so blinding I just couldn’t bring myself to inflict it on myself. The midwife, the voice of reason had me keep moving positions until eventually I found one that was bearable, on my side – being braced by my husband across the arms and the legs by my midwife.

I couldn’t feel like I was making any progress and was convinced that I couldn’t do it. But Josh and the midwife kept telling me that I was making progress. They told me to stop screaming to conserve my energy which I was suprised that I could actually do and mentally it made me feel more in control as well. In some ways pushing wasn’t as hard as waiting in between contractions. So much so that towards the end I think that I was so desperate to have her out I pushed without a contraction because I just couldn’t wait any longer.

And then she was there. My perfect little baby. Born in the way that I had wanted. I was in a whole lot of shock that I had actually done it. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that. And I also remember thinking I would never be able to do it again.

We waited nervously while they aspirated her and luckily she didn’t have to go to the NICU. She was little and they told me if she was under 2.5kgs they would have to take her to the nursery. So I sat there willing her to be bigger than 2.5kgs and was so relieved that she weighed in at 2.8.

I had torn during the birth so they began to sew me up. I was probably hopped up on hormones because it was weird and awkward but it wasn’t painful. But it did take a long time. And it was the length of time that had me a bit worried because I could tell it was going to take awhile to heal.

But that was a side note to the birth of the beautiful Piper. She was a voracious, enthusiastic eater from the moment she was born and the midwives laughed saying there was a baby who knew exactly what she was doing.

And once she was here I was so completely happy, so completely content, far more than any happy hormones could ever have made me.

© Copyright

VBAC – The Labour

Posted on March 14, 2012 2 Comments


I was at one of my routine post due-date check ups to make sure that delaying induction was still ok when they told me that my cervix had not made any movement towards dilation. I was disappointed. Very disappointed. I’d been having back pain and what felt like Braxton Hicks contractions all day and I had been hoping for better news. They put me on the monitor for ages. Piper was rather keen on sleeping when she was on the inside. Even the kilogram of ice they made me eat barely woke her up. Sadly this was not a trend that continued.

So after about an hour they had seen enough movement from her that they were satisfied. The lack of movement made me nervous too. There was something about my pregnancy with Piper that felt like it was ready for disaster at any minute. Mainly because I wanted it so much. I was so ready for bad news throughout my pregnancy with her because it just felt like it was going to be taken away from me.

But the upside of all that monitoring is that they confirmed that labour had started. They were quick to tell me it was the first stages of labour and that hopefully it would progress over the next few days but they still outlined the protocols for induction, not being overly confident that I was good to go.

As I stood out in the car park waiting for Josh and Riley to come back and pick me up those contractions started to get a little bit more intense. Not painful but uncomfortable and it stayed uncomfortable on the way home. Although, at the time I was very distracted by the fact that Josh had let Riley drink some of his iced coffee and it was like having the verbal version of the roadrunner strapped into the carseat in the back.

At about 10:30pm the contractions started getting alot stronger and it was all into my back and started to be actually painful. I called the hospital to check when I should come in given it was about a 45 minute drive and they told me to stay at home as long as possible and that only when my contractions were about a minute long and about 5 minutes apart to hop in the car. I called my sister to let her know she might need to pick up Riley in the morning.

Honestly, people say try to get some sleep but for the life of me I can’t figure out how you would do that. I got zero sleep. Tiff talked me through alot of it that night and I listened to alot of music.

By 4 in the morning Riley was awake. Something that made me extremely uncomfortable. If I had my time over I would have sent her off to my sister’s the night before. I didn’t want her to see me in pain or be worrying about her when I just needed to go somewhere else to cope with the pain. At about 5am I bit the bullet and woke up my sister to come and get her and woke up Josh. I was approaching the could not talk while having a contraction stage. But when I called the hospital they were not sold. They grudgingly told me to come in if I had to, but they thought it would be too early. I ignored this and we were in the car by about 6.

The car trip wasn’t as bad as I thought. Thanks to the movement of the car and my lack of sleep I managed to doze in between contractions and the contractions themselves weren’t that bad.

We made a very slow trip to the ward, with me stopping every time I had a contraction. They checked me in and we probably waited for about half an hour before they examined me. I was having trouble standing up through a contraction and my knees would buckle with the pain of it. The midwife noted that they were lasting a really long time. It was at this point that I started to think there was no way I could do it and asked for morphine.

