I was a little worried about getting the baby blues or post partum depression and so far I'm just one happy mommy. Sure, I get emotional at times, but having a baby is even better than I dreamed. I'm in love! I'm healing pretty well also.
Uh oh, I hear Mina crying on the baby monitor so I'll have to come back later.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Post Partum Pain
I went to the doctor today after Mina's appointment to get checked out since I'm still in pain from my cathetar. Dr. M says that I'm pretty "raw, but healthy" so unfortunately it's just going to take time. I was kind of hoping it was an infection so it could be treated. It's no fun feeling like my bladder is going to fall out when I stand up. She did say that my stitches are healing nicely.
Jon goes back to work tomorrow. Well, he's on call, so he could work tomorrow or he could have the day pretty well free. There's no telling. I'm not too scared of being alone with Mina since she's an easy baby, but things are definitely easier with him around. If I wasn't sore, then I wouldn't have any issue at all with taking care of her alone. At this point, I have problems standing up from the sitting position if I'm holding her though. I'll just need to adjust and heal.
Mina did a huge puke this afternoon after she fed. She was starving after our doctor appointments and ate too much too fast. She managed to soak my pants and shirt along with all layers of her own clothing. The Buddy was very interested in tasting both of us. Gross!
Jon goes back to work tomorrow. Well, he's on call, so he could work tomorrow or he could have the day pretty well free. There's no telling. I'm not too scared of being alone with Mina since she's an easy baby, but things are definitely easier with him around. If I wasn't sore, then I wouldn't have any issue at all with taking care of her alone. At this point, I have problems standing up from the sitting position if I'm holding her though. I'll just need to adjust and heal.
Mina did a huge puke this afternoon after she fed. She was starving after our doctor appointments and ate too much too fast. She managed to soak my pants and shirt along with all layers of her own clothing. The Buddy was very interested in tasting both of us. Gross!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
A Happy Mommy
I haven't blogged much lately, but I'm alive and happy, just not on the computer much. I can definitely tell my tear is healing and we're totally in love with Mina. She has been nursing very well, crying very little, snuggling lots, sleeping for 4 hour stretches at night, and responding to our voices/sounds. All of her eating has also helped me to lose 23 pounds so far. I feel like the incredible shrinking woman. I still have a long way to go, but I wore non maternity jeans (with the rubberband trick) yesterday.
I love this picture of our little family minus Euclid that was taken yesterday.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Mina's Website
Instead of posting pictures in two places, the website for you to visit to see Mina is this: http://minacatherine.blogspot.com/
Birth Story
This is copied from the post I made to my online friends. It might be TMI for some of you.
Short Story: Mina Catherine was born at 1:46am on December 29th. She was 7 lbs, 11oz and 20.5 inches in length. She’s extremely cute and worth everything we went through to get her. If anyone wonders about the pronunciation, Mina is pronounced me-nah, rhymes with Tina, Gina, etc.
Long Story: The labor was about 24 hours in length. Thursday morning I had my membranes stripped and was dilated 1.5-2 cm. I felt icky all day and had contractions here and there. I woke up Friday morning at about 1am having contractions that I couldn’t ignore every 5 minutes or so. I went and took a bath and let Jon sleep some more to see if they would regulate or go away. By 3am Jon was up with me timing contractions using contraction master and we went in to the hospital around 7am or so after I lost my mucous plug. They checked me and I was making progress. Unfortunately pain makes me puke so I was a real mess until I got my epidural around 2pm. I puked whenever I had to change position and couldn't keep water in my system. It didn’t help that I was having back labor. I slept all afternoon and progressed to about 8cm and stalled out. At this point they figured out the baby wasn’t quite in the perfect position so they tried to get her to move unsuccessfully. They weren't sure if she was transverse or sunny side up or a combination of the two. I started feeling pain and pressure (and nausea) again in the evening and went through hours of labor wanting to push and getting pitocin to try to get things moving again. My bag of waters broke in the afternoon (with assistance) and had miconium in it so they didn't want me to just lay around for too long. Finally they allowed me to push after I begged and wimpered and my personality came out from the fog of pain. The doctor said she’d give me two hours to push because the baby was sunny side up and because of the miconium. Baby's heartrate decelerated some so they kept having me change from side to side (making me puke some more) to get baby happier. I pushed my heart out and they couldn’t believe I got the hang of it after just a contraction or two. I decided before I even started pushing that I was going to be good at that part and I was right. Because of Mina’s position it still took a long time to get her to descend at all. The doctor stopped by and told me 20 minutes to baby or c-section and I said there was no way in hell I was getting a c-section after laboring that long. I pushed like my life depended on it and got her to descend far enough that the doctor felt comfortable attempting a forceps delivery.
With her position there was no way she was coming out without assistance. On came the forceps and out came the baby. She had to go to the NICU right away to make sure she didn’t aspirate miconium while I got stitched up (4th degree tear – ouch!). She was nice and healthy and I got to meet her a couple of hours later. We started to get the hang of nursing by midmorning and had lots of visiting family stop by. On Sunday Mina had a brief fever that slightly concerned the nurse. On Monday she had a fever again right as we were going to be released so they kept us and ran every test known to man on Mina, including a spinal tap. She seemed really healthy, but they wanted to make sure she didn’t have some sort of infection before they sent her home. Since Monday she hasn’t had a fever at all and has been doing everything well – eating, pooping, peeing, sleeping, crying, snuggling, etc. and they finally released us from the hospital on Wednesday night. We are so glad to be home. I can’t believe how lucky we are to have the little daughter we always wanted.
