My three-week post-partum visit was today, and our wonderful midwife Judith gave me a clean bill of health!

I am still supposed to keep an eye on things and not push myself excessively, but anything I feel comfortable doing, I can do.

My incision is mostly healed, and the angry red scar will fade to silvery within a year. And The King is latching on well and not causing pain or  doing any damage when eating. (With one exception, yesterday, when eating was delayed for half an hour or so because we were out. He left an angry red mark of his wrath. But since it was just the one time, no one is too worried about it.)

In Other News….

The King is master of a game that we call "The ‘Psych’ Game." How it works is that any time anyone expects you to do something, don’t do it. Or not to do something, then do it.

For example, if you appear to be done eating, say by not swallowing or moving your mouth for more than a minute, as soon as mommy tries to move you, start sucking. Or if you’ve just had a giant poop and are having your diaper changed, poop again within 30 seconds of the diaper being closed, or better yet, the outfit being completely re-snapped.

He’s got mad skillz, my boy. But he’s cute, so we let him get away with it.

Here he is relaxing with Aunt Anna

And waving his rock-n-roll wave, while wearing the most adorable Winnie The Pooh outfit ever.

And my personal favorite…

Fresh from the bath, and all wrapped up in his ducky-head towel, looking at Aunt Anna.

Fruit & Veg Count, 3/2: There were fresh mushrooms on my pizza….

This is the 3rd & final installment of Noah’s birth story — my recovery. Fair warning — this post gets a little physically personal.

At first, Noah took to eating like a complete champ. But 24 hours later, he forgot how, got incredibly frustrated, and became a shrieking maniac baby.

Around the 3rd day, I figured out that although the nursery said they brought him to eat "on demand," they really meant every 3 or so hours.  And I figured out that Noah was hungrier than that. So I asked them to bring him back in 2.5 hours instead. They said yes, but they never actually did it. Noah remained a shrieking maniac baby who was too frustrated to latch on, for most of the rest of his hospital stay.

The last time we had to supplement his feeding with formula was the night we first got home. Since then, he most often breastfeeds every 2 hours, and only becomes a shrieking maniac on days like today when we’re out and he has to wait past his inclination. Which has only happened twice since he’s been home.

The worst thing about having a c-section is the horrible pain that the percocet can’t help: the worst gas pain you’ve ever experienced. I had no idea, no warning…. 

Late in the evening after The King was born, I found myself in nearly crippling gastrointestinal distress. Jill had already gone home to get some sleep, and I was only about 2 hours past the last percocet. I couldn’t figure out what was hurting, or why.

So I pressed the nurse call button.

And Nurse Highly Competent Hottie bustled in and explained to me that the only way to address this pain was to get up and walk. Around. The floor. Not just the room. Not just to the bathroom.

Was she insane???

Nope. It’s gas, and the only thing that will help is if you walk.

Fine.

I got up. I thought I would walk to the nursery and bring The King back for his next scheduled feeding myself. Going to see him would make the horrible hell of walking worth the effort. I was iffy on whether the agony of walking was better or worse than the agony of the pain allegedly being caused by gas.

My room was almost as far as it was possible to be from the nursery, without being on a separate floor. At my tiny, shuffling pace, it took me about 15 minutes to get there. An elderly woman recovering from an hysterectomy was also being tortured this way, but she could move faster than I could. Really!

The good news is that it did seem to help. The pain was less when I got back to the room, with the baby, 40 minutes or so later. And so I started doing a circuit around the floor after every time he ate, except for his late-night dining efforts.

The best thing about the recovery was also the second-worst thing, after the gas: the nursing staff, especially the nursery nurses.

On both Saturday and Sunday, we had our absolute favorite nursery nurse. In fact, I’m not going to give her an anonymizing nickname. Nurse Suzanne was helpful, friendly, reassuring, and charming. At the end of her shift on Sunday, she told us she wanted to see us back having another baby soon — either one of us. We love her. We want her to move in next door.

On Monday, the nursery nurse for the day shift was Nurse Negative. She made me cry. Twice!

When Nurse Negative first walked into the room on Monday morning, she introduced herself, and then barked "How many of those chairs do you have at home?" gesturing to an ordinary chair.

"Ummmm, a few?" I answered, with trepidation.

"And how many of those?" she asked, gesturing to a glider rocker.