They examined me and said I was only 2cm and that I should probably just have some morphine and go home. I refused. This lady was not leaving the place with the drugs or risking two more car trips. No way. Luckily it wasn’t busy that day so I didn’t have to fight with them about it.

Once I had my sweet, sweet morphine I was able to doze between contractions. By 11:30 the morphine had started to wear off and I was in alot of pain and having thoughts about how I was going to need a c-section. Before giving me more pain relief they examined me and said I was 4cm. I definitely started thinking about a c-section at that point in time because there was no way I could go through this amount of pain for 6 more cms. No way. But the midwife wasn’t convinced that she was getting an accurate read because of the position of my cervix so she went to get a second opinion.

Few things are worse than two internal exams with contractions when your drugs have worn off. But the second opinion turned out to be a fantastic idea because I wasn’t 4cms, I was ready to push. I can safely say that I have never been so relieved in my entire life.

© Copyright

VBAC – The Pregnancy

Posted on March 13, 2012 7 Comments


It took us about 8 or 9 months to get pregnant with Piper. That’s alot of VBAC research time. And I certainly did alot of research. Some of the most interesting things I found out were:

1) Induction increases your risk of complications requiring a c-section by 250% but only for first births, induction doesn’t seem to carry the same risk with subsequent births.

2) The hospital that I had Riley at had a c-section rate of 55-60%. That’s something I really should have known beforehand.

3) Not surprisingly, that same local hospital had a VBAC success rate of 2%. Not encouraging, but not surprising.

4) There are always more options than what they tell you so it pays to know what they are. In the last few weeks of my pregnancy the maternity ward of my local hospital (with a birthing centre) was closed down and I was redirected to the ‘closest’ hospital with no birthing centre. I worked out afterwards that in my neighbouring area health service there was actually a hospital with a birthing centre that was at least 10 minutes closer to us but it was never brought up as an option. But I could have tried for it if I’d known about it.

So during my pregnancy I went through the neighbouring area health service and found a hospital that had a VBAC specific program. It did mean more driving for me for appointments, but it was well worth it.

I started pregnancy yoga. I thought it would really help when it came to labour. And it probably would have, if I had kept going. But I got sick and busy and didn’t keep it up, something that I most definitely regretted when I was labouring.

I fully intended to do a calm birthing class but again got busy and it kind of slipped away from me. Again, something that I regretted while labouring.

I was a pushy pregnant lady. They started talk of induction pretty early. I’m a firm believer in the idea that the whole 40 weeks thing is an approximation and it depends on the woman. My babies clearly take longer to cook with both born small at 42 weeks. So I pushed back on the induction date as much as they would let me. I agreed to extra testing to make sure that she was safe and there was enough fluid, but I stayed pushy about going into labour naturally.

© Copyright

VBAC – The Before

Posted on March 12, 2012 13 Comments


I’ve been meaning to write about my VBAC for awhile now (nearly a year? I know I am SO on the ball). But when I sat down to write it today it just didn’t make sense without a history or a context.

My experience of my c-section was that it was a violent way for a baby to be born. It is not at all how you imagine a c-section to be. I was moving up and down on the table with the force of whatever they were doing. And although, this has now changed I went into recovery and was separate from Riley while I was there.

I hated being in a hospital bed with a cathater in, unable to do anything myself and having to buzz a nurse every time I needed a nappy changed. I hated hobbling around my house and easing myself out of bed every morning. And I always had the feeling that it set me back in the breastfeeding department. We went on to breastfeed for nearly a year but not without a good few weeks of unbelievable pain first.

To add insult to injury, in hindsight I was pretty sure that if I hadn’t been induced then the c-section would have been completely unnecessary.

It was so far from what I had envisaged for my baby’s birth. And I think there was a surreal quality to it as a result. I couldn’t quite relate to the fact that the beautiful baby in my arms was actually mine for at least a few days. And although I loved her easily and immediately, something about me being her mother didn’t click in at first.

But the most scary thing to me by far was that repeated c-sections could mean I wouldn’t be able to have as many babies as I wanted. That I could go in for a second c-section and they could tell me that this was the last one, that it wouldn’t be safe to have any more. And I didn’t want that decision taken out of my hands. Well, let’s face it – that decision isn’t in my hands to begin with. But I didn’t want to have this define our plans for a big family.

