Bad Mom Moment

Mr. X left on Sunday, and he'll be back on Thursday with our little boy. I can't believe it's really happening!

The baby is sleeping, so I should run and jump into bed myself in a minute. My mother-in-law is here to help me while Mr. X is gone, and the other day we needed to go to the grocery store, where I had my first public terrible-mother moment. ]The baby cried the whole way there. I grabbed a cart and put her infant seat in it, and she immediately stopped crying once the cart was rolling across the pavement.

She was happy halfway through the store, and then started wailing (I think it was a combination wet-diaper and hunger situation). I didn't know what to do! We had two carts because I wasn't sure how to put the infant seat in the front part of a cart, so we had a baby cart and a grocery cart. I didn't want to take her out of the seat and hold her with one hand while I pushed the cart with the other, because that just didn't seem safe. After a minute or two that seemed like hours, I stopped in an aisle and took her out of the seat to calm her down while my MIL ran to other aisles to pick up items.

Finally, we just had a couple of last things to pick up (bread and milk), so I reluctantly put the baby back in the seat, where she immediately started crying again. I ran through to grab the bread and milk as fast as I could, but then my MIL remembered one more item, so we went across the store. Fortunately, most people were very friendly, probably because they saw how tiny the baby is and how tired I look (and how stressed I was that the baby was crying)! But as I was waiting in that last aisle, a young woman came over to me and asked me to let her hold the baby and comfort her. She seemed very sweet and genuinely distressed that the baby was crying, but I didn't want to let a stranger in the grocery store hold my new baby! And I felt just terrible because I felt like I'm this awful, heartless mom who just lets her baby cry in the shopping cart to the point that perfect strangers beg her to let them take care of the baby because they'd clearly do a better job.

Right after that, we got into the checkout line and I did take her back out of the seat and held her until we left--actually, she was so calm by then that I did just hold her with one hand and steer the cart back to the car with the other. She cried as soon as I put her in the car seat, but as soon as the car started moving and I put some static on the radio, she fell asleep.

Next time, I think I'll probably abandon the cart and go out to the car to try to calm the baby down. But, hey, at least I've had my first bad-mom moment in public only three weeks in, so I won't have to dread it!

Victory!

The baby is sleeping in the M.oby wrap! First time I've gotten her comfortable in a carrier (though I put it on too loosely, so she's pretty low near my waist--as a result, I'm not doing anything too crazy). I was able to make and butter my toast while holding the baby!

And our son is now one year old and will be arriving home next Thursday. I'm getting nervous about his transition, so any prayers you can spare would be greatly appreciated!

I'm working on writing the birth story as well as about the whole hemorrhage/surgery thing. In the meantime, here are some random thoughts:

1. Thank God for blogs--without them, I would have been totally unprepared for how difficult nursing is. As it is, I'm only partially surprised. How do you get a baby with a tiny little mouth (and a mind of her own, too) to open wide enough?

2. I have heard reaffirmed by medical personnel in the last few weeks that redheads (a) bleed like crazy and (b) can just expect a lot of soreness while starting to nurse. Aren't we lucky?

3. Stitches after delivery are painful. Stitches after your original stitches from delivery have torn out are even more painful. More about that when I write about the big stuff.

4. Babies are amazing. I could just sit and look at her all day. One nice thing about nursing is that I get to spend a lot of my day doing just that.

5. A lot of people have offered to help. It's the kind of offer that I have often made--the "let me know what you need" thing. I know I'm sincere when I say it, and I'm sure they are, too. I know we're really going to need the help in the next couple of weeks. How do I actually take them up on it? I know friends who have had someone set up a Care Calendar for them--would it be bad if I did this for us myself? I feel kind of tacky doing it myself.

Eventful week

Just a quick post--we returned home this afternoon from another stay in the hospital. It turns out that I had retained placental tissue, which caused me to start hemorrhaging terribly yesterday. It was probably the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. I had an emergency D and C under general anesthesia and, thank God, it looks like they got everything. They estimate I lost 1200 cc. of blood, but my blood count has stayed just high enough to avoid a transfusion. We're all totally exhausted, but I'm just really grateful to be alive right now.

Oh boy!

The phone rang this morning . . . we have permission to travel and bring home our little boy! I'll update when Mr. X has his travel plans . . .

She's Here!

Our little girl has finally arrived! I will write the birth story soon, but for now . . . I did actually go into labor Thursday morning, about 24 hours before my scheduled induction. And 20 hours later, she was born--just after midnight. She weighed 8 lbs 6 oz and was 21 inches long, which was much bigger than we or the doctor expected!

A few things about the birth:

• We ended up doing the opposite of the majority of the things on our birth plan, but, since the main objective of the birth plan was me and the baby both in one piece, that was OK.
• It was not at all like I imagined.
• I very carefully packed a labor & delivery bag, wanting to not be the woman who overpacks.
• I used absolutely nothing I had packed during labor & delivery.

The funniest conversation I had in the hospital was the talk I had with the new post-partum nurse who came on duty 7 hours after the baby was born:

Nurse: Are you having any vision problems?
Me: Not really. I felt kind of cross-eyed when they wheeled me over here, but now it's OK.
Nurse: It might just be the anasthesia.
Me: I didn't have anasthesia.
Nurse: No anasthesia.
Me: No.
Nurse: None at all.
Me: No.
Nurse: How'd that work out for you?
Me: It was tough.
Nurse: Yeah. That's how I had my babies, too. They didn't have epidurals then. It was kind of like pushing out a grand piano.

I'm just incredibly grateful to have made it to this point--at home with a healthy baby. I'm humbled by this amazing blessing and the knowledge that God has given us the gift and responsibility of being parents to this beautiful little person.

I'm not sure how long I'll leave it up here, but here is one of my favorite pictures from the hospital.

Nothing yet . . .

Nothing new since yesterday around here . . . but I can't believe I forgot to congratulate Hafsa yesterday! I hope the pregnancy announcements keep on coming!

Almost double digits

I went in for the biophysical profile today, and the baby came through with flying colors! She got an eight out of eight, and we got to see her on ultrasound for the first time since early March. She looks a bit squished in there, but otherwise great. And--wonder of wonders--she has hair! Most babies in my family are bald or just have a tiny bit of fuzz. But we could see her hair and her eyelashes, too!

Then I had my doctor's appointment and we talked about induction. I'm at 3cm now, so that's a bit of progress. I also said I was OK with stripping the membranes, so he did what he could. I'm so glad that I heard that would be painful in advance, because, man, did it hurt! We scheduled induction for first thing Friday morning, just in case, so I'm really hoping she decides to make an appearance before Friday morning!

I finished making a matching sun hat for the little dress, too. And my dad made it into town today, which is great.

Tonight, I dragged myself out to go for a short walk with Mr. X and Wonderdog. Thank God we went when we did! It was just starting to sprinkle when we left the house. By the time we returned, the rain had stopped and the wind had whipped up. And we could actually hear the train noise of a tornado in the distance. About 30 seconds after we came inside, it started to hail--grape-sized hail! Our bedroom window was open, and a piece of hail broke the screen and landed on the carpet. It lasted about 20 minutes, and in the end, our street was flooded, with water all the way up the sidewalks. I'm just so glad that we didn't leave the house five minutes later! (And that I didn't immediately go into labor when the storm started!)

So, that's the latest from our house. I hope we have more news soon!