First 2 Weeks

We drove our tiny baby home around midnight. It seemed so surreal to be sitting next to a baby, our baby, in the back of the car. I just watched him flutter his tiny eyelids as the orange glow from the lamp posts flickered past.

Sleep Or The Lack Thereof

For the first week to say I was exhausted was an understatement. I have never been more tired in my life! Since I went into labour at 10pm I didn't get to sleep that night and then afterwards there is no way you can choose sleep when you've waited almost a year to meet this marvel you've made. I didn't want to miss a second! Unfortunately that means you're pretty much running on 3 hours of sleep a day. Sooner or later it catches up to you and you start operating more like a zombie than a human being.

You've probably heard that babies sleep a lot. Yes they do but it's not in one session. It's split up in 12 sessions so you need to get up every 2 hours and feed and change diapers. When the baby falls asleep here is when you need to fit in sleep for yourself, food, pain meds, sitz baths, and in a blue moon, a shower. There is no time to cook so having pre-made meals is essential. We were so fortunate to have a meal train for the second week from our church group. It was an amazing blessing and if you know new parents this is probably the best way to help (bring fruits with the meal!).

Olly slept in the bassinet in the beginning. No one recommends cosleeping since it increases the chance for SIDS. However, every parent I've talked to cosleep or at least do so in the early weeks. Soon I began to realize the utter exhaustion of running on a 2 hour cycle and getting the baby out and back in was just impractical. It wasn't long before I just put him next to me and dozed off while he fed. 

Breastfeeding

The baby was latching on well although I had more trouble on the left side than the right. I would randomly get shooting pains not during breastfeeding and thought I had thrush. Also, I would all of a sudden start shivering like I just came out of a glacial lake. My teeth would chatter and you'd find me curled up under the covers while I waited for it to pass. There were a lot of tears during the first few days as you deal with the crying baby and your emotions. All of this is apparently normal since your hormones are going haywire while your milk is coming in.

Olly had jaundice up to his chest on the first midwife visit. However he was waking himself up every 3 hours so I was not worried. By the third day he started dozing off while feeding and it was harder and harder to actively feed for at least 10 mins on each breast. I was probably doing 5 or less.

Marijke came for the second midwife visit. His jaundice has crept down to his navel now. She weighed him and determined he has lost 11% of his body weight since birth. 6-10% is normal but 11% is worrisome. He was not getting enough food. The problem with jaundice is that it makes babies tired. Tired baby results in less food since the sucking is what stimulates milk production. Less food results in a weak baby and the jaundice gets worse. This makes baby more tired and the vicious cycle continues. My milk was not coming in fast enough so that was not helping either. We were immediately put on a plan.

I started to cry as she talked about how David needs to go out and rent a hospital-grade double breast pump. I felt this was all my fault, that I have failed my child in the first week of life! Maybe if I didn't doze off while he was feeding we would not be in this predicament. It was hard enough working on a 3 hours schedule with just feeding, now we have to do so many more steps. I had to hand express milk and pump after trying to feed and David needed to feed that extra milk from the previous session to Olly through a syringe. It was imperative that we wake the baby up if he's sleeping and use methods like a cold cloth or ice if he's unresponsive.

Syringe feeding

We were following this for a while but Olly's sleepiness was not getting any better. On our worst night he would hardly even respond to ice. It took more than 1.5 hours to coax him into actively feeding for 5 mins. Looking at the schedule there would be no time for sleep if we tried to get him to feed for 5 more. David made the executive decision to stop trying and just do the top up. I reluctantly gave in. In the wee hours in the morning we noticed the baby's arms turning blue, like blueberry blue. I called Patricia on emergency page. I know we're not supposed to call unless it's a real emergency but I was so scared. She said as long as he wasn't blue on his chest or on his lips it should be ok. She asked us to give him some formula top up. Thank goodness for the free liquid formula Nestle sent us! She also gave me permission to not have to finish 10 mins of feeding on each breast. Do what you can for an hour and start pumping she said. This allowed us to get some more sleep although not much. 

From then on the routine added syringe feeding of formula as well. Anything that touches formula like bottles and syringes need to be boiled for 10 mins before use. Did I mention this was the hottest summer ever and our apartment was already 31 degrees without boiling anything? Anyway the formula really saved the day. I know breast is best but formula does save lives when breast milk is not available.

