Body Image

Quick side note: I think I will be posting here much more often, because it's quite annoying posting in 4 places so everyone can see it. You can all just visit here and I will put thoughts/updates/pictures all in one place =)

Before I was pregnant, 9-month pregnant women looked HUGE. When I was 9 months pregnant, I kept thinking I looked so tiny compared to what I "should" look like. Then I would see old pictures of me and see my flat belly and it just... didn't look like me at all. Actually, any pictures of women with flat bellies looked weird. Like eerie and abnormal. Then now that Kylie is out, things changed again. I saw a picture of me 9 months pregnant, and I looked huge! It doesn't look like me, my belly was never that big or round! I can't remember having a giant belly anymore. My body image seems to be all over the place O.o

I look so huge and round!
01-13-14

Rachael

One week!

Kylie is now one week old! Well ok, I meant to do this yesterday. She is actually 8 days old today =P All three of us have learned a lot over the last week and things are going pretty smoothly now.

Temperature

The first day at home we had it at 75F in the apartment, which is pretty standard for us. Kylie kept crying when she was put down for a bit, and she would feel a little cold, even with blankets and clothes on. Since she was technically a little bit preemie and they have trouble with temperature regulation, we figure she was just cold. So we made it 80F in here. After that she seemed much better! We decided that we will lower it by one degree a week starting next week until we get back to normal temperatures in here. It might seem weird to some people, or like we are being crazy, but it seems to work and it doesn't bother us. =)

Big Smile!
02-04-14

Sleeping

The first 2 nights Kylie was home, we put her in her crib at night. When she would cry we would pick her up and calm her down and then put her back. About 30 minutes later she would cry again. Halfway through the 2nd night I gave up and put her in the bed with us. George and I were both getting sleep deprived and that was no fun. We sleep with only a sheet now, because it's 80F in here, so there is little risk of Kylie being suffocated by that. She sleeps at a level below the pillows and between us. The only potential risk would be one of us rolling onto her, which is not really possible. George doesn't ever move in his sleep and I become aware and awake when I move around at night. There is also something really satisfying about waking up to looking at and smelling your baby beside you <3 We still practice self-soothing in the swing a few times each day, and we plan on transitioning to the crib over the next 2 months or so, starting with things like 3 hours a night, then 6 hours a night, etc.

02-02-14

Clothes

We have a bunch of really cute baby clothes we bought or people gave us. I think she wore 2 outfits before I decided that was a silly idea. First of all, she gets everything gross and changes clothes a lot during the day. Second, a lot of those cute outfits are long-sleeved. Long sleeves does not mean "warmer" like you might expect. It means "colder" because they are covered in slobber all day. Unless it's a sleeper at night, she doesn't suck on her hands much then. Third, a lot of them include pants. Pants are OBNOXIOUS with diaper changes. We don't wear pants. At nighttime, Kylie wears a sleeper with a wool sleep sack over it. In the daytime, Kylie wears a T-shirt (not a onesie, those make her look weird with her cloth diaper butt, but sometimes she just wears a onesie unsnapped) and socks. The socks fall off 10+ times a day, but we just put them back on her. We have some plain colored shirts from American Apparel that she wears. Clothes just need to be soft and functional. I also don't like hats. When we are outside and it's cold, sure. But I like seeing her hair and smelling her head too much to wear hats inside =) Kylie also hates being swaddled. I thought all babies were supposed to like it, but she really likes her hands.

Missing a sock... again.
02-02-14

Feeding

After the disastrous incident at the hospital, we figured out a system. (At the hospital I let her sleep too long and she was too hungry to sleep and too sleepy to eat, which was terrible.) Every 3 hours Kylie gets a diaper change and then nurses. To make this simple for us, it's just every multiple of 3: Midnight, 3am, 6am, 9am, noon, 3pm, 6pm. 9pm. I tried nursing first, but she is usually too sleepy. The diaper change usually wakes her up enough to want to eat, and it's always wet anyways. 

02-02-14

Schedule

Our diaper/feeding schedule is above. Kylie and I go down for the night between midnight and 3am, depending on what I am feeling like. George takes her from bed at 3am and 6am and changes her diaper and gives her back to me to nurse and go back to sleep. He goes to bed after the 6am change. We started this because sometimes she gets really fussy sometime between 3 and 5am, so this way George is awake to rock and soothe her back to sleep. Depending on who is more sleepy/awake, we take turns doing the 9am diaper change. Then at noon I get up and take my meds, get food, fill my water bottle, and go to the bathroom before getting Kylie up. That is when we start our "daytime," which means she goes from the sleeper in bed to a T-shirt in my lap/her swing. I let George just sleep until I need him or he decides to wake up. Sometimes I put Kylie back into bed with him so I can take a shower. 