And that was really the start of my VBAC, before I was even pregnant deciding that I wanted to put some faith in my body to do what it was made to do and see what happened.

© Copyright

The Squishy

Posted on April 11, 2011 29 Comments


Piper Ebony (aka ‘the squishy’) has arrived!

She was born at 12:50pm on Friday, weighing in at a very slight 2.8kg (or 6 pounds 2 oz). She didn’t have to be induced and was delivered via VBAC. If I could have taken more drugs I would have. As it was, other than the initial morphine for the back pain there wasn’t enough time.

I’ve been missing from my blog, soaking up all the newborn goodness but am taking a rare opportunity where both children are asleep during the day to make the official announcement, just in case you haven’t noticed my stream of photos on twitter and facebook.

She has the appetite of an army, refuses to sleep except while snuggled and surprisingly actually enjoyed her first bath. Riley keeps saying ‘I wish I had a baby sister’ because apparently it doesn’t count unless she’s allowed to carry the baby around. And me? Well I’m recovering and loving the second stint in newborn land. It’s very easy to enjoy every minute when you are not quite the stress head you once were.

‘

Pages: ‘, ‘after’ => ‘

‘, ‘next_or_number’ => ‘number’)); ?>

© Copyright

Calm Blue Ocean

Posted on April 4, 2011 12 Comments

So it’s not actually an ocean, it’s a lake. And this is the local lake on a good day. Most days it resembles much more of a swamp. And on pretty much all days it smells that way. But it’s the idea of the calm blue ocean more than anything that I’m attempting to channel.

As I head off to the hospital this morning to check that everything is alright for me not to be induced, and hoping desperately that I don’t have to be induced, I’m also trying very hard not to get stressed about a possible induction. You can sense how well it’s going, can’t you?

But while I’m there crocheting to keep myself occupied and imagining my calm blue ocean and reminding myself that induction is not the end of the world and fighting the doctors on the actual day (their preference is for Day 11 which is a Friday. Call me paranoid but I think that a c-section is much more likely on a Friday because people want to go home. I’ll be pushing for the following Monday when I’m a full two weeks over-cooked), well there’s someone else that my thoughts turn to who is not in hospital for a happy reason and has had to wage a war of advocacy for longer than I can really fathom. I’ll be thinking of you Tiff, and just disappointed that I can’t do more than that. Some of Tiff’s gorgeous friends have organised a donation widget, to organise something special for her and her family. The widget will be taken down this week, so if you’d like to donate you can.

There’s a very slim chance that when I get up to Newcastle today if things don’t look healthy for any reason I’ll be induced, so if this blog enters the cone of silence you’ll know why!

‘

Pages: ‘, ‘after’ => ‘

‘, ‘next_or_number’ => ‘number’)); ?>

© Copyright

Guest Post @ The Feminist Breeder – Skipping Chapters

Posted on May 12, 2010 Leave a Comment


I’m guest posting today at The Feminist Breeder. You can check it out here.

filed in

‘

Pages: ‘, ‘after’ => ‘

‘, ‘next_or_number’ => ‘number’)); ?>


© Copyright

My Birth Story

Posted on March 7, 2010 11 Comments

I’ve written about Riley’s birth in bits and pieces but never really told the whole story from beginning to end. And as this is my 300th post, it seemed like I good idea.

I was overdue. I hadn’t had any contractions or braxton hicks contractions for that matter, or so I thought. I felt as big as a house. Every now and then I’d have mind-numbing shooting pains run down my leg and my knees would buckle with it. I couldn’t sleep because I was that huge and my hips were in serious trauma. Ah, the miracle of pregnancy.

We’d scheduled an induction for about 10 days after my due date. There was confusion around my due date, so they’d taken it as the later one to give me the most time to go into labour naturally. There was actually another miscalculation and in the end I was 12 days overdue by the time we went to the hospital.

We weren’t going to our local hospital, because it only handled low risk births – no inductions. And besides, they had staffing issues and had closed down their maternity department indefinitely. So we headed in to unfamiliar territory at Gosford Hospital. It was weird. Feeling like in a matter of hours (I was assuming about 14 of them) I would have our baby. We didn’t know the sex, so that was going to be a surprise. It was early in the morning when we left home. We’d packed for every conceivable contingency, but we stopped at the service station because Mr Goog wanted some energy drinks (he figured he’d need them). I didn’t go in. I waited in the car and remember looking at a beautiful blue sky with feathery clouds and thinking it was a nice day for our child to be born. I would have thought the same if it was torrential rain, of course.