Eventually my milk came in around day 8. We weaned off the formula, then the pumping and Olly gained back his weight by the second week. He's been growing non stop ever since!

Baby

In the morning I felt some rhythmic cramps but they were so light I didn’t think much of it. Once I went to the washroom I noticed some bloody show and it was goopy when I wiped. This I figured was the mucus plug which according to the midwife doesn’t really indicate much. You could give birth soon after or weeks after. My due date was in two days.

On the same night around 10pm I felt the same sensations again while watching a movie. It felt just like period cramps but sharper. I always imagined contractions would feel like your foot cramping up in a cold pool but it was less painful than that, at least at first. It started getting stronger and David got very excited. I didn’t want to get disappointed if it wasn’t the real thing so I remained nonchalant and continued watching the movie but used an app to time to contractions. They were pretty irregular so I continued to watch the movie. After about an hour they started getting stronger and more regular so I took a tylenol and gravol to see if I can get some sleep. Maybe I was in early labour after all! This was phase 1 of the pain: mild and tolerable.

Last night with a baby bump

Sleep did not come so I passed the time by tracking the contractions. I was very jealous of David snoozing soundly beside me. Eventually around 5am it started getting intense enough that I couldn’t just lie there anymore (phase 2) so I woke David up. I needed to start using the techniques they taught us in our prenatal class to deal with the pain: ohming, object focusing, moving around with an exercise ball, warm bath, and massage. I really liked the massage with the pool noodle in the class but when it came to the real thing I hated it. The bath was nice at first but pretty soon any skin not touching the water was cold and I hated that too. The only thing that really worked was “ohming” where you focus on the release of your breath and make a deep groaning sound. After a few hours of managing those contractions, the intensity went up another notch (phase 3) where I really needed someone beside me for the contractions. David held me for the standing supported squat position but my legs were jello and it was impossible to support myself that way. I could only squat on all fours. Contractions have been 1 minute long, every 3-4 minutes for the past 2 hours and with the increased intensity, this was when we decided to page our midwife team on urgent. It was nerve racking waiting for the call back. To my delight, Patricia called us back. She asked if I felt pressure down below and I did. As I had no idea how much progress we’ve made into the labour, we decided to meet her at the hospital. Now I was finally excited! It’s really happening. I wasn’t sure if I could tolerate not being able to go on all fours during the trip to the hospital but it was ok. We just breathed through the contractions down the elevator and into the car. There was a lady waiting for the elevator at P2. I remember wondering about whether she realized I was in labour or not and if not, it must be weird listening to me wailing. We couldn’t bring the car seat since I needed David to support me.

We went through the emergency entrance at Burnaby hospital and David gave them my documentation. They were pretty fast at bringing me a wheelchair and I was taken to the maternity ward straight away while David stayed behind to deal with the paperwork. I was glad we did a tour of the hospital beforehand because it made me more relaxed as I knew what to expect. Patricia was already at the maternity ward front desk when they wheeled me there and I was so happy to be now in the hands of the professionals. She asked the nurse to dim the lights in my room and then David joined us.

The rest of the morning is pretty much a daze with all that oxytocin coursing through my veins. I remember jazz music helped me relax. I rotated between the hospital bed, on the floor next to the armchair, and the shower. Nothing was really that great. I did like that you could raise the head of the hospital bed which is a 1-up from home. It was very painful but with David’s help I loudly groaned through it all. Patricia brought us some peanut butter on toast and some juice. At some point I heard the screams of another mom and eventually her baby’s first cry and I so wished I was at that stage. Time passed. It took 3 hours to go from 4 cm to 7 cm. Eventually I wanted to try the shower again. The water was warm but then I felt extra warmth flowing from me. I figured my water broke at that point. Everything got way more intense after that.

