Hellobee Boards

@Mae @Beebug For what it's worth, the lactation consultant told us that generally if a baby holds the pacifier longer than 2 minutes it is hungry, if it just sucks for a while and pops it out the pacifier is being used more for soothing.

I will have to say that the newborn days are tough when you are going through them but your memory fades pretty quickly. Reading your stories is reminding me what it's like so maybe I shouldn't be complaining about being done being pregnant yet Plus DS has been having a week of craptastic sleep. I really don't know how we will deal with him not sleeping and a newborn.

As for a paci the hospital against our wishes gave DS one during his circumcision so we just continued with it but it took him awhile to take to it. I sterilized some new pacis this week for baby boy.

@sungirl: she is 22 months! So definitely doesn't understand what is about to happen!

I'm starting to get the nervous butterflies in my stomach!! This is part of the reason I wish I had just gone into labour...I much prefer the element of surprise to knowing exactly how many hours I have left to go!

Hi ladies. Sorry to have gone totally MIA. I tried to post from my phone a few times and I kept deleting the posts on accident 1/2 way through. Finally stopped in at work and picked up my laptop so I can post some pictures and catch up.

Rory Kathleen was born 5/6 at 8:30 p.m. and was 8.1 lbs. I was supposed to be induced that Friday (5/9), but I thought maybe my fluid was leaking so we called the doctor the morning of 5/6. My sugars had also been super low a few times so she decided it was best if we went in to L&D to get everything checked out. They checked and said I had a slow leak and then did an u/s to check fluid levels and said they were borderline low so that combined with the low blood sugars meant they wanted to induce me that day. I had been having pretty regular and kind of painful contractions for a few days, but they never seemed to get any worse. When they checked I was already 4 cm dialated so they told us to go walk around for another hour or two and see if we could get my labor to kick in on its own. DH and I went to the mall and walked around and then walked to get some lunch and while we were walking my contractions would get worse, but as soon as I sat down they would stop. This pretty much went on all day. We got back to the hospital at about 1:30 and they were going to check us in and get started w/the induction, but the whole hospital was in the process of switching over their computer systems so everything was taking longer than normal. DH sat and waited in the waiting room, while I continued to walk in circles on the very small L&D floor. I think everyone else there thought I was either crazy or creepy for walking by them over and over and over. I was just hoping that maybe w/enough walking my water would break or I'd start having major contractions and we could avoid the pitocin. Finally by 6:30 we had a room and my doctor decided that breaking my water might be enough to get things going on their own. They also put me on 1 unit of pitocin. As soon as they broke my water I started having horrible contractions. It was like 0 to 60 in no time. I was hoping to avoid the epidural b/c I didn't want to be confined to bed, but these were like 2 minutes long and less than a minute apart so I finally asked the nurse to check me again and see how far along I was. I figured if I was already at an 8 or a 9 then I could tough it out, but I literally could not see straight and was climbing on all the furniture and spinning in circles it hurt so bad. I kept telling them they could turn the pitocin down and they were like its only on 1, its not doing anything. Our nurse was awesome, but I think she thought I was nuts when I asked if I was at an 8 or a 9. She was like um no you're still at a 5. At that point I decided I wanted the epidural. They called in the anesthesiologist who came right away and put it in. I think it took them at most 20 minutes to put it in and when they checked me again when they were done I was at a 9 and definitely ready to push. Turns out since I had only been at a 5, our doctor had gone home and was rushing back to the hospital but wasn't going to make it back in time b/c the baby was coming fast. They called in another back-up doctor (at that point he could have been the janitor, I didn't care as long as he could get the baby out)! Our doctor showed back up just as the baby popped out so she took over and did my stitches. Rory was here in under 2 hours from the time that they broke my water, so I'm really glad we were already at the hospital. If everything had happened on its own, I very well could have been one of those people having a baby on the side of the highway!!