We arrived at the hospital, bags in tow, and waited in the reception area until we were walked through to the birthing room. They attached a monitor to my belly to monitor the heart beat and any contractions. I was already in labour.

“Can’t you feel that?” the nurse asked. Um, no. I couldn’t. But I was pleased to already be in labour anyway. The staff opted to start me on pitocin anyway and break my waters to get everything going. Also, breaking the waters – seriously the most uncomfortable thing I had experienced up until that point.

They were concerned when they broke my waters and it was green-ish, but decided to proceed and just monitor the heart rate. She kept moving around though, and her heart rate kept going up and down. No one was sure if she was actually distressed, or if it was just that she kept moving away from the monitor. Which led to the cervical exam (so much more uncomfortable than breaking the waters, but on the bright side – pap smears are a walk in the park now). The doctor wanted to put a probe on her head to get an accurate reading on the heart rate. But he couldn’t do it. Her hand was on her head. He looked very freaked out by this development, which did nothing for my stress levels. He recommended an emergency c-section and we agreed.

At this point they stopped the pitocin, but I was already having contractions and they seemed to be getting stronger.

I was terrified. I’d never been in hospital before, never had an operation. I’d never even considered c-section as a possibility. I had an oxygen mask on but I couldn’t breathe through it because I was crying and my nose was getting blocked with mucus. The nurses were so amazing. They were massaging my head to help me calm down. Mr Goog had gone to get scrubs on and would meet me in the operating room. And those contractions just kept getting stronger. Although I don’t think it was active labour because I could still talk through them.

Finally they wheeled me into theatre and explained what would happen next. It was freezing cold in there. I was going to have a spinal block. The idea of having a giant needle in the back was less than appealing. When they sat me up in a brace position to get it done, I kept saying to myself ‘do not move’. As the needle was going in (painless, thankfully), I started to have a contraction and the man helping me to brace myself lost his grip for a second. Luckily my whole ‘do not move’ mantra seemed to do the trick and I remained still. I could feel everything numbing up pretty much immediately and I was laid flat.

Mr Goog had arrived and he was up the top near my head. I was not prepared for the violence of a c-section. My whole body was moving up and down on the table and there was a lot of pressure. It was a really strange experience to feel all sorts of pressure and pushing and pulling but not the pain associated with it. Mr Goog distracted me with asking what my rugby league tips were for the week. It worked. Before I knew it, I head one of the doctors say she was here. I held my breath, hoping and willing for everything to be alright. Then I heard her first cry. The most beautiful sound in the world.

The doctor announced she was a girl. Mr Goog saw her and beamed at me with pride, excitement and love.

The nurse placed my beautiful baby on my chest to breastfeed for the first time. She was probably still a little groggy from the spinal block, and it took her a long time to latch on, but eventually she did. We stayed that way for awhile until I had to go to recovery and Mr Goog went with her to do all the measuring/hospital stuff. He was slightly paranoid about us ending up with the wrong baby, so he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight.

I nearly fell asleep in recovery. I was on morphine at this stage. After I’d been back on the ward for about half an hour or so, they brought me Riley. She was so beautiful and I couldn’t quite believe that she was ours. But she was. I slept with her next to me for the whole of that first night (and many after that) because I couldn’t bear even the slightest separation. And instead of sleeping when she did, I spent a long time just looking at her as she slept.

I have opted not to talk about how I was ill-informed with regard to my options, which in turn (I believe) may have led to an unnecessary c-section. I have also not talked about the painful recovery after the operation and my frustrations with being less mobile. This is because it seemed out of place. I wanted to write about Riley’s birth and not complain about how it happened.

© Copyright

Great Expectations

Posted on March 3, 2010 11 Comments

This is a joint post with Amber at Unlikely Mama. You can follow her on twitter here. We thought it would be fun to look back on what our expectations were before we had our babies and how they’ve changed a year on (for Amber) and two years on (for me).
Having Children

Amber: Let me start from the beginning.  I never “expected” to have a baby.  As my online moniker hints at…it was highly unlikely that I would become a mother.  Not because I couldn’t, but because I NEVER wanted to.  Not until I met Peter 4+ years ago and his way with kids turned my clock on.