Short Story: Mina Catherine was born at 1:46am on December 29th. She was 7 lbs, 11oz and 20.5 inches in length. She’s extremely cute and worth everything we went through to get her. If anyone wonders about the pronunciation, Mina is pronounced me-nah, rhymes with Tina, Gina, etc.
Long Story: The labor was about 24 hours in length. Thursday morning I had my membranes stripped and was dilated 1.5-2 cm. I felt icky all day and had contractions here and there. I woke up Friday morning at about 1am having contractions that I couldn’t ignore every 5 minutes or so. I went and took a bath and let Jon sleep some more to see if they would regulate or go away. By 3am Jon was up with me timing contractions using contraction master and we went in to the hospital around 7am or so after I lost my mucous plug. They checked me and I was making progress. Unfortunately pain makes me puke so I was a real mess until I got my epidural around 2pm. I puked whenever I had to change position and couldn't keep water in my system. It didn’t help that I was having back labor. I slept all afternoon and progressed to about 8cm and stalled out. At this point they figured out the baby wasn’t quite in the perfect position so they tried to get her to move unsuccessfully. They weren't sure if she was transverse or sunny side up or a combination of the two. I started feeling pain and pressure (and nausea) again in the evening and went through hours of labor wanting to push and getting pitocin to try to get things moving again. My bag of waters broke in the afternoon (with assistance) and had miconium in it so they didn't want me to just lay around for too long. Finally they allowed me to push after I begged and wimpered and my personality came out from the fog of pain. The doctor said she’d give me two hours to push because the baby was sunny side up and because of the miconium. Baby's heartrate decelerated some so they kept having me change from side to side (making me puke some more) to get baby happier. I pushed my heart out and they couldn’t believe I got the hang of it after just a contraction or two. I decided before I even started pushing that I was going to be good at that part and I was right. Because of Mina’s position it still took a long time to get her to descend at all. The doctor stopped by and told me 20 minutes to baby or c-section and I said there was no way in hell I was getting a c-section after laboring that long. I pushed like my life depended on it and got her to descend far enough that the doctor felt comfortable attempting a forceps delivery.
With her position there was no way she was coming out without assistance. On came the forceps and out came the baby. She had to go to the NICU right away to make sure she didn’t aspirate miconium while I got stitched up (4th degree tear – ouch!). She was nice and healthy and I got to meet her a couple of hours later. We started to get the hang of nursing by midmorning and had lots of visiting family stop by. On Sunday Mina had a brief fever that slightly concerned the nurse. On Monday she had a fever again right as we were going to be released so they kept us and ran every test known to man on Mina, including a spinal tap. She seemed really healthy, but they wanted to make sure she didn’t have some sort of infection before they sent her home. Since Monday she hasn’t had a fever at all and has been doing everything well – eating, pooping, peeing, sleeping, crying, snuggling, etc. and they finally released us from the hospital on Wednesday night. We are so glad to be home. I can’t believe how lucky we are to have the little daughter we always wanted.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Home!
We got home last night and life is great. In fact, Mina hasn't cried so far today. She was a real screecher at the hospital so it's a nice switch. She's been eating well, pooping, and sleeping a lot today. Hopefully she isn't a terror tonight. It's so much easier to be a mom at home than at the hospital.
I have more pictures, but I just realized that I left the camera upstairs so I'll have to load them sometime soon. I'm still very, very sore and not as mobile as usual.
Jon starts his week of vacation on Saturday. I'm excited to have a lot of time for just the four of us (Euclid is still a member of the family). We'll also have some visitors I'm sure. I'll be feeling better and able to share the whole labor story and more pictures. I'm just not quite up to it yet. 4th degree tears are no fun! At least Mina seems to be the most perfect baby there is.
I have more pictures, but I just realized that I left the camera upstairs so I'll have to load them sometime soon. I'm still very, very sore and not as mobile as usual.
Jon starts his week of vacation on Saturday. I'm excited to have a lot of time for just the four of us (Euclid is still a member of the family). We'll also have some visitors I'm sure. I'll be feeling better and able to share the whole labor story and more pictures. I'm just not quite up to it yet. 4th degree tears are no fun! At least Mina seems to be the most perfect baby there is.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Brief Stop at Home
I'm home for the next five minutes so I thought I'd check in. Mina continues to do well and stump the doctors as to the reason for her twice found fever. It's intensely irritating to be stuck in the hospital with a seemingly perfectly healthy child, but at least she isn't sickly! She hasn't had a fever at all today and has been feeding like crazy.
Mina has her own website in the links section on the left (There's Something About Mina). I'll fix it up once we're released from the hospital.
Mina has her own website in the links section on the left (There's Something About Mina). I'll fix it up once we're released from the hospital.
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