"One. We have one of those." At least I knew the answer to the question. Where is she going with this?

"Ok, fine," she commented, sounding disappointed. "And how many hospital beds?"

"Uh, none."

"Well then what are you doing nursing him in the hospital bed? You should be learning to nurse him here like you’re going to be nursing him at home!"

Uh. Well, I do have a bed at home, and about a million pillows that I can get to the approximate angle I’m sitting at in the hospital bed. And I had a fucking c-section, so sitting up straight, in a narrow chair with arms, is pretty damn uncomfortable. Plus, I’m a sweaty, hormonal mess, and my baby is struggling to learn how to eat at all, so please quit fucking yelling at me.

The worst is that we think Nurse Negative was actually trying to be nice. When she came back later, she made a point of telling us about another lesbian parent couple she’s friends with, and we thought she might be family too.

Then she asked, "Do you want your nipples to crack and bleed? Then keep letting him latch like that!"

At this point, the baby is so hungry and hysterical and frustrated that he can’t calm down enough to eat, and I don’t care if he does make me bleed as long as he can get some nourishment. He can be a vampire baby if he wants.

I went into barely listening mode, in the hope that if all I did was say "uh-huh, uh-huh, thanks" to everything she said, eventually she’d stop talking and go away. It didn’t work, and finally, I just started to weep. Awhile after that, she finally left.

I felt like a completely incompetent mother, and at the same time, I felt like if only these people would leave me alone and quit trying to make me do it their way, Jill and I would do just fine by Noah. And that was day 3 of the recovery hospital stay. There was almost another full day to face well-intentioned advice-givers.

I can’t remember the other mean "you’re doing this wrong" things
that Nurse Negative said, and neither can Jill, although I remember
calling Reno Rheto in the middle of the night and crying to her with all of them. And I remember that there was a laundry list.

No one else yelled at me or told me I was doing it wrong. (Except the nurse who was horrified that we’d supplemented using both brands of formula. All I did was call the nursery and ask for help getting the shrieking baby to eat. They arrived with different brands of formula the two times I asked. What do I know about formula? Or the rules about brand-swapping? Until the nurse told me you should never, ever, ever change brands without a reason like "the baby developed an allergy." I think that was a different nurse, though, not Nurse Negative.)

Both the nursery and maternity nurses often had ideas for ways that might make it easier, and roughly half the time, they offered their assistance, rather than jumping in with the specific recommendations. (IE, "Would you like a pointer on how to make that easier/more comfortable?" or "Can I help you with anything?")

But still, their advice was often contradictory, and it often conflicted with the lactation consultants too.

Bottom lines:

• If I had it to do over again, I’d ask to be discharged from the hospital on Day 3 instead of staying my legally entitled 4th day after the c-section.
• Only listen to the nurses who seem like what they’re saying makes sense for you and your family.
• Invent a code before you go to the hospital, which is how your partner will know that you’re about to snap and they have to jump in and get whoever it is to go away now.
• No one will ever look at your birth plan. (Besides you and your partner, and any friends you happen to send it to.)

Since I’ve been home, things with Noah have gotten a lot better. Jill and I do have good instincts, and he’s back to eating like an absolute champ. We’re going to have such cut triceps.

But my gut looks like a map covered with red rivers, and still feels like someone punched it really hard, maybe yesterday. Laughing and coughing only hurt a little now. I can do the stairs in our house 3 or 4 times/day without feeling like I’m completely overdoing it, but I do them slowly. I can get out of bed with out wanting to cry, and even sleep spooned with my lovely wife.

However, even a quiet activity day like dinner AND a movie while the grandparental units were here visiting took a visible toll. The next day, I limited myself to the officially sanctioned stairs only twice and no other activity regimen.

Hopefully I’ll be signed off to drive and to have a bath (instead of a shower) on Friday. And hopefully the weather will stay nice, so Noah and I can take walks to get me back on my feet. But I am seriously hating the slow road to recovery from the c-section. I know, I know, the whole point is to have a healthy baby, and we got that. There’s something ungrateful about failing to appreciate it. 

I’d really rather have the baby without the major surgery.

I promise that this post will not be gross. I am hypersensitive to anything involving blood or needles, and I promise that if you are too, this post will still be readable.