This was the start of the real pain! All the tactics and positions previous to this no longer helped. The feeling was just all consuming. I couldn’t concentrate on my breathing. I couldn’t stay still. I couldn’t escape. I knew there was 3 cm left and judging by the last 3 cm, there was no way I could last 3 more minutes of this let alone 3 more hours! I just started to lose it. I begged Patricia to just give me something, anything! I didn’t want an epidural but wasn’t there anything else they could give me? There was nothing. I remember my friend said they got a shot of morphine during their birth. What about morphine? She said she would need to run an IV. She suggested I try the laughing gas. I stuck the mouth piece in my mouth and tried to breathe but it was just too hard to deal with this awkward thing in my mouth with the worst pain I’ve felt in my life at the same time. Can’t anyone see I was dying? I think at this point I really started to panic because I really didn’t want any interventions but this was just impossible. What made it harder was that I wanted to push so badly but I couldn’t because I wasn’t fully dilated yet. I just begged her to help me and she managed to calm me down a bit by talking me through it and focusing on breathing out. She said it was a safe pain, that I was not being harmed, take deep slow breaths, and to release all my tension every time I breathed out. Eventually I calmed down and she asked me to try to last another half hour and then she will check on me again. In this half hour it took everything to resist the urge to push. At some point I couldn’t hold it any longer. Things were just coming out of me! Poops that is. Poor David had to wipe my bum. I was so embarrassed. We’re too young for him to be doing that! Finally Patricia checked me and she surprisingly said I was fully dilated and I can start pushing at the height of the pain. What height of the pain? It was at the peak 100% of the time! So I just pushed and remembered those kegel exercises and tried to push with those muscles. I have no idea how long I pushed but it didn’t seem long.

At some point Patricia asked me to move to the bed and lie on my back. I was surprised because all the videos we saw of natural births had the woman on all fours so that gravity can help. She told me to bend my legs and curve my back to help the baby. I then felt what people call the ring of fire and she said I could put my hand down and feel the baby’s head coming through. I felt wet hair on something firm. Wow! I think I made 2 big pushes for the head and 1 for the shoulder and he was out! David caught him. They immediately put him on my chest and started rubbing the white stuff off him. I was mostly feeling disbelief than anything. Just overwhelmed with general emotion, whatever that means. He didn’t cry but just made tiny whimpering noises. Usually in the movies they cry a lot but Patricia said it was nothing to worry about. I couldn’t believe that he was here, I am finally going to be a mom. I pushed the placenta out while baby was lying on me and David cut the rubbery umbilical cord with a pair of scissors. Patricia made sure the bleeding was normal and then proceeded to examine “the damage”. I had second degree lacerations in an upside down v shape which needed about 6 stitches. The laughing gas was finally useful and I breathed that dry air while she added the stitches. It doesn’t take the pain away, you just get drowsy and out of it so you care less about what’s going on. I almost breathed in too much and fell asleep. Dad and baby got some quality bonding time during the stitches. 

It was very important that I pee after all this. If I couldn’t, they would put a catheter in to drain the liquid out of the bladder. While I tried to pee, baby had his head measured and reflexes checked. He had a strong grasping reflex but had a weak sucking reflex. I didn’t end up peeing because I figured I didn’t really drink a lot of liquid in the last 12 hours. So we weighed the baby. He was 6 lbs 8 oz, bigger than I expected. He sucked on my breast for a bit for that liquid gold they talk about (colostrum). I swear they weren’t producing anything but apparently they are. After having some breakfast in my tummy and some liquids I finally peed and we left the delivery room to our hospital room.

Third Trimester

The 3rd trimester was uneventful except for a bout of tonsillitis. There were no other symptoms other than the searing pain every time I swallowed. The internet suggested garlic, turmeric, lemon, and honey. I boiled some garlic and tumeric water and to my surprise it was pretty soothing! Eventually I lost my voice for 2 days. I held out another week and eventually decided I should see the doctor. He said there is a little fluid in my right lung but nothing to be worried about and I didn’t require any antibiotics so just wait it out. All in all it took about 3 weeks to heal.

While a lot of people complain of swollen feet and back ache in the last trimester I had none of those symptoms. Hashtag blessed! I really tried to go swimming regularly but only made it out a handful of times, same goes for prenatal exercises. My extended health dollars came in handy and I really enjoyed getting massage therapy about every other week. Most people commented on how small I was but all the measurements were normal so I guess the baby is just the perfect size for my tiny frame.

Orange drink for gestational diabetes test

We took a 7 week prenatal class at the Childbearing Society and it was pretty informative about the birth. I really enjoyed the birthing videos and the exercise in pain management. The only thing I wish they touched more on was how to take care of a baby after the birth. Here was a demonstration of what is involved in a c-section.

I took 2 weeks off for maternity leave with grand plans to clean the apartment, make tons of food for when the baby comes, and nest. In the end I made 3 things: carnitas, meatballs and something else that I don’t remember. I felt so guilty of not making more food but I was just so tired.

Tip: I should start making and freezing food way earlier and only take 1 week off.