Yes... she's adorable :)
So...
The Birth
My due date was January 7th and poor Susie was getting a little worried that she wasn't going to be able to make it to Omaha on time (little did she know that she would have MORE than enough time!). So she decided to come the first week of January to try and make the baby come. She did absolutely EVERYTHING! From rubbing my feet to making me walk miles and miles while she sat and watched me from the window. But Emma was totally not coming out until she wanted. The week before your due date is sooo nerve racking!! I thought I had gone into labor two times before I actually did and actually made the trip to the hospital both time. Every little move or liquid that came dripped out (and no one tells you that there's A LOT OF LIQUID the week before!) we went to the hospital for. My poor doctor was so annoyed that on January 8th, while I was in for my second bout of 'labor', she decided to have me induced the following morning. Luckily for her I went into real labor that night. Everyone says that contractions feel like really strong menstrual cramps but for me it felt like there was an angry little gremlin inside of my uterus that was ripping my insides apart, not a sweet little baby. I made it until about 7am before going to the hospital and since they knew me by name by that time, the check-in was really smooth.
I finally asked for my epidural at 5cm. and HOLY COW!!!!! I strongly recommend an epidural for anyone at anytime even if you're not having a baby! It' so calming and magical and if I could have one all day everyday, life would be grand. However, the damn thing only worked on 1/2 of my body and it wore off just in time to push my little gremlin out.
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| My Emma is MUCH cuter than Gremlin |
After 15 hours of contractions and 3 hours of pushing, my Emma was born. I'm not going to go into the gory details of the actual delivery because they are GORY! There's so much stuff and gunk and pain (yes, I tore) and YUCK! We had planned for Wes to not look because he gets grossed out so easily but when the Grandma's kept screaming "She's right there! She's right there!" he couldn't help himself. He was still grossed out but I hope he's able to push that out of his memory within the next few weeks :) His major contribution to my labor process: Patting me on the forehead and telling me Good Job! like he does when Margaret goes outside and doesn't eat poop.
Because my Emma was in the birth canal for so long... her head was huge!!! She looked like a little alien. I felt so guilty when the doctor pulled her out and laid her on my stomach and my initial reaction was "OMG She's gooey, gross and her head's soo long!" Wes must've had the same feeling because when I looked up at him he was absolutely mortified!
And then they take her to do all of their little tests and give her shots. I thought Wes was going to punch the nurse across the room when they jammed the Hep B shots into her cute little thighs. He looked back at me and said, "Ash! Did you just see that?! Why would they do that?!" I reassured him that she's ok and won't remember this.
The first time I held her:
Wes and left to go and get dinner for the 2 of us and all other family members had gone home so it was just the two us. I remember looking at her and thinking "Holy Shit what do I do now?!" She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen (her head had significantly decreased in size within a few hours) and I couldn't believe that this "gremlin" turned out to be this perfect little girl. Those feelings were quickly pushed away by the most incessant feeling of worry. Is she cold? Is she warm? Is she suppose to make that sound? Is her skin too dry? Why isn't she crying? Is she hungry? And these feelings don't ever go away.
The next 24 hours were a blur. She was able to be with us for the first 6 hours and then during the night they admitted her to the NICU. They had been monitoring her respirations and because they were so elevated they were worried she had an infection and she was ripped from us. I was so glad that we had such an amazing team of doctors and that she was in great hands but OMG! That was the worst feeling ever! I had been waiting for the nurse to come in and show us how to give her a bath and instead they were wheeling her down the hall to be held in an incubator. We couldn't hold her for the first few days which was miserable + I couldn't breastfeed the way I had planned and pumping wasn't working very well + I was still recovering from pushing a gremlin out of my body and was having to sleep on the couch in the NICU + my new baby was sick and had all sorts of cords and wires running in and out of her body = absolute misery.
Wes did his best to annoy the doctors by running out and telling (or more like excitedly shouting) at them with every good temperature, poop, pee and feeding. I think this is the majority of the reason of why they discharged us. It's amazing how a poopy diaper can instill such a strong feeling of pride.