02-03-14

Awake Time

Babies sleep a LOT. Kylie does have some awake time each day though. It tends to be after her noon, 6pm, and midnight feedings. But not the 6am one. So I guess she has some sort of 24-hour schedule? Anyways, she likes to make faces and look around during awake time. Depending on what we are doing, I usually either put her on her playtime mat for some "tummy time" to help strengthen her neck muscles, hold her black and white striped letter G 10 inches away from her face to promote eye development, or stare at her and talk to her so she can learn my face and voice. 

02-03-14

Mommy vs Daddy

Mommy is better at- face snuggles into boobs, feeding, being a human pillow, and bedtime snuggles. Daddy is better at- diaper changes, helping with burping, guessing what Kylie wants, and having infinite patience with a screaming baby.

02-04-14

How is Mommy/Rachael doing?

I am doing well. I am still really sore all over, particularly in the nether regions. I only had one small tear though, so it's not too bad. I find that Kylie's smell is a very addictive drug. I cannot really function when she is in a different room from me, I NEED her near me. It also makes me nervous when other people hold her. George carried her in the moby wrap to the store yesterday, so it's getting better! My boobs are very full of milk, which feels weird, but it's not too bad. Latching sometimes hurts, but only for a few seconds. Most of my remaining discomfort is due to my hips and back re-aligning, which gets better each day.

02-02-14

How is Daddy/George doing?

I wish I could get him to post himself, but he never seems to want to. He seems to be doing great! He keeps saying things like, "Why do people say changing diapers is so bad? Does it get harder? This is not bad at all." Sometimes he steals Kylie from my lap so he can cuddle with her for a while. He is really good at soothing her when she is upset, unless she just wants me, in which case he can't do much. He has already started talking about when we can have another one! So overall, I think he is really good at this whole "dad" thing and we both still want lots of kids =)

02-05-14

Overall

We are all doing really well, no one is sleep deprived, and we both get to change clothes and take showers every day. I don't know if we just lucked out with an easy baby, or we are just really good at this, but I don't feel like it's that hard being a new parent. It's different, and we had to learn Kylie's signals for what she wants, but after day 3 we pretty much had that covered. We had to get over the fact that you sometimes have to drop whatever you are doing to take care of her, but we expected that. We have walked to the store with Kylie in the moby wrap most days since she has been home, and she is always really calm and content. I thought pregnancy and labor were both way easier than people made them sound as well, so maybe people just exaggerate a lot =P

Moby wrap for outside exploration!
02-02-14

02-02-14

Rachael

Kylie Cecilia Washington!

Kylie was born 1-30-14 at 6:11pm, 20 hours after my water broke. She was 6lbs 13oz and 20in long. She has passed all her tests and is really good at nursing =)

Ready to go home

Early Labor

I was in early/stalled labor for 21 days! Almost every morning I woke up to painful, regular contractions. I would take pain meds and they would eventually go away until I got up to walk or stand, then they were back again. I was in the Labor and Delivery department of the hospital a lot to make sure things were still going well. Over the 21 days I lost my mucous plug, became 3cm dilated, and 50% effaced. I was getting pretty fed up with the process. Who is in labor for that long!? It hurt, and I felt miserable, but there was nothing to be done about it until her due date. George stayed home from work most days to be with me, as neither of us wanted me to be alone is early labor. It was nice having a lot of time together as a family of 2 =)

My last belly picture! 1-25-14

Water Breaking

On Wednesday, 1-29-14, I was really sleepy. I also had a bit of an anxiety issue that morning about feeling like it would never be over. My doula suggested I stop making pain meds when the contractions start, as that might be stalling them. So I didn't take any that afternoon. I took a nap from 7pm-10pm, and I woke up to my water leaking. It was not really a gushing break, just a slow constant leak. So exciting! Finally almost over! I was hungry, so I asked George to make spaghetti so I could eat one last meal at home before going into the hospital. I was hanging out in the shower since everything was hurting, while George made food. I didn't want to get out of the shower, so he turned the water off and I just ate sitting in there. It looked a bit silly, but it was comfy =) After that, George started packing last minute things into the hospital bag. We were out of nutter butters! I have basically lived off of those for the last few weeks of pregnancy. I need snacks for my hypoglycemia and those are the only things that ever sounded good. So I got out of the shower and we walked to the store, since I needed to be walking to progress labor anyways. Contractions started to get worse, so we headed to the hospital.

