As of five days postpartum, I actually fit into my pre-pregger jeans! WOO HOO! Granted, that's still a size 16 but hopefully it suggests that I may even wind up smaller than that by the time I lose all my "baby weight!" Then again, I'm not entirely sure how long it takes for said "baby weight" to finish coming off. It may be that I won't get an inch smaller. Here's hoping, though!
Thankfully, "the girls" are no longer melon-sized lumps of adamantium. Cause yeah. That. Hurt. They seem to have returned to something akin to their original state. Milk production has slowed dramatically, and having acquired birth control pills once again, hopefully the milk will cease to flow in short order.
I'm also on my third day back at work. Part of me missed being busy and having things to do. The other part still really hates getting out of bed in the morning. I'm looking forward to getting back to riding my bike to work in the mornings, though. Only a couple more weeks to go!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Whining (aka. Baby Blues)
Day three home from the hospital, day four since delivery. This, I think, is about the right timing. Well, I wouldn't call it "right" per se; I feel miserable. But the timing is appropriate for Baby Blues to set in. So instead of wallowing for days on end, I'm going to try to vent now and hopefully this will allow me to logic my way through the rest of it.
I've been living in a state of perpetual engorgement since Sunday evening, and had just begun to think that I had trained my breasts to scale back on production when I got a phone call from I.F. saying that he and Princess Wiggle-Worm were heading home. Now, this is wonderful news! Except, it turns out he wasn't going to come down after all to pick up the breast milk I've been expressing for him since I left the hospital. Yes, yes, I've agreed to freeze it in case he can come back and get it, but it might have been nice to have been given a little bit of notice, so I could scale back on expressing more than I had been. Since Sunday, I have made Dolly Parton look absolutely prepubescent. Now I'm bound up so tight my ten year old is proportionally larger-chested than I am. This. Is. Painful.
And no one has come to visit or called. Which bums me out, but I can't expect people to drop everything, either. They have lives of their own.
I've been living in a state of perpetual engorgement since Sunday evening, and had just begun to think that I had trained my breasts to scale back on production when I got a phone call from I.F. saying that he and Princess Wiggle-Worm were heading home. Now, this is wonderful news! Except, it turns out he wasn't going to come down after all to pick up the breast milk I've been expressing for him since I left the hospital. Yes, yes, I've agreed to freeze it in case he can come back and get it, but it might have been nice to have been given a little bit of notice, so I could scale back on expressing more than I had been. Since Sunday, I have made Dolly Parton look absolutely prepubescent. Now I'm bound up so tight my ten year old is proportionally larger-chested than I am. This. Is. Painful.
And no one has come to visit or called. Which bums me out, but I can't expect people to drop everything, either. They have lives of their own.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Urrrgh... Sore.
I'm finally at home. Hubs took me out to a lovely meal at Outback. I ate a real-sized meal for the first time in WEEKS! WOO HOO! Of course, I really like what eating small meals has done to my shape, so I'm calling this my splurge and will be returning to a far more moderate menu henceforth. But WOW, did I enjoy my lobster tails, 6-ounce sirloin and sweet potato, and yes the cheese fries we shared were DELICIOUS!
I've been expressing breast milk for Princess Wiggle-Worm too. I was having trouble at first, because basically, my nipples were clogged. Now that I've roughed them up to the point of *ouch* the milk is flowing much more freely. No colostrum from THIS Holstein, ladies and gents; I produce the real thing. This makes Daddy and the nurses happy, as the Princess has a bit of jaundice. (Not to mention that breast milk is just better for babies than formula.) I'm not sure whether I'll be asked to continue doing so yet, but we'll figure it out tomorrow when I go pick MY princess up from her father's house and drop off what I've pumped this evening and what I pump tomorrow.
My breasts are sore, my bits are sore, and overall I feel like I've been beat up and rung out but overall satisfied. And the best bonus: I get to sleep in my own bed, snuggled up with Hubs for the first time since Wednesday! -GWEE!-
I've been expressing breast milk for Princess Wiggle-Worm too. I was having trouble at first, because basically, my nipples were clogged. Now that I've roughed them up to the point of *ouch* the milk is flowing much more freely. No colostrum from THIS Holstein, ladies and gents; I produce the real thing. This makes Daddy and the nurses happy, as the Princess has a bit of jaundice. (Not to mention that breast milk is just better for babies than formula.) I'm not sure whether I'll be asked to continue doing so yet, but we'll figure it out tomorrow when I go pick MY princess up from her father's house and drop off what I've pumped this evening and what I pump tomorrow.
