A Week In Review

One week in and counting with Lola and oh what a week its been! Every day has been SO different. And every day seems to get better and better, which I am eternally grateful for. 

 As positive as my labour and delivery experience was, and as good as I felt after (I don't even think I broke a sweat! Seriously!), the recovery was a completely different story. Whatever the exact opposite of glamorous is, thats what the recovery process has been. Painful, tiring, and, well, pretty disgusting. 

We got home from the hospital at 11pm at night with the nurses telling us that our baby was about to change from a dreamy, hardly demanding little angel into a wailing, insatiable, tiny demon as she entered the second day of her life. Apparently newborn babies give their mothers rest from labour for the first 24 hours and then start to really need them, and their bodies, to get going with the whole supporting a new life business. Well Lola didn't exactly change into a demonic being but she sure did cry a lot and she sure did need to feed. All I wanted was a shower but first, Lola needed to eat. Thinking this would take maybe 20 minutes at most, I thought I'd get it out of the way first then hop in. Nope. Little girl nursed for an hour and a half with no signs of slowing down. At a certain point I had to hand her over to Sean and just take a break. I finally just took a shower even though she wasn't showing signs of slowing. I thought the warm water would be soothing and calming but I was wrong about that. With a marathon feeding session on a body new to this whole breastfeeding business, stitches healing down below, and a baby wailing inconsolably from the other room, it was one of the worst and most painful five minutes of my life. The water felt like glass cutting through my body and getting dressed after was incredibly challenging. 

Oh, and all of this had to be done quickly because Lola was still hungry and I needed to keep feeding her so that my milk could come in properly. I switched from side to side as the minutes and then hours passed and with each moment I felt an increasing amount of agonizing pain - down below as I tried to find a way to sit and feed and up above as Lola fed for hours drying my skin and making everything cracked and bleedy. Throughout the night I had moments of desperation and thoughts of giving up breastfeeding altogether but I somehow managed to never cry and never completely break down. I had  strong feeling that this wasn't the real Lola, this was just Lola doing her part to get my milk in and that if we could make it through this phase, I'd have my little calm buddha baby back. So I looked at her, said "okay kid, we got this, let's do what we need to do" and gritted my teeth against the pain. Sean was the greatest support, telling me I was doing a great job and validating how incredibly difficult this all must be. And when I needed a break, he would hold our screaming baby while she bobbed and head butted him looking for what he could never provide her with. At 5:30am, I finally managed to get Lola to suck on my finger while she laid between Sean and I and we both drifted off into a restless sleep. Thank God as after not sleeping for nearly three nights straight (couldn't get much shut eye the night before I was induced), I was terrified that I would fall asleep while Lola was feeding and that she'd fall. 

When the sun came up the next morning I felt so relieved. I still felt in incredible amounts of pain but I had survived the night and suddenly Lola was back to "herself" (yes I felt like I knew her after only one day with her!). And the next two nights were SO much better. Feeding was still incredibly painful as I didn't have milk yet and my skin was so dry and cracked but Lola and I were starting to get the hang of things. And she was sleeping throughout the night, with ME having to wake HER for feedings every 3 hours. In the end, I managed to get about 6 hours of sleep each of those nights. Not consecutive, of course, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I could get that much sleep in the first week! I felt pretty good during the day and though I moved very slowly, I was up in the world and could sit(ish) and eat meals with the family. 

That was the other thing - my in-laws drove up the morning I was induced and arrived in the afternoon before Lola made her appearance. So while I was upstairs trying to survive, downstairs my house was being cleaned and worked on, meals were being made, and all other tasks in general were being taken care of. George became well known at our local Canadian Tire and Home Depot while Karen never stopped moving, cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry, organizing our entire garage full of boxes into neat and tidy recyclable piles that the city would accept (don't even get me started on the rejection of our recycling and garbage every week, stupid city), etc, etc. Without their help I don't know what I would have done. And then on Friday my parents arrived home from South Africa where they had cut their trip short to rush home for the baby. I'm waiting for the day that I don't feel guilty about that, I so wanted them to experience a South African safari and was so worried about them traveling such long distances in such a short amount of time but to see them on Friday was incredible. I've become VERY emotional lately and so having them close by again was a great comfort to me. And it has been amazing to have them already know Lola - after all, they wouldn't have met her until today if they had stayed until the end of their trip. So yeah, in conclusion, family is the best. And we are so very blessed to have such loving, supportive parents who drop everything to care for us. We love you guys. 

