It was dramatic, to say the least. Joshua (the hubs) is at a new FOB...very new. So new in fact that there wasn't personal internet set up...still isn't but that's an annoying topic for another day. To be honest, he works with military computers and at the time, they barely had military internet. Two and a half hours before our princess made her debut, we found out that Joshua would be able to skype in and watch the delivery. It was the best of a bad situation and for just over two hours it worked great and labor continued well...aside from having to get stuck twice for the epidural-that sucked and I'm still having some back pain from it.
(for those of you who are opposed to epidurals in general, I totally understand and if it weren't for the fact that without it, I could've died because my heart isn't strong enough to handle the stress of labor, I might have wanted to go the o'natural route so let's keep the preaching about natural childbirth to a minimum)
Anyway, as I reached a 10 and started to push...we lost signal. Yup. So as my OB was telling me that the umbilical cord was going to be around my daughter's neck and I needed to focus and push, I was yelling at my mom to reconnect and press the "video" button. Nothing was working so as much as it frustrated my OB, I stopped pushing, turned and clicked the button myself. I couldn't focus on her without him. I pushed one more time and just as the video was coming back on, she came out.
I cut the cord and she got an 8/9 on the apgar scale. Once the stress of pushing was done and she was safe, the stress of it all overwhelmed me. I started crying hard...something I never do in front of anyone. My OB was concerned I was crying because I was in pain but after a moment to get control of myself, I was able to tell her it wasn't painful. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the drama. I had torn internally and my OB wasn't able to close it with stitches. Every time she tried, it tore more and I bled more so she left it to "ooze" and hopefully close itself. It did but it took a day and a half so they ended up keeping me an extra night. I opted not to get a blood transfusion because although I'm sure it would have been helpful at least in the shorterm but longterm there are much more serious problems it could bring and I had confidence that my body would heal itself with enough time.
Healing has come slowly...at least more slowly that with the boy. It feels like I'm just now starting to get my body back. Although, motrin is still a necessity. It's been nice to have my mom and friends around off and on. I've only had a few days alone with both kids and this week I'll have 3 more days alone and then I'm loading up the kids, the dog and half of our house to visit Grandma's because we'll have family in town that we haven't seen in months. It should be fun but it's also the "tax-free" weekend so shopping is most likely going to wear me out more than the kids which at this point says a lot.
The things I seem to be relearning about newborns or at least my newborn could fill volumes but in a nutshell...
*nursing is awesome for losing weight but not so pleasant on nipples
*losing 30 lbs in 11 days is rough (don't roll your eyes...it's exhausting)
*my daughter doesn't sleep or stay awake in a happy place unless she's held
*changing poopy diapers 10-12 times a day sucks
*nursing = purposely allowing pregnancy hormones to rage through your body
*having a 3 yr old who adores his newborn sister makes life much easier
*you do what you have to...ei pacifiers are not the enemy
*I have little to no patience for whiny parents who have their spouse in the same country
Well, the boy is waking up and the girl is hungry so although I'd love to wrap up this post in a nice, neat way, there's nothing about my life that's nice or neat right now.
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