Spaghetti in the shower!

Hospital

We got there at 2am. The nurses were trying to be really pushy about giving me pitocin to progress faster, but I wanted to at least try on my own. They kept saying how much of a risk of infection there is if Kylie is not born within 24 hours of my water breaking. I kept telling them that it was only 4 hours so far, and there was a ways to go before talking induction. I was entirely pain-med free for a LONG time. I layed in the shower, (in my room!) walked around, bounced on the birth ball, and talked a lot. I let George and Liza get some sleep in the wee hours of the morning while my doula and I went into the hallway for massage and birth ball bouncing. I had on a wireless monitor the whole time so they could keep track of Kylie's heart and my contractions. I even wore it in the shower! It was super awesome. At one point I asked the OB about pain meds, and he said they would have to be through IV, so I decided to tough it out some more. Now is where time gets a bit fuzzy, I have on idea when things happened exactly. The contractions were getting really painful, and time was running out, so I got an IV with pitocin and pain meds. The pain meds worked, but they were short-lived and I as told each dose is less effective. Once the first one was wearing off, I was so exhausted that I was sleeping between contractions. Waking up to THAT evry few mites was getting unbearable very fast. I noticed I was clenching up when one would start, and I would try to relax, but it was really hard. It that rate, I would never progress, so I decided to get the epidural. My main argument against an epidural was that it can cause issues when it's cold outside. I have determined that it was/is TOTALLY worth it for me. Everything was so much more pleasant after it was put in. Rather than dreading contractions when they would wake me up, I didn't feel them much at all and I could sleep. I slept for a bit, and talked for a bit. Eventually a nurse checked me and said I was complete! They gave me an hour for her to drop more before pushing. The doula and Liza left and let George and I have our last time together as just a couple. =)

Ready for walking around at the hospital

The Birth

Right before we started pushing, my room FILLED with people and everyone was moving me and putting things on me and it was quite overwelming. I didn't really know what was going on, and I was trying not to think about how many people were around so I could stay calm. I later found out what happened was that Kylie's cord was wrapped around her neck so her heart rate was dropping. Once they put me on my other side and put an oxygen mask on with deep breaths it came back up. Then it was pushing time! Pushing felt... weird. I don't really know how to explain it. It's a weird sensation, and quite uncomfortable, but with the epidural it was not painful. Towards the end they had to use something to help get her out, because of the cord issue. But she came out and started screaming. They put her on my chest all very slimy and purple and screaming. I was just crying. I don't even know why, I think everything was just really overwhelming. George was crying too =) After a good long while they took her off me and cleaned both of us up and weighed her. They took out the epidural, and we got transferred to the Mother-Baby unit.

Skin-to-skin right after she came out

Mother-Baby Unit

In general our stay was good. I was thinking about trying to go home right away, but I am glad we stayed. I had a bit of a meltdown one of the nights when Kylie was really hungry and really sleepy at the same time. This resulted in her being too sleepy to eat, but too hungry to sleep, which just resulted in inconsolable screaming. The nurse helped me manually pump "milk" into a spoon and feed it to her so she could sleep. Apparently this issue occurred because I was just letting her sleep until she woke up, which was too long between feedings. I was tired too! Anyways, we got that worked out and now we wake up every 3 hours to eat and it works MUCH better. =)

Eyes open!

My birth experience thoughts

My birth plan was pretty simple and flexible. I wanted delayed cord clamping, which became a mostly moot point with a cord issue as we had, immediate skin-to-skin, which I got, and I wanted to labor naturally as long as possible, which I did. I was pretty adamant about not wanting an epidural, but I had considered it in the case of no progression due to the pain. That is why I ended up getting it in the end, and I am happy with my choice. I was getting to the point that I was dreading contractions and the thought of pushing sounded miserable, which I decided was not a good state of mind to be in for birthing a baby. I was much happier and George was much less stressed after I got the epidural put in. I also didn't really want an IV because I was worried it would ruin my experience. When they did end up wanting to give me one (for pain meds and pitocin) they wanted to put it in my hand, to which I said "NO NO NO!" I knew if it was anywhere that is not the "normal" place for an IV it would seriously gross me out and I would be unhappy. That seems to be the only place the nurses really didn't want to put it, and they went and fetched the anesthesiologist to put it in for them. Once it was in I barley noticed it, so that went over well. Overall I got everything I wanted, even if it seems like I gave things up in the end. All of it was my choice, and I don't regret any of it. =)

There are a TON of pictures still on the camera. I am working on starting to sort through and upload them. Kylie's Flikr set can be found here.

Home and happy =)

Rachael