After the decision that I needed to have a c-section was final, we had our ~hour long wait for the increased epidural drugs to kick in, and then everything kicked into high gear. Suddenly there were throngs of people in surgical scrubs and face masks introducing themselves to me and explaining what they were going to do.

Of that, I remember no details except the anesthesiologist asking me to say when something felt cold and if I could feel something else. It didn’t, and I couldn’t. He pronounced me sufficiently anesthetized. I think I did my usual request not to be told what was going on.

Then Jill was there next to me, and they were erecting a blue curtain about 6 inches in front of my face. Jill was in scrubs and a mask and hair covering too.

I became aware of some fairly vigorous manipulating of my stomach, but it didn’t hurt, it just felt strange. I thought they were checking the baby’s location somehow, to make sure that he wasn’t in the way before they opened me up.

And then someone told Jill to stand up and look, because "this is really cool, and you probably do want to see it," and someone else announced, "You have a baby!"

Apparently they showed him to me — there are even pictures — but I don’t remember that at all.

Jill left with The King while the doctors did their repair work on me. I remember getting all moved and crying about him being healthy and real and born, but mostly I think I dozed during that part.

Eventually, I was taken out to the recovery area, where a very nice nurse monitored my vital signs. There were 2 other c-sections in rapid succession, so there was a lot going on in the recovery area.

Jill came to join me, and told me all about how big and healthy our baby was. And my mom called, so we finally told her the name. I suspect I was only marginally coherant. I think she was also shocked that I was taking a call in surgical recovery.

I knew it would be about an hour before I’d get to hold the baby after the c-section, so I tried to be patient and wait. Finally, after an hour & 20 minutes, I asked Jill what time it was and how long it had been. Jill went and found our nice nurse, who explained that the nursery was backlogged with newborns right now but that our baby could be with us soon.

Time.

Passed.

Extremely.

Slowly.

As we approached the 2 hour mark, I started freaking out. Normally a relentless advocate of being extremely nice and exceptionally patient, Jill saw that the only way to avoid my losing it on some innocent and overwhelmed nurse, was to find someone to bring us our baby now. Fortunately, she did.

About 5 minutes later, he was at our side. And not too long after that, we were all taken to our real recovery room.

Next Installment - The Birth Story, Part 3 (Conclusion): Recovery, or Advice Overwhelm in the Hospital

These haven’t resolved themselves into a coherent post yet, but I don’t want to forget them:

• The first time he fell asleep curled up on my chest, I was still in the hospital. I fell asleep too, and I had the most wonderful dream. I dreamed that I was flying.
• Four days of advice from nurses in the hospital is too many. Especially since they gave conflicting advice. If I had it to do over again, I think I would ask to be discharged on the 3rd day instead. (More details will follow in part 3 of the birth story.)
• I don’t understand why people would have elective c-sections unless they were at high risk for some problem with a vaginal birth. Recovery from this absolutely sucks. And I suspect that I’m doing relatively well.
• I miss reading a lot of your blogs. I’m lucky if I can get online for 20 minutes/day right now. I have no idea when I’m going to update my blogroll to add all the blogs I used to read and will read regularly again, soon I hope.
• The King is a little weed! We were back at the doctor’s office today for the official first full examination, and he weighed in at 9 lbs 1 oz — he may well be back at birth weight 2 weeks after he was born! He’s also grown an INCH already. We live in fear of his teenage years, although at least we won’t have to carry him then.

Fruit & Veg Count:I don’t know what day it is, but I think that today I had 12-15 baby carrots and a banana. Oh, and some carrot souffle.

And here’s a few more pictures of The King and his admiring visitors:

You can’t tell, but he really did like Erin, and normally found her very soothing. Too bad we didn’t think to take the pictures then.

And you can see that he adored our friend Sherre. The feeling was mutual!

My water broke at about 4:30 am on Thursday, February 9. It was odd, in part because I woke up and Just Knew. Five minutes or so later, I got up, and the evidence appeared, but only a little. I rested in bed for another 15 minutes or so, and then really really knew.

I woke up Jill first, told her what was going on, and then went downstairs to put on coffee and call the midwife. The one on call was Experienced Tired Midwife, who recommended that we come in now, rather than waiting until the office opened at 8:30. She added,"I’m here now anyway."

Jill woke her mom and we all headed in to the midwives’ office. After all, hadn’t she said "I’m here" when we were talking about the office?

