How We’re Doing

Munchkin has been with us for 4 weeks now and we’re doing well.  It’s been an adjustment to having a newborn but it’s a good adjustment.  She is such a joy and we are enjoying her so much!  We love just holding her and watching her.  She makes the best faces!  We’re just soaking it all in.  She’s changed so much in the past 4 weeks, I just want to enjoy her littleness (is that a word?)

Even though we’re doing well I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been some bumps along the way.  Most notably have been with breastfeeding and with lingering issues from giving birth.

The issues with breastfeeding started while we were still in the hospital.  I thought I was feeding her enough but she kept losing weight.  When she lost 14% of her birth weight they started her on supplemental formula.  I didn’t have any say, it just happened.  All I could do was sob (it still makes me cry to think about it.)  While there is nothing wrong with formula and if you choose to formula feed your child, that’s great. It just not what I wanted for my baby.  They had me pump and I sat there, with two bottles, pumping, feeling like a cow and I had tears running down my face.  I felt like I had failed my baby.  It was so hard.  I got a little milk and thankfully we were able to supplement with that instead of as much formula.  I kept pumping and trying to get enough to not need the formula.  I got there and she has been gaining weight ever since.  We’ve given her some formula since but it has been limited.  There have been a few times when she has drank me dry and she was still hungry so we supplemented.  I’ve gotten more ok with it, especially since she gets way  more breast milk than formula.  I’m so thankful for The Man and my mom, who have been so supportive and encouraging me in this breastfeeding journey.  It may be natural but it’s not always easy.

Part of what made it hard to breastfeed was the physical pain I was in.  I strained my neck while trying to push and my neck and shoulders were so tense for about 2 and half weeks.  There were times it hurt to look down.  It’s really hard to breastfeed when you can’t look down to help your baby latch.  It’s hard to not be able to look at your baby while she’s eating.  I was also experiencing really bad headaches, bordering on migraines.  There were times I was wincing in pain and turning my whole body to look at people.  I was trying to sleep whenever possible as sleep seemed to help. One day I just broke down because the pain got to be so bad.  I really thought the headaches were a result of the neck strain but we now think it a complication from the epidural.  I had a wet tap (while I was getting the epidural I ended up with a hole that allowed the cerebral fluid to leak out and that can result in having a pretty bad headache.  I ended up going in and getting a blood patch (where they take blood out of my arm and insert it into my spine.  It clots and keep the cerebral fluid from leaking out.)  They weren’t keen to do one since it was 2 and 1/2 weeks later but since I was showing the symptoms and had a documented wet tap they did one.  Thankfully it helped and I have been feeling so much better!

So that’s what we’ve been up too.  There have been a few other things and I’ll share those as I get a chance.  My goal is to have at least one post a week but I’m hoping to have more than that!  I’m just going to see how it goes.