And Now We Are Home...
Emma was released and we were ecstatic. They believe she may have aspirated some fluid as she came out which turned into a mild infection. Little did we know that the scariest part was yet to come: The First Night Home. Every noise and movement I was out of bed and checking her out. Is she breathing? Is she cold? Is she too warm? Does she have a temperature? It didn't help that the hospital makes you watch a SIDS video before leaving or that she had breathing problems for the first few days of her life. It was miserable.
We made it through that first night just fine and now I can sleep a lot better than I did that first night. Wes sleeps just fine since he works nights and gets to sleep during the day. Margaret's sleep is interrupted whenever Emma cries to be fed but luckily she's able to fall back asleep right away. Mavis sleeps like a log.
The following is a list of things that I wish I knew more about before they happened:
The first major blow-out...
We went to the doctor for her first check-up. She was in her car seat on the floor of the office and I was filling out some paper work when all of a sudden.. WHAM! BOOM! KAPOW! WHOOSH! The nurse and I looked at each other and she decided to give us a few moments to pull ourselves together. I went to uncover the disaster that I thought would be contained to diaper. Nope. Right through her clothes. Since it was the first time I had packed a diaper bag I had neglected to bring an undershirt and something to put her dirty clothes in. Since we are doing cloth diapers I had also forgotten to bring the bag for her dirty diapers. I cleaned the disaster up and wrapped her in a blanket. Sorry Emma!
Holy Crap Babies wiggle a lot!
Even though they are small they wiggle and move soo much! I could have her swaddled as tight as a burrito and in the morning there will be one little arm that made its way out during the night and is now straight up in the air and freezing. Or I'll have her in a cute little nightie that has a million snaps that I can't even figure out. Low and behold the next morning a chubby little foot is hanging out of the crotch of nighty. I don't even know how that happens.
Laundry, laundry, laundry
Emma goes through at least two undershirts a day, whether she pees, poops, pukes or just doesn't like the one she has on.
Babies really do get dirty!
There's really only 3 places she visits during the day; my arms, her swing, or her car seat. How can you explain all the stuff that I find between her fingers, in her neck rolls and between her toes?! It just doesn't make sense. And it's slightly embarrassing when someone goes to hold her and wants to see her "Cute little baby hands!" and finds the kitchen sink between her fingers. I really do bathe her! We aren't dirty people!
The Dogs and The Baby
Mavis and Margaret love their new sister. Mavis doesn't really care that she's here and is slightly afraid of her when she cries. Margaret is, you guessed it, JEALOUS! Whoever is holding the baby is also holding Margaret. I like to think of it as Margaret being the protective older sister but no one else sees it that way. She likes to get up and watch over Emma as I feed her in the middle of the night. And she LOOVES to test the milk to make sure it's the right temperature. Actually she just loves formula. Whether it's in the bottle, on Emma's face or on her clothes, Margaret will do whatever it takes to get at it. We've lost 7 bottle nipples in the past 8 weeks which she rips into to get the milk out. I found out the other day that it really doesn't even matter what form its in when I walked in the baby's room and found the chewed wide open. Liquid or powder, she likes it all. She also really enjoyed breastmilk. I need to explain something so you will understand how evil this pug truly is. Breastfeeding turned out to be a disaster for me. My doctor, lactation consultant, and myself aren't sure of why I never produced more than 5mL per session but for some reason or the other I never did. I tried everything from using an industrial pump to fenugreek... nothing worked. So after 6 weeks of pumping at least 9 times a day and total frustration for both Emma and myself, I reluctantly gave up. Anyways, when I would pump I would get maybe 5mL between both of my boobs so we would save up a days worth of pumping and feed it all to her at night. I had warmed it up and left it on the table to go and change Emma before the feeding. When I came back down our other little Princess had chewed the nipple off and licked up all of the breastmilk. I cried. 9 pumpings x 30min./pumping = WAY TOO MUCH TO WASTE ON BREASTMILK FOR A PUG!!
This is already an incredibly long entry. I will try and keep it updated :) Until next time....