We got to the office, found the door open and construction work going on, but no midwife. After looking around and waiting for about 5 minutes, we called again.

Fortunately, the hospital is right across the street form the midwives. Of course that’s where she meant by "here."

Tired Experienced Midwife was busy delivering another baby when we arrived; by this time, it was 6:30 or almost 7 am. The hospital shifts are 7a/7p, so we were checked in and strapped to a fetal monitor by random nurses, and then put under the attentive care of Nurse Delightful.

Our midwives switch "on call" at 8 am, and since Tired Experienced Midwife was delivering a baby, we never saw her.

Young Midwife came in around 8:15 and enthusiastically talked about what needed to happen. She was going to do an exam to see how far I was dilated; the baby looked good on the monitor, but my contractions were not very intense or close together, so it would probably be awhile.

Upon examining me, she was a little less encouraging. I hadn’t progressed AT ALL since she examined me in the office a week earlier: 1 cm dilated, baby at -3 station.

Young Midwife didn’t want to start me on pitocin when I wasn’t dilated at all; instead, she wanted to put me on some kind of medicinal suppository that would soften the cervix and help it dilate. Unfortunately, the dosage is for 12 hours, and she thought I might need 2 doses before I would be ready to handle the pitocin.

We thought "great!" Twelve hours is plenty of time to go home, get more organized for the hospital stay, eat something, etc.

Meanwhile, Jill’s mom is in the waiting room. Her flight home is for 1 pm. A decision needs to be made about whether or not she is changing her ticket.

Young Midwife pauses in her enthusiastic explanations and says, "A minute ago, you said something that makes me think there might be a misunderstanding here. You do know that you can’t go home, right?"

Er, no. We thought we could. We thought we were in the group of people at the hospital too early and being sent home.

"We need to monitor the baby to make sure that he isn’t reacting badly to the medication, and to make sure he’s ok in spite of your water breaking."

Oh.

I know this hospital has 2 wireless fetal monitors, they talked about it on the tour. Can I have one set?

No, this room has a broken piece of equipment that we’d need for that, and all of the labor & delivery rooms are full, so I can’t switch rooms.

Good thing there’s a book in my "in labor" hospital bag.

Jill goes out to update her mom and figure out whether she’s going to stay for at least 2 more days,  or go home.

Nurse Delightful starts doing something to my left hand.

Since I know that my left hand is NOT where this medicinal suppository is supposed to go, I immediately know that she is about to do the first thing I was hoping to avoid: insert an IV.

I have a total needle thing. I hate them. I pass out. I can’t see them. It’s just a Bad Thing.

I start explaining that in a freaking out tone of voice. "Do we really have to do this yet?"

Young Midwife and Nurse Delightful agree, yes, we really have to do this now, because if the baby reacts badly to the suppository, they will need to administer other meds immediately. And they’d have to do it later anyway, because I’m clearly going to pass the 18 hours after water breaking window and need antibiotics, and I’ll need pitocin.

Young Midwife goes to find Jill and bring her back into the room so I can have a meltdown and break her fingers while they insert the IV. It takes 3 tries. You know this nurse was wonderful if I can still call her Nurse Delightful after that.

And they decide to use the IV right away to give me fluids, which they hope will calm me down. Grrrr.

They insert the suppository, and Jill leaves to take her mom home to pack, and then to the airport. And as you know, to post an update in the comments.

Over the next 12 hours, I call people. Jill goes and gets some movies. I doze. I have some contractions. I’m bored bored bored. Excited that the baby is coming, but it’s still a while away.

Young Midwife returns to check my progress and probably insert the next dose of the suppository. Dose #1 has disappeared. Since my water broke, I’ve been leaking all day, with Nurse Wonderful and others changing big plastic pads on the bed every hour or so. I’m also allowed to disconnect the monitors for potty breaks, and it could well have escaped during one of those. I was warned to watch for that, and I swear I did, but in any event, it’s gone and we have no idea how long it was in.

She checks me, and there’s been an iota of progress, but I’m still not dilated to 2 cm. Time for dose #2. Jill hangs out and we watch brain candy tv until 9 or 10 pm, then she goes home to get some rest. She was back by 6:30 am on the 10th.

I can’t remember when this happened in the timeline, but it must have been that night or during the wee hours of the next morning, because Young Midwife was still on call. Actually, I think it must have been between 7:30 and 9 am, and Young Midwife stayed to see it through.