Zoey: I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have kids when I was in my early twenties. And it seemed like the kind of thing that you needed to be really sure of. And then, it seemed all of a sudden, I was sure. There was no real defining moment – I just knew.

Pregnancy

Amber: Once I changed my expectations of myself…a whole slew of other changes came about.When I found out I was pregnant I was flooded with emotions…fear being a huge one.  But more than that, I was filled with excitement and expectations about what the pregnancy and motherhood would be like.

Zoey: I tried not to be terrified while I was pregnant. I really tried. It didn’t always go so well. I think my perfectionism took over as well. And I researched a lot. It is no surprise to me that half of the ideas and expectations I had when I was pregnant seem ridiculous to me now.

Birth

Amber: First off my birth expectations were that it would be medicated and in a hospital.  Numb from the waist down like natured intended?  I even posted in my LJ about not needing to be a martyr, and that pain meds were invented to be used.  But the more I started researching birth…the more I realized that I wanted to REALLY experience it.  Actually, a good friend of mine started this whole trip when she told me not to bother with an epidural because her’s didn’t work..and the “rolling” feelings she had while it was still natural far outweighed the numbness.  I started reading about what could cause those feelings, and found my answer…Oxytocin!  I was hooked on this natural love drug and couldn’t wait to experience it!  I wanted the bonding, and was terrified of screwing it up otherwise.  Yup, I was turning crunchy :-)

What I ended up with was a 10 week preterm labor and a c-section.  No free love, no chance to bond (well for 4 days anyway).  It needed to be done to keep the baby safe, but I was not at all prepare

Zoey: I expected to have a natural birth. I didn’t even read the chapter on c-sections, because I figured that would never happen to me.

I wish I had known more about it. I wish I had refused induction medication when I arrived for my induction and was told I was already in labour. But I didn’t know any better and I was ill-prepared when the Doctor told me that I was headed for an emergency c-section. I was so scared. I’d never had an operation before. And I had to stay so still for the spinal anesthetic whilst I was having contractions. No mean task.

I didn’t realise how violent a c-section would be. Or how incpacitated I would be. Or how I would always feel strange whenever I used the phrase ‘given birth’ in connection with the experience. But still, I don’t regret any of it because after all of that Riley was born.

Family


Amber: Before Alexa graced us with her (EARLY) presence we were struck with a ton of family expectations of us.  They were, well my family, sorely disappointed when they found out we weren’t budging on our stance.  My father expected to come to the birthing center with us, I told him I wanted to be alone with Peter and the midwife.  My mother expected to come up to stay with us the 2 weeks before and after the birth, I told her no we wanted to spend the first 2 weeks (Peter’s paternity leave time) alone together bonding as a family.  My mother then expected me to send her the first picture of the baaaaaaaaaaybeeeeeeeee so she could be the FIRST to see her.  I told her I wasn’t playing favorites and would copy everyone in on the same first emailed photo.  It was actually Peter’s family that surprised me.  I expected that they would be the pushy ones, and they were actually the most respectful of our wishes…who knew!

My expectations of our families were on and off.  My father lives next door and dotes on both of my neices so much.  I thought he would be over here more.  I thought he would drop in with small gifts all the time like he does for the other girls.  He hasn’t bought Alexa a thing (his fiance picks everything out), and has never once offered to babyshit (though we’ve asked him to do it twice).  It’s hard because I’m so close with him, but sometimes I feel like because we live next door we’re forgotten.  It’s like I’m always here and always available..so there’s no need to dote on me :-(

My mother, who I thought would be the biggest pain to deal with has actually become the person I trust the most.  She is the only one respectful of my wishes with feeding, holding, and sleeping…especially sleeping.  I am very pleasantly surprised with being wrong wrong wrong with my assumptions about that relationship!

Peter’s family has met my expectations.  They treat her like a toy in some regards…and pretty thing to be passed around.  They buy her far too many, and far too expensive, presents.  They talk about how pretty she is.  I’m afraid if she doesn’t live up to their expectations that they’ll treat her differently than if she were “perfect”.

Zoey: Pleads the fifth. My family reads this blog. Boring, yes. Accurate, definitely.

