Parenting

October 10, 2023

Birth Story Two

I was one week away from my due date and ready to have my baby come out. Around 9:30am I went for a 30 minute walk in the morning to try and get things moving. My belly felt a little sore now and then but nothing crazy.

Once I got home, I wasn’t sure if I was feeling contractions or not so I started timing them for fun. They were pretty consistent, but not super long. Around 11am, after tracking for an hour I sent my boyfriend a text to let him know I was feeling contractions, but I wasn’t sure if they were consistent enough for me to ask him to come home. He came home anyway.

When he got home they were about 45 seconds long every 4.5 minutes. They were getting a little bit stronger so we went to the hospital around 12pm. I warned my boyfriend that they could send us home if they weren’t long enough or close enough together. I didn’t believe I was actually in labor yet.

When we were checking into the hospital, contractions were about every 2.5 minutes.They had me put on a gown to monitor the contractions and they checked to see how dilated I was. I was already at 5cm and my cervix was completely thinned. They called for the epidural because baby was coming.

Because I had tested positive for GBS they also started an IV with medicine for the baby. Neither the epidural or the medication had time to work properly because baby was coming fast. During one of the contractions, my water broke which was cool to experience. I never felt that with my first baby.

By 1:30pm on July 4th, Dominic entered the world weighing 7 pounds 5 ounces. Dada was able to cut the cord again, like he did with our first child. I didn’t do a great job with breathing through my contractions. They kept telling me to slow down my breathing. They also kept telling me I was pushing using the wrong muscles. Once they were able to get me to correctly start pushing, I believe I pushed him out in 4 or 5 pushes. I sustained a 3A tear.

Dominic and I spent 2 days in the hospital so they could do extra monitoring due to being GBS Positive. My first son Elliott spent the first night at his old dayhome. My boyfriend spent the night at home, leaving me on my own in the hospital around 10pm. We both probably got a better sleep that way.

He returned around 6am. We were expecting to be able to leave the hospital that afternoon because they normally only keep you 24 hours for a vaginal birth. But they wanted to make sure Dominic was healthy so we had to stay an extra 12 hours. Since that would have been around 2am they said I could stay until morning.

My boyfriend left the hospital around 2pm to pick up Elliott and brought him to see his new brother. He spent about 5 minutes looking at him and saying how cute he was before asking if he could go back home. I spent the rest of the day and night on my own.

That night I passed a large blood clot in the toilet, larger than a golf ball. It was such a strange experience. I had finished using the toilet, cleaned myself with the peri bottle and already cleaned myself up I think, when I just felt something fall out of me. The nurse came to look at it but she didn’t want to scoop it out of the toilet.

After that I had a few blood pressure readings saying my blood pressure was high, so now they were a bit concerned about my health too.

I was also breastfeeding both days I was in the hospital. It was going okay. My boobs were getting sore and I couldn’t tell if the baby was latching properly. It looked like he had a shallow latch and was getting sucking blisters on his lips. But I could hear some swallowing and he was having lots of poopy diapers, not many pee ones though.

I started getting overwhelmed over night with breastfeeding and being stuck in the hospital alone for so long and started crying. By lunch time on our second day I was sort of dreading feeding my baby because I was sore and he was still acting hungry after 30 minute feeds. I decided to start supplementing with formula.

Once I was finally allowed to leave, we stopped at the pharmacy on the way home. I got some Tylenol and a prescription pain medicine. I made sure to take them on time everyday until I was 1 week postpartum. I took my last one at 10:30am that day and then did not feel the need to take another one.

Once home I continued to offer the boobs and then supplemented with formula if needed. He didn’t need the formula every time. My boobs were also starting to get a little less sore, but he was still not latching properly and I couldn’t hear him swallowing so I started to get discouraged.

I knew I would never want to breastfeed in public, and I was already supplementing with formula, so I decided to just formula feed around day 5.

At this point I started to pump instead and while the output was low, I feel it was more than I had been making with Elliott at that point. But after 2 or 3 days of pumping, I decided to give up on pumping as well. I just wanted my body back. So at one week postpartum, my breastmilk journey was over.

Read More