My breasts are sore, my bits are sore, and overall I feel like I've been beat up and rung out but overall satisfied. And the best bonus: I get to sleep in my own bed, snuggled up with Hubs for the first time since Wednesday! -GWEE!-
Friday, June 17, 2011
Presenting Princess Wiggle Worm!
Hubs and I got up at 5:30 yesterday morning to get ready to wait for "the" phone call, telling us to come in for induction. It didn't come till 10:00am, but it did in fact happen. We arrived at the big hospital around 11:00am and started the process of getting me monitored and hooked up to all the machines, blah, blah, blah.
Labor began around 1:00 in the afternoon in earnest, not long after my water broke. I have to admit I was pleased that it ruptured on its own; that was one of the things I wanted to experience spontaneously. And man, oh man, was it. I had been instructed to sit on a birthing ball and rock a bit to get her into a good position, and at one point I had rolled my pelvis forward and heard/felt a loud "pop" almost as if the bones of my pelvis had slid over one another and then popped back into place. Next contraction there was a tsunami gushing all over the place.
I got to float around in the labor tub in my room for a while, and you know what? I now fully understand why they call it the Midwife's epidural. Unfortunately Princess Wiggle Worm didn't like not being surrounded by water, so the doctor had be crawl back into bed and they did the first of what turned out to be several amnio-infusions (they slid a catheter into my uterus, past the baby's head and kept it full of sterile water.)
Labor progressed unmedicated until around midnight-ish (give or take). I was well into moaning "OH" at the top of my lungs and trying to use the sound and the motion to keep my birthing bits relaxed and working in my favor, and just needed a break. So I broke down and called for an epidural. Yeah, I know; wuss. I'll have other opportunities to try again. Even with the epidural, I never did get relief on my right side. :P
This continued for quite a while, with the doctors and nurses intermittently worrying about decelerations in Wiggle-Worm's heart rate. At one point Cesarean was suggested, but the docs and nurses were able to use gravity to get her head past my cervix in relatively short order, and in what felt like almost no time, they were standing around my bed in their delivery scrubs, telling me it was time to push. Three pushes (they say two, I say three) later, she was delivered. She did have her umbilical cord wrapped twice around her neck, but the resident fixed that once I got her head out, and she was pink and pretty literally within minutes.
The new and interesting part in all this was that my placenta did not want to break free from the uterine wall. This meant that the resident had to remove it manually. As hubs so eloquently puts it; I became a hand-puppet. Delicious imagery, I know, but *holy crap* I did not expect anything like that! It wasn't horribly painful per se, but it certainly was uncomfortable.
She spent the next two hours being adored and snuggled and warmed up against her Dad's skin, and ate a healthy 14 ounces of formula before we were even moved to maternity.
Today has been a lot of recuperation and rest, but I've pumped a little bit of breast milk for her and helped the nurses out in the nursery for a while (originally with the intent of paying some attention to the Princess; but she had to get some tests done, and so I wound up helping with a couple of the other babies as well. I guess I look like I know what I'm doing or something. LOL.)
A lot of people have been concerned that this would somehow damage me emotionally; letting Princess Wiggle Worm go with her father. And I admit, I started to get a little concerned the last couple days, that I would get mopey or break down; especially after delivery. But you know, I'm still really not attached. She's a beautiful baby for sure, and she's very mellow and very tough (not a peep out of her after being jabbed and poked and stabbed for tests by the nurses) but I'm no more bothered by "letting her go" than I would be about watching a friend's baby go home after babysitting her for a couple hours one afternoon, so that friend could run some errands.
As for the physical, I'm sore in the birthing bits. I did tear a little bit, so I have a couple of stitches and well let's be honest; I pushed a small human out of those bits and then had to have hands in places I don't think they really belong. I'm gonna be a bit sore.
In perfect honesty: I'm happy that I've done this. I'm excited for my I.F. And you know what? I can't wait to do it again.