I was in some pain from the contractions, which were now close to every 5 minutes, and varied in intensity. Young Midwife recommended that we wait on the epidural, instead trying a narcotic painkiller that would let me still get up and go to the bathroom. I agreed.

What a total waste. It made me feel loopy and vaguely high, but it didn’t do ANYTHING for the pain. At least not anything I could distinguish. After about an hour, I was utterly frustrated and sick of it. Give me the damn epidural, even though it is a shot, and the needles are the stuff of nightmares.

(Aside: Our hospital has a policy that all support people in the room during the epidural have to be sitting down. This is because one of my co-workers, a funky, heavily pierced & tattooed hipster guy, decided to watch his wife get her epidural in August. To his surprise, he passed out, and fell so hard he got a concussion. He came to in the ER, where of course he wigged out because he was supposed to be with his wife at the end of her high-risk pregnancy.)

Jill didn’t want to watch anyway.

She held my hand while I cried and tried to be as responsive to the instructions and still as possible. Within 15 minutes, I was asleep and stayed out of it for 3 hours.

All morning and early afternoon, I was on and off of a pitocin drip. I’d be on it for awhile, and then the baby would start reacting badly to the contractions — his heartrate would decelerate instead of accelerate. So they’d stop it for awhile, and then try again.

By this time, Calming Older Midwife was the one on call. In the early afternoon, she examined me and announced that I was making progress, but not much. I’d finally become 2 cm dilated.

Around 2 pm, I really needed to pee. Nurse Delightful was back and ours, and she explained that she was going to catheterize me. Ick, but great. She got out a catheter, and then left the room for a few minutes.

When she returned, she looked at the catheter she’d gotten out, then put it away and got out a different one, which she inserted.

As soon as she left the room, Jill and I looked at each other.

"Do you think they’re going to do a c-section?"

"Yeah…I think so, sweetie. Are you ok with that?"

"Yeah. At this point, it’ll be a relief." Pause. "Did you know they were going to do it because the only reason she’d need a different catheter is if they need one they can leave in during surgery?"

Jill laughed. "I’d been expecting it for a little while, actually. But that was pretty much confirmation."

Nurse Delightful came back into the room.

Jill asked, in a teasing tone, "So, Nurse Delightful, level with us. When do they want to do the c-section?"

Nurse Delightful instantly looked guilty, admitting that they were talking about it, and were thinking it would be in about an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

I teased too, announcing that I knew it when she switched catheters. She said that she’d gotten a little flak about that for being pessimistic. But we assured her that we knew it was probably coming after Calming Older Midwife told us that I was only 2 cm dilated.

Shortly, Calming Older Midwife returned to us. "Should we get this baby out of there?"

We agreed.

She joked that she’d be willing to wait it out, except that on our current timeline, that would have him coming in a week, and she didn’t think I’d want to be strapped into bed for that long.

We agreed with that too.

"OK then. There’s another c-section going on in a little while, so let’s plan to do yours in about an hour."

They kicked up my epidural, and Jill and I hung out and waited.

Next Installment - The Birth Story, Part 2: The C-Section Itself, OR Wow! I Expected This To Be So Much Worse

My water broke around 4:30 am. The contractions haven’t been very strong or frequent, but the midwife on call wants us to come in anyway. If the baby isn’t born within 18 hours of water breaking, they have to intervene with antibiotics and who knows what else.

So if you don’t hear back later today, I’m probably in the hospital having the baby.

BTW, that "baby’s head acts like a cork" thing — not so much. Not even standing or sitting.

Still nothing.

But acting on popular comment demand, if there’s still nothing tomorrow, I will go to the extremely high end mall, home of Georgia’s only Tiffany’s, and walk the mall until I can’t stand it.

(In case it works, don’t worry. The mall is only ~30 minutes from the house, maybe less. And even closer to the hospital.)

In good news, the farmer’s market has attractive large organic gala apples again, so I’m Happy Fruit Girl.

And while I was there, I came up with another silly theory! Smudge couldn’t come because we had no champagne with which to toast his arrival!!!

Of course I corrected that, including buying the most expensive bottle of fancy French champagne that I’ve ever personally bought — $25. It got a 94 from some wine magazine. And in case we need more, I also bought a less expensive bottle of Spanish sparkling wine that also had a high score from a different wine magazine.