Partners

Amber: My expectations of Peter have went back and forth.  Before we really thought about having a baby I just assumed Peter would be the “motherly” one.  He’s far more sensitive and sweet than I.  He’s also the person in the room that ALL kids flock to.  They love him, and that’s the only reason I ever reconsidering becoming a mother in the first place.  I kinda thought he would do most of the work, heh :-/
As it turned out, I assumed all wrong when it came to how much I would turn into the mamabear!  Peter turns to me for help and advice.  Sometimes I get snippy because I still think he should know what to do…the fist year of parenthood is HARD.

Zoey: I expected Josh to do just as much around the house whether that be housework or helping out with Riley. He had three months of paternity leave when Riley was born, which was so nice. What I didn’t expect was that sometimes babies have a preference. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if i hadn’t had a shower, had anything to eat or even just felt like I needed 5 minutes to myself – Riley still insisted that she be attached to my chest. The amount that we snip at one another is directly related to who has been sitting in with Riley to get her to go to sleep and who has been in the kitchen making noise.

I always though Josh would make a great dad, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well it suited him (most of the time)

Sleep


Amber: I really didn’t have any expectations of sleep, for me or Alexa.  Though, I guess I’m lying there, since I DID assume we would all be sleeping through the night AT LEAST by now (1 year out).  Hmmmm, guess I’ll have to take Zoey’s father’s word that you give up on that for 2 years :-)  The first months were rough, I won’t lie, but I think we slept more than the “average” family because we co-slept (something we did NOT intend on doing).  We have a crib in the nursery and had a cosleeper/bassinette in our room.  My “plan” HAHAH was to have Alexa sleep in the crib for naps, ya know…to get her used to it…and to sleep in the cosleeper next to me.  Yeah, not so much.  She had reflux and needed to be semi-upright, so she slept in the crook of my arm, on my chest, or on Peter’s.  Once she was able to lay flat we had already perfected side-lying nursing and couldn’t turn back.  There was no way I was going to get up in the  middle of the night when I didn’t have to.  NOOOOOOOOOOOW I don’t know how to get her off my boob at night, so she’s kinda stuck in bed with me for the time being (or actually I’m stuck in bed with her).

Zoey: I’m going to sound like a bit of an idiot here, but before Riley was born I thought the issue with sleep was that babies woke up a lot to be fed. I didn’t even consider that they might need some help getting to sleep. So needless to say, I was not ready for the hours of feeding, rocking and patting to sleep that were in store for me. And Riley loved to be rocked. I only stopped rocking her (at around 12 months) because she was getting too heavy for me.

She mostly sleeps through now. Although I was sure she’d sleep through by 6 months, she didn’t. And then I was sure she’d sleep through by 12 months and she still didn’t. It wasn’t until she was 14 months that she started and not until around 18 months that sh was doing it with any reliability. If it wasn’t for co-sleeping I’d be the walking dead by now.

Whether she’ll put herself to sleep or not is still a bit hit and miss. Sometimes she will, sometimes she won’t. Here’s the kicker. Now that she’s not a baby anymore (even if she’ll always be my baby), I now look forward to the nights when she comes into our bed, or needs help getting to sleep and I get to watch her little eyes fight sleep but eventually close and I get to look at her peaceful little face. Most of the time, anyway.

Breastfeeding


Amber: I expected breastfeeding to be easy…my mother did it for both me and my brother.  Everyone else I knew that tried was successful.    Well Alexa’s prematurity screwed that up and it was HARD!  It’s still hard sometimes and we just celebrated our 1 year anniversary of nursing.  I never thought I was so stubborn, but I really learned a lot about myself.  I would NOT give up and I’m thankful that we persevered.  I also assumed it would melt the fat…it did NOT help me lose weight :-(

Zoey: I expected breastfeeding to be natural and easy. Women have been doing it for thousands of years, right? But initially we had latch problems and I’m amazed that I managed to get through those first few weeks where breastfeeding was excrutiatingly painful and I dreaded each feeding and cried through most of them. After all of that calmed down I was surprised how easy it was. And relieved that it meant I didn’t have to get out of bed in the middle of the night.

Unlike Amber, it helped me lose weight fast. The problem? I’ve stopped breastfeeding and failed to adjust my diet accordingly.

Not Expecting


Amber: I guess I should have known from the start not to expect anything.  I mean, I was so wrong about not wanting to be a mother…how could I be right about anything else?

Zoey: I have learned that you aim for perfection, you’ll always be disappointed. Always. And I’ve also learnt that expecting things is a recipe for disaster. Babies love to make liars out of their mothers.

What were your expectations?

© Copyright
«Older Posts