Anyway, now back to the week round up. Day 5 was a bit more challenging. The pain seemed to get worse and around 6pm I started having an impeding feeling of doom: the night was coming and I'd be all alone with Lola in the dark. For the second night in a row, I cried during dinner. So embarrassing. It was just that my emotions take over me these days and beyond that, every so often the realization pops into my head of just how huge a commitment we've taken on, that there is no vacation from motherhood. I know that 1. we have it easy so far and 2. it gets even better from here as she gets older, but its still a gigantic thought to know you have taken on an all-consuming, lifetime job. Maybe it was a premonition for the night that was coming or maybe my anxiety made Lola anxious too but she clusterfed again, though this time only from 10pm to 12:30am. Luckily, she returned to an every 3 hour schedule from there, phew. 

The next day, Lola decided it was time for a new trick - falling asleep while feeding! I'm not talking about drifting off lightly, I'm talking passed out cold, like a train could pass through her nursery and she would not stir kind of passed out. As I hadn't slept very much the night before, it was challenging to patiently get through hour + long feeding sessions that seemed to only yield 3 minutes of food for little lady Lo. A lot of work for no pay off! And then there is concern about when to do the next feeding - if she didn't eat for more than 3 minutes total this feed, how long should I wait until the next feed? Does this mean we are feeding all day today? How does this work?? As you can see, breastfeeding = A LOT of questions and the questions always change and just when you mastered one challenge, out comes a fresh new one. Luckily, I have people who have gone through this before who have been on call for all my questions. This time, Jenny saved the day. She told me the doctor (who is also now Lola's doctor too) told her to feed more regularly during the day so that at night you can stick to the 3 hour feeding schedule and even if she falls asleep during feedings then, she'll have had enough to eat during the day that she'll be alright. And to keep an eye on diaper output to make sure that this is indeed the case. Well, our little girl's diaper output is what some might describe as stellar. If she hasn't wet her diaper (or even if she has) by the time you change her, you can bet your bottom dollar that she will go number one or number two, or both if you hit the jackpot, as soon as you slip that clean diaper under her tushy. Somebody needs to have a talk with Lola about the cost of diapers these days!

Oh and we also went to the doctor that morning - the first time I had left the house since giving birth, a true feat! - where Lola received a glowing review. The doctor told us "you guys are doing a great job" and said that Lola had almost regained her birth weight. To hear, finally that our baby is growing was such a relief. Its been so long since we've heard that her growth rate has been positive! She definitely seems to be thriving on the outside. So with all that in mind, I felt more confident going into night feedings, knowing that if she fell asleep before eating enough, it would likely turn out alright. 

Since then, Lola has been falling asleep a little less during feedings, especially night feedings. Challenges come up daily but every day I feel stronger and stronger and in less and less pain. I'm almost sitting like a normal person again! Its so nice to feel so much more like myself again and so much easier to change diapers while still half asleep when I'm not wincing against the hurt. I'm still slower than normal, have less than half of my previous, pre-pregnancy brain, and get out of breath quite quickly but it all seems manageable now. Whereas 2 days into recovery I was convinced I would never have another child, I'm already starting to forget how excruciatingly painful it all was... 

As for what Lola is like. Well, she is a dream. She sleeps A LOT and generally seems to enjoy that activity the most. She's strong and mighty despite her size, even the doctor said so. She kicks her legs like wild when we change her and lifts her head up as if its no big deal. She doesn't fuss all that much and usually quiets down after a minute or so of crying, as if she doesn't have the time of day to make more of a big deal out of things. She makes adorable little noises and is prone to the hiccups. She's been opening her eyes more and more and looks around with such interest. Sometimes she opens one eye only to investigate where she is and when she does that she looks like the most skeptical little being ever, its hilarious. She loves being held but is also fine chillin on her own for the most part. She has the longest fingers and the loves to cross her little feet. And finally, she gets more and more beautiful by the day. 

I know it might have been naive of me to not realize that the recovery process would be the most trying time of all but I really didn't see it coming. I thought pregnancy was tough and came with so many challenges that once Lola was in the world, things would let up a bit, at least in terms of how I felt personally. I knew I would be tired and that being a mother would be challenging of course, but I never thought about how painful it would be and how this pain would make adjusting to motherhood a bajilion times more difficult. Despite it all though, I am so in love with my little girl. All the pain in the world could never diminish the pure joy and absolute happiness I feel when I look at Lola, and thats the greatest feeling of all.