DD1 LOVES her. Sometimes maybe a little too much since she likes to hug her and sometimes squashes her, but it has been so fun to watch. I'm with everyone else, I swear DD1 grew a ton while we were at the hospital. She seems SO big. In addition, it seems like she totally grew up and is no longer my baby. While we were at the hospital she decided to potty train herself and start sleeping in her toddler bed. We hadn't planned to push any of this until awhile after we brought the baby home, but she decided that she was just going to start while we were gone. I think she wanted to impress the grandparents.

Here are some pictures from the day we came home from the hospital and one from the other day of me and the girls.

@Mae: poor thing. Hope it heals quickly for you.
@Keds: congratulations! Love the name and pics!

@gingerblonde: Thanks! We loved it too. In fact it was our boy name choice and then we decided we liked it for a girl too.

@cookie_dough: Good luck!!

@mae: so sorry to hear about the baby blues and now your incision too. I'm glad you have such an awesome husband and I hope w/some more rest it gets better quickly. I has day really hard time w/ the hormones w/ DD1. I cried a lot and was mean to my husband even though he was amazing. Every time I opened my mouth , mean things would just come out and then I'd feel even worse. I am a horrible napper, but it helped if I took a break and laid down by myself for a bit just to have some down time and a few minutes alone. It probably will be hard until you're healed, but I also found the best thing for me was to get out of the house. Even just a walk around the block or a trip to Starbucks made a huge difference. I could not be cooped up inside all day, it made me crazy and made everything so much worse!! I hope it gets better for you soon.

@Keds: congrats she's a cutie

@cookie_dough: Good luck today! That's be so exciting if you were going into labor on your own! Keep us updated!

@Keds: Congrats! I love the pictures!

@Mae: Oh my, that sounds like a nightmare. I hope it heals up quickly so this part is shortlived. Also hope you catch a break soon - it sounds like you've been having a rough go of it.

@skipra: Ha, funny about the pee on the laptop, but I hope it's working better soon! Glad the baby blues are doing better. I hope it stays that way. How much time does your husband have off?

G slept for five straight hours last night. Five! That was amazing! He did wait til 4 am to settle which started driving me insane, but then DH took over, did his rocking magic, put him down and he stayed down! Oh my goodness, five straight hours of sleep feels so good!

Quick update - we have a son!
Born this morning and absolutely mind bogglingly awesome. More info later (and will catch up with all I've missed the last few days) once we've slept!!!

@Mae: so sorry to hear about your incision!! They used dissolvable stitches on mine so I don't go back til next week for a quick check. I have a little pain but overall I've been able to get by with ibuprofen during the day with a Percocet at bedtime so I can sleep more comfortably. Last night, I felt a lot more comfortable moving around in bed to feed her and such. I'm a bit sore today though after our excursions today.

On the baby front, we had to take little miss to the frenulum clinic today for her tongue tie. They did a quick procedure to cut the tongue tie and they think it will help her a lot with feeding. We're going to slowly work on trying to feed her without the shield. She's doing great otherwise and gained 3.5 oz from Monday to today! My mom went home afternoon so it should be interesting to experience "real life" with our little family of three!

@anandam: congrats

@anandam: congrats!!

@cookie_dough: congratulations!

@cookie_dough: congratulations and yay for a successful vbac!

I can't believe how big so many May babies are! It seems like most are over 8 lbs!

@cookie_dough: congrats!! Sounds like you had such an eventful labor.! Glad you and baby are both doing well!

It's so quiet in here! I guess these little ones have us all busy!

Well I had a post natal check up yesterday. Do you all remember me saying I got "one little tear"? Well that "one little tear" has not healed so I decided to ask how many stitches EXACTLY did I receive?? I got 17! SEVENTEEN stitches does not sound so little to me... And the sitz baths continue...

We spoke about birth control. Since we want to have another in less than five yes the Mirena or other implant would not work. We're looking now at Depo Provera. Do any of you have experience with this? I'm not a fan of injections, especially those that prevent my body from running it's natural course, but I'm also not a fan of surprise babies when I'm still recovering physically and emotionally from the last year... So I have two weeks to research it because if I heal up well we're gonna get the OK for sex... And DH is already anxiously looking forward to that.