Lucy is 5 days old & I am wonderful

I’ll be honest. I had a very hard time titling this post. It is going to be so random, so full of just “what the heck of thinking” that no title would have sufficed.

I actually considered, “New baby update.” But how boring is that?

So here is the story of Lucy, what happened during her birth and how life has changed since she has entered into it.

Tuesday, December 14th began very early. I had a difficult time sleeping (shock and awe!). I wrote a quick email to a friend at 3:30am and then dozed from 4-4:30am. We had to be at the hospital at 5:30, but since Josh forgot to deliver the skid loader to his shop we were about 15 minutes late.

Once we arrived it was hurry up & wait. I was all hooked up to my I.V. – complete with a blown out vein. That gave me a lovely bruise.  My pastor arrived at 6:30 to pray for us (which I was very grateful for) and around 7:10 they walked me down to the ice-cold operating room. Ice cold is an understatement, it was frigid! After my delightful spinal was injected and the numbing in my legs began I was told to lie down in a crucified position, arms outstretched. That is when the fun began!

I’ll skip the gory details (not much to add there anyways except I felt lots of pressure and tugging and stuff).  I did not enjoy the pressure and started to really get nauseous. The humorous anesthesiologist reassured me, saying “you are perfectly on schedule. Most women get nauseous about 3-5 minutes after the uterus goes back in.” While I was glad it was normal, it didn’t do much to alleviate my nausea. But I didn’t puke, thank goodness!

I heard her before I saw her, and I was so glad to hear her little cries. Since Lizzie and David were both 10 days past their due dates I was scared that perhaps my babies just developed later and Lucy’s lungs might not be fully mature. But she was great!  I remember seeing her legs bent and spread eagle, thinking “that is the position she was stuck in for the past month, wow!”

Healthy, 8lbs 6 ounces, full head of dark hair, 21 inches long. David still had the most hair at birth than both his sisters, combined.

Josh wanted to cut Lucy’s umbilical chord and requested it before the surgery started. My doctor said she usually doesn’t allow it at c-sections but said she’s leave it long so he could. What he didn’t know was she meant she would cut Lucy from me, they’d take her to the cleaning table and he could cut the extra long piece over there. Josh was far from enthusiastic about this compromise. But he had the camera and took a lot of wonderful pictures for me since I could not be that close to her that soon after she was born.

When everything was done, Lucy was whisked to the nursery and I was in the recovery room (which was more the size of a recovery closet).  That is when I felt my best worst. Chills, shakes, inability to stay awake, it was a rough 10 minutes. In fact, I don’t remember feeling any better until about 2pm when I could finally sit up. All my “favorite” things were going on at the same time – the blood pressure cuff, the leg massagers, lack of feeling in my legs, cramping that I DID feel, it was wonderful.

But after I got up and slowly moved to the bathroom at 2pm I started to feel better. Bye-bye catheter, goodbye blood pressure cuff and leg massagers! I was very drugged up too, and in between dozing off intermittently, I attempted to breast feed Lucy and just take her in.

For the first day or so she was sleeping a whole heck of a lot. She had no clue how to open her mouth big enough. She had the sucking reflex down pat, she just would not open up.  I was not too concerned, I just kept encouraging her and trying. A nurse told me that gentle encouragement and coaching was all I could do in the first day and they didn’t get too worried until after the first 24 hrs passed.  Well, after the first 24 hrs passed she was hungry enough and awake enough to finally give a good open-mouthed cry. Latch was shallow at first, but we worked on it. To be honest, we are still working on it.  She gets very eager and doesn’t latch correctly at first. There is pain but it isn’t every single time so I know it will continue to improve.

I was pleasantly surprised that they were letting me go home on Thursday – only 48 hrs after surgery. With Lizzie I stayed 5 days! But I was so happy to go home too. I missed Bubs and Lizzie so much and wanted to get back into our “normal” routine.

Another thing that shocked me – my milk came in on day 2! That is by far the earliest I have ever experienced, even when I was tandem nursing Lizzie.  It was a good thing it did too, because Lucy’s weight went down to 7lbs 10 ounces when we were released. If she is anything like her brother and sister she will chunk right up though.

This is her coming home outfit lovingly designed and created by Mika of Froggy Girl on Etsy. I highly reccomend her for all your custom clothing needs. She is super friendly and has an eye for details. (I paid for that outfit by the way, this is not sponsored, go check out her etsy shop!)

We took her home in a brand new convertible car seat – the Evenflo.  Unfortunately I will need to get Josh to wedge something underneath the front of it – it does not lean back far enough and her chin is at her chest. Otherwise she fits wondferfully.

Once home the fun really began. I started with staying on top of my pain. There was no way I could function if pain was keeping me prisoner. I have a pad of paper on the fridge where I write down every time I take a pill.

Then I had family take care of baby Lucy so I could focus on Lizzie and Bubs. Poor Bubs, he does not understand that I cannot lift him up yet and it frustrates him that I can’t carry him around the house. Every time he asks to be picked up I find a seat and hold him. This works most of the time.

Lizzie is in love with baby Lucy. She asks constantly to hold her. Every time I change Lucy’s diaper Lizzie is in charge of the pacifier (or as she pronounces it, “pas-o-mer.”)  “It’s ok baby Lucy,” she will soothe, kiss her forehead and put the paci in her mouth. It is really sweet how much she cares for the baby.

Bubs likes her too. He still wants to be the baby and I take time to give him the attention he needs. Bedtime the first night was really rough but the second night it improved a million times.  The change? We went back to doing it the way we did it when I was pregnant and blogging. I’d stay in the living room while Josh put on their PJs  and brushed their teeth. Then when they were ready for sleep I’d cuddle with Bubs while he prayed with Lizzie.  Now the only difference is I have a tiny baby to nurse while I cuddle with Bubs, but last night she was swaddled and sleeping so cuddling with him was easy.

I could not do any of this without the help of my family, pain killers, and caffeine. I missed you caffeine!  So far the caffeine has not affected Lucy one bit – the minute I notice it getting to her I will cut back.  But I haven’t had to worry about having all my old stresses back at once – family and friends are helping with childcare, meals and housekeeping.

Sure, I still get exhausted but this is NOTHING like it was when I was recovering with Bubs. I could barely walk, my house was in chaos and I had no idea who was going to help me when.  My mood was all over the place. This time I have time to enjoy Lucy and then hand her to someone else so I can enjoy Lizzie and Bubs.

I can’t wait to take cloth diaper pictures!  That will be my next post, yay!!