I hope the wait for the name was worth it! :) I would recommend keeping the name a secret as there's so much unsolicited advice anyway, its the one thing you can just have between you and daddy.
It's been about a week since we met our precious daughter, and I thought I'd update our readers on how everything is going! There's a lot to report, and after this post I hope to focus more on just baby Adina.
I've decided to discuss the past week according to topic. If you are about to give birth via c-section, please proceed with caution. This a detailed account and is not intended to freak anyone out.
Adina's arrival - why October 25?
The week before last, we had our 38 week appointment on a Tuesday and the doctor wanted us to have an ultrasound the next day to measure growth and position again. My belly wasn't growing the way it probably should have as I never measured more than 34 weeks. We had our ultrasound on Wednesday and it was determined that my amniotic fluid was definitely lower than was ideal, but it wasn't quite an emergency yet. They asked us to come back on Friday for another scan. At this scan it was determined that we were right on the line of needing to move the c-section up. David and I basically convinced the doctor we weren't waiting the weekend to have a potentially emergency c-section on Monday, so we were sent home for an hour and told to go to Shady Grove from there. I had eaten breakfast so I had to fast for 8 hours before they could operate. I was in a labor and delivery room for most of this time feeling hungry, tired, and anxious. At 5:30 exactly the anesthesiologist and my original doctor who happened to be on call came in to talk with us, and 5 minutes later I was headed to the OR.
The C-section...
Here's the deal. C-sections get a lot of good press, and some of that I can understand, but in reality they're hard and scary and recovery is a bitch. Part of this could be because I have an unnatural fear of needles being shoved into my spine. The procedure lasted about 45 minutes - Adina was born at 6:18pm. David was with me for about half of it. He tried to talk to me about some of our favorite trips but I really didn't care and was more concerned with not being able to feel the bottom 2/3 of my body (including my chest - you can't tell if you're breathing or not). You can tell I was out of it as I allowed a picture to be posted on facebook of me while I was still in surgery - ew. It was pretty amazing that during the surgery David took pictures of Adina and showed them to me so I could see her while I was being stitched back up (I was convinced she looked like my grandfather). At the end he brought her over to me and she was wheeled out between my legs into the PACU (post anesthesia recovery unit). They then moved Adina to my chest for some skin to skin which was amazing. I was shaky and in a surprising amount of pain as they give you petocin to induce contractions after the surgery to make sure the uterus empties itself. The nurse kept asking me to rate my pain and I said 5, but then David pointed out to her that I had white knuckles from gripping the side of the bed. It was probably closer to an 8. After an hour or so in the PACU we went to our room.
Recovery:
The nurses were great about making sure that I started walking and doing appropriate levels of activity while I was in the hospital. I enjoyed an ibuprofen/perocet combo for pain control (never more than one percocet at a time though). Once at home I dialed it back to one percocet a day in addition to 800mg of ibuprofen, but I still needed it after a week. I have a lingering burning on my left side above the incision. I called the doctor and he said I probably strained one of the muscles while it was healing, but he wants to see me be on only ibuprofen from now on. I feel slightly better today, and I hope that continues as I need to be pretty comfortable before David goes back to work next week. I kept trips up/down the stairs to once a day until today, and I changed my first diaper yesterday (probably the one bonus to not being able to bend over).
The Shady Grove Experience...
...was awesome. All of the nurses were great and I really enjoyed my experience there (as much as one can enjoy abdominal surgery). Everyone says you're going to be so excited to go home...false. I wanted to stay in the hospital another week.
Nursing...
...has been the biggest challenge so far. I won't go into too much detail here, but basically I've been pumping since I've been home and hope to get back to the breastfeeding in the next couple of days. If anyone is intersted in the details I'm happy to share I just don't want to subject people to that level of detail if they're not interested.
David...
...is a hero. Please note: if you thought you had no boundaries between you and your spouse before childbirth, you were wrong. Your comfort zone will be re-defined, and its not sexy. David has been truly amazing juggling everything that I can't do yet (for example, take a shower by myself) as well as being a new father.
Adina...
...is beautiful and perfect and amazing. The best way to describe being a new mom is that I've only known her about a week but I would do anything to protect her. The first week at home has been hard but everytime we look at her we forget. She has the cutest facial expressions and we could stare at her all day! It's like having a present that you can open again and again as we continue to be fascinated by her.
She was born at 6lb 2oz, and lost almost 11% of her weight. My nursing issues didn't help, and once we figured that out with the help of our pediatrician we were able to gain half of that back in two days. We have our two week appointment next week and I'll be excited to see what she weighs then.
Lana...
...has adjusted wonderfully. She doesn't care about the baby at all, which is great. Sometimes she looks at us like, "why did you bring that home?" but she doesn't try and get close. She still makes a point to sit with me and cautiously observes our new addition. I'm hoping one day Adina and Lana will be great friends. :)
Thank you...
...to all of my friends and family who have supported me over the past week. Whether advice, or food, or just checking in, I sincerely appreciate all of it. Most importantly, thank you to my mom, who stayed with us the past week. She worked so hard helping us adjust to being back at home. Between the learning curve and my recovery (especially in a townhouse!) I'm not sure we could have done it without her.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!
