July 16, 2018

Parenting, Weekend 1

Clearly I'll have a lot to say about what it's like to naturally go into labor (thank goodness) before your due date (again, thank goodness) and have a baby. To sum up the last few days though...

I haven't been nearly as emotional or hormonal as I expected myself to be. My only real hang-up was dealing with the nurses at the hospital, which is a story for another day. And then over the weekend, I was upset because I'm pretty sure Scout doesn't like me anymore. I have to work on that.



Wells was born at 10:49am on Tuesday, July 10th, after 7-9ish hours of labor (if you count from the time my water actually broke). Only 45 minutes of that was pushing, so the word grateful does not even describe how I feel about his speedy arrival. He was exactly one week early and weighed 6 pounds 13 ounces, so I'd say he was ready enough.

We brought him home on Thursday afternoon. Thursday night was mostly just figuring out who was going to sleep where and how the dogs would adjust.

We initially put Wells in his bassinet (a travel crib, basically) by the bed but he kept rolling to one side in his swaddle, so we kept him in the swing instead.



Friday, we attempted a walk and had a few issues and then forgot to pack a blanket in the diaper bag when we went to the doctor for a follow-up bilirubin check. Also, we didn't take a bottle with us to the appointment because we didn't expect to be gone for almost two hours.

I spend a lot of time adjusting swaddles so they don't cover his mouth.


While I expected this to all be par for the course, I don't know if Scott did and I had to remind him that it was LITERALLY our first day as parents. Because he'd said it was day 3, but those first two days in the hospital definitely didn't count.



I will take the opportunity to say that Scott has been doing everything for the baby. He has done so much feeding, so much changing, etc. I'm glad I had everything organized beforehand when it came to bottles, clothes, supplies, etc, but he has completely taken this on and I couldn't appreciate that more.



The nurses were "concerned" about "growth" and I swear I could almost hear the term "failure to thrive" going through their heads. So before we met with the pediatrician on Friday (after we had to fight to take him home on Thursday), Scott made a chart:


Wells' bilirubin level was never classified as high, but it wasn't low really. They thought he was small (he was a week early and no one seemed to think that had anything to do with it, but how could it not?) and didn't have a great latch, so they were "concerned". I'll have more to say about that later, I suppose.


All he really does at this point is eat and sleep. He obviously doesn't have a schedule, but he gets changed and eats every 3ish hours and then goes back into his swing to sleep. We've been going for walks and whatnot but I think us being up all night has messed with routine in general more than anything. I mean, he can technically sleep through anything.  Scott stayed up with him the first two nights because I didn't sleep at all in the hospital. I'd get up to pictures like the one above ^ because Jett would stay up all night with them too.

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I'm mostly just happy for him to be on the outside, so we can get on with our new normal. I feel so much like myself again and I had a very easy pregnancy, so I can't complain. I don't have to worry about what I'm eating as much. As soon as he was out, all the symptoms disappeared: Heartburn, itchy skin, numbness in my leg from him sitting on a nerve, the shooting pain of contractions I'd been feeling for two weeks, I don't have to pee every 14 minutes, etc.

We are SO GLAD he's finally here! (It took exactly 5 years to the month from the time we decided we wanted to have a baby, but he's here, so that in itself is an absolute miracle.)



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