Labor began around 1:00 in the afternoon in earnest, not long after my water broke. I have to admit I was pleased that it ruptured on its own; that was one of the things I wanted to experience spontaneously. And man, oh man, was it. I had been instructed to sit on a birthing ball and rock a bit to get her into a good position, and at one point I had rolled my pelvis forward and heard/felt a loud "pop" almost as if the bones of my pelvis had slid over one another and then popped back into place. Next contraction there was a tsunami gushing all over the place.
I got to float around in the labor tub in my room for a while, and you know what? I now fully understand why they call it the Midwife's epidural. Unfortunately Princess Wiggle Worm didn't like not being surrounded by water, so the doctor had be crawl back into bed and they did the first of what turned out to be several amnio-infusions (they slid a catheter into my uterus, past the baby's head and kept it full of sterile water.)
Labor progressed unmedicated until around midnight-ish (give or take). I was well into moaning "OH" at the top of my lungs and trying to use the sound and the motion to keep my birthing bits relaxed and working in my favor, and just needed a break. So I broke down and called for an epidural. Yeah, I know; wuss. I'll have other opportunities to try again. Even with the epidural, I never did get relief on my right side. :P
This continued for quite a while, with the doctors and nurses intermittently worrying about decelerations in Wiggle-Worm's heart rate. At one point Cesarean was suggested, but the docs and nurses were able to use gravity to get her head past my cervix in relatively short order, and in what felt like almost no time, they were standing around my bed in their delivery scrubs, telling me it was time to push. Three pushes (they say two, I say three) later, she was delivered. She did have her umbilical cord wrapped twice around her neck, but the resident fixed that once I got her head out, and she was pink and pretty literally within minutes.
The new and interesting part in all this was that my placenta did not want to break free from the uterine wall. This meant that the resident had to remove it manually. As hubs so eloquently puts it; I became a hand-puppet. Delicious imagery, I know, but *holy crap* I did not expect anything like that! It wasn't horribly painful per se, but it certainly was uncomfortable.
She spent the next two hours being adored and snuggled and warmed up against her Dad's skin, and ate a healthy 14 ounces of formula before we were even moved to maternity.
Today has been a lot of recuperation and rest, but I've pumped a little bit of breast milk for her and helped the nurses out in the nursery for a while (originally with the intent of paying some attention to the Princess; but she had to get some tests done, and so I wound up helping with a couple of the other babies as well. I guess I look like I know what I'm doing or something. LOL.)
A lot of people have been concerned that this would somehow damage me emotionally; letting Princess Wiggle Worm go with her father. And I admit, I started to get a little concerned the last couple days, that I would get mopey or break down; especially after delivery. But you know, I'm still really not attached. She's a beautiful baby for sure, and she's very mellow and very tough (not a peep out of her after being jabbed and poked and stabbed for tests by the nurses) but I'm no more bothered by "letting her go" than I would be about watching a friend's baby go home after babysitting her for a couple hours one afternoon, so that friend could run some errands.
As for the physical, I'm sore in the birthing bits. I did tear a little bit, so I have a couple of stitches and well let's be honest; I pushed a small human out of those bits and then had to have hands in places I don't think they really belong. I'm gonna be a bit sore.
In perfect honesty: I'm happy that I've done this. I'm excited for my I.F. And you know what? I can't wait to do it again.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Overdue. Of course.
I am officially overdue. I was scheduled to pop yesterday, but of course Mother Nature tends to enjoy messing with doctors' predictions and plans. Admittedly, I'm a little annoyed, cause while I love my little Buddha-belly, I'm ready for a break, and maybe to talk about me and hubs getting a shot at our own little Bundle of Strange.
Anyway, I had my first non-stress test today. The doctor said everything looks beautiful; Wiggle Worm is living up to her name; my blood pressure is good, yadda yadda. Also, the 5 pounds of water weight I had picked up between my last two visits is gone, so that's also good. No protein in my UA. I'm healthy, as ever.
Not feeling very pretty today, though. Matter of fact, I'm rather in a funk. I'd rather go hide in a hole than be out where people can see me. Quasimoto has nothing on me.
Anyway, I had my first non-stress test today. The doctor said everything looks beautiful; Wiggle Worm is living up to her name; my blood pressure is good, yadda yadda. Also, the 5 pounds of water weight I had picked up between my last two visits is gone, so that's also good. No protein in my UA. I'm healthy, as ever.
Not feeling very pretty today, though. Matter of fact, I'm rather in a funk. I'd rather go hide in a hole than be out where people can see me. Quasimoto has nothing on me.
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