It's been about a week since we met our precious daughter, and I thought I'd update our readers on how everything is going! There's a lot to report, and after this post I hope to focus more on just baby Adina.
I've decided to discuss the past week according to topic. If you are about to give birth via c-section, please proceed with caution. This a detailed account and is not intended to freak anyone out.
Adina's arrival - why October 25?
The week before last, we had our 38 week appointment on a Tuesday and the doctor wanted us to have an ultrasound the next day to measure growth and position again. My belly wasn't growing the way it probably should have as I never measured more than 34 weeks. We had our ultrasound on Wednesday and it was determined that my amniotic fluid was definitely lower than was ideal, but it wasn't quite an emergency yet. They asked us to come back on Friday for another scan. At this scan it was determined that we were right on the line of needing to move the c-section up. David and I basically convinced the doctor we weren't waiting the weekend to have a potentially emergency c-section on Monday, so we were sent home for an hour and told to go to Shady Grove from there. I had eaten breakfast so I had to fast for 8 hours before they could operate. I was in a labor and delivery room for most of this time feeling hungry, tired, and anxious. At 5:30 exactly the anesthesiologist and my original doctor who happened to be on call came in to talk with us, and 5 minutes later I was headed to the OR.
The C-section...
Here's the deal. C-sections get a lot of good press, and some of that I can understand, but in reality they're hard and scary and recovery is a bitch. Part of this could be because I have an unnatural fear of needles being shoved into my spine. The procedure lasted about 45 minutes - Adina was born at 6:18pm. David was with me for about half of it. He tried to talk to me about some of our favorite trips but I really didn't care and was more concerned with not being able to feel the bottom 2/3 of my body (including my chest - you can't tell if you're breathing or not). You can tell I was out of it as I allowed a picture to be posted on facebook of me while I was still in surgery - ew. It was pretty amazing that during the surgery David took pictures of Adina and showed them to me so I could see her while I was being stitched back up (I was convinced she looked like my grandfather). At the end he brought her over to me and she was wheeled out between my legs into the PACU (post anesthesia recovery unit). They then moved Adina to my chest for some skin to skin which was amazing. I was shaky and in a surprising amount of pain as they give you petocin to induce contractions after the surgery to make sure the uterus empties itself. The nurse kept asking me to rate my pain and I said 5, but then David pointed out to her that I had white knuckles from gripping the side of the bed. It was probably closer to an 8. After an hour or so in the PACU we went to our room.
Recovery:
The nurses were great about making sure that I started walking and doing appropriate levels of activity while I was in the hospital. I enjoyed an ibuprofen/perocet combo for pain control (never more than one percocet at a time though). Once at home I dialed it back to one percocet a day in addition to 800mg of ibuprofen, but I still needed it after a week. I have a lingering burning on my left side above the incision. I called the doctor and he said I probably strained one of the muscles while it was healing, but he wants to see me be on only ibuprofen from now on. I feel slightly better today, and I hope that continues as I need to be pretty comfortable before David goes back to work next week. I kept trips up/down the stairs to once a day until today, and I changed my first diaper yesterday (probably the one bonus to not being able to bend over).
The Shady Grove Experience...
...was awesome. All of the nurses were great and I really enjoyed my experience there (as much as one can enjoy abdominal surgery). Everyone says you're going to be so excited to go home...false. I wanted to stay in the hospital another week.
Nursing...
...has been the biggest challenge so far. I won't go into too much detail here, but basically I've been pumping since I've been home and hope to get back to the breastfeeding in the next couple of days. If anyone is intersted in the details I'm happy to share I just don't want to subject people to that level of detail if they're not interested.
David...
...is a hero. Please note: if you thought you had no boundaries between you and your spouse before childbirth, you were wrong. Your comfort zone will be re-defined, and its not sexy. David has been truly amazing juggling everything that I can't do yet (for example, take a shower by myself) as well as being a new father.
Adina...
...is beautiful and perfect and amazing. The best way to describe being a new mom is that I've only known her about a week but I would do anything to protect her. The first week at home has been hard but everytime we look at her we forget. She has the cutest facial expressions and we could stare at her all day! It's like having a present that you can open again and again as we continue to be fascinated by her.
She was born at 6lb 2oz, and lost almost 11% of her weight. My nursing issues didn't help, and once we figured that out with the help of our pediatrician we were able to gain half of that back in two days. We have our two week appointment next week and I'll be excited to see what she weighs then.
Lana...
...has adjusted wonderfully. She doesn't care about the baby at all, which is great. Sometimes she looks at us like, "why did you bring that home?" but she doesn't try and get close. She still makes a point to sit with me and cautiously observes our new addition. I'm hoping one day Adina and Lana will be great friends. :)
Thank you...
...to all of my friends and family who have supported me over the past week. Whether advice, or food, or just checking in, I sincerely appreciate all of it. Most importantly, thank you to my mom, who stayed with us the past week. She worked so hard helping us adjust to being back at home. Between the learning curve and my recovery (especially in a townhouse!) I'm not sure we could have done it without her.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!