If you scroll down this article, you’ll see a photo of Maura Mulkern. Her name is actually Moira Mulkerrin, but that’s neither here nor there – Jonathan and I stayed with her when we were on Inis Meann. Cool to see her in the NYT – I wouldn’t have been sure she was still alive as she was quite elderly when we stayed with her in 2006.
I am just blown away by what’s going on in Greece. According to the Seattle Times, 100,000 people came out today to protest the austerity measures. 100,000! The population of Greece is about 11 million – so that’s equivalent to a protest of 3 million people in this country. Amazing.
Reading the WSJ today, it’s not clear that the Germans and other Europeans really think Greece can successfully avoid default. It seems as if they may simply be trying to delay the inevitable and reduce the impact on the rest of Europe. They have already done this successfully, according to an article I read in the WSJ; the article was stating the impact of a default today, even, would be far less to Europe than it would have been a year ago. Apparently, it would be catastrophic to Greece regardless.
How humiliating for the Greeks to be in this situation! The cuts are really draconian. As an example, 20% of civil servants will lose their jobs. First, imagine how many people will now be unemployed. Second, it’s amazing that fully 20% of civil servants are not really needed – already, before this, many civil servants had already lost their jobs. In addition, they’re greatly reducing minimum wage (20 to 30%) which seems to have a big impact – I guess a lot of people work for minimum wage over there.
Of course, most papers are focusing on the violence of the riots – and that is amazing, too. It seems they are not far from a breakdown of law and order from the pictures, but they were able to safely hold parliament sessions and vote the bailout through, so maybe it’s not as bad as it looks.
I find it interesting that 2/3 of the Greek Parliament, from Socialists to Conservatives, voted in favor of the deal. They must really feel it’s the best option for the country.
After about 5 days of no improvement, I finally started feeling a bit better yesterday, and took only 2 Percocet instead of 4. Today, I’ve taken none and am feeling OK (though I’m taking prescription strength Ibuprofen). I’m at the point where I can comfortably sit up, sit down and walk around the house. B and I went for a short walk, probably half a mile, to the park near our house, and it felt like an endurance event. I thought I wasn’t going to make it back home. Still, a couple days ago I couldn’t even blow my nose without pain even with Percocet, so I’m definitely doing better. In summary, recovery from childbirth is no joke and is harder than I expected, but I’m making progress.
Isla is doing well and continuing to charm us. She definitely has a bit of the day/ night switch going on – though not every night. B and I are taking it in shifts. I have the 11 to 4 shift or something like that, and he takes 4 am until 8 am. Normally, I feed her every couple of hours, but we have the one four hour stretch from 4 to 8 or 4:30 to 8:30 so I can get some uninterrupted sleep, which I appreciate. With two people, it’s really not that bad – not as bad as I expected, anyway. She is so charming that I don’t mind staying awake. However, my new worry is the cumulative effect of sleep deprivation. One week in, and we’re doing pretty well, but how will we handle weeks more of this? I guess “one day at a time” is definitely the right mental approach.
Right now she’s napping on my chest, eyes closed, mouth open. She’s so adorable. What they say is true, I guess – every parent thinks their child is the most adorable creature ever.
I have to say, today was just blissful. It is just so, so nice hanging out with Isla and my husband (and of course the long-suffering pooch). It’s so great marvelling at how cute Isla is, not worrying or thinking about work or caring what day of the week it is, just spending time together. Isla and I seem to have gotten the hang of breast-feeding, more or less, and so basically the day mostly consists of feeding and sitting around – for all three of us. Well, four of us. The poor pooch is a bit neglected, not surprisingly. I really wish this time could just last forever, without the real world intruding.
Isla and I are cuddled up on the couch waiting for B to get back from his run. We have a 1:30 PM appointment with her pediatrician, and I need to shower before then, and we need to have lunch. So it’ll be a busy-enough couple of hours.
We’re on Day 4 at the moment. So far, so good. I would say things have overall been much easier than I expected – in many ways, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
First, the bad. (Skip this paragraph if you’re faint of heart.) I don’t remember if I mentioned in my previous post that I got a second-degree tear during delivery. 2nd degree is not at all unusual, and it means that I tore both flesh and muscle and required a fair few stitches. It has meant a lot of pain / discomfort, despite the fact that I’m taking Percoset every 6 hours. Basically, sitting, standing and walking hurts. Lying down isn’t bad. It’s a little frustrating, because I’ve been fairly immobile due to groin pain for a long time, and to find myself immobile for even longer is just annoying. Still, I know I’m healing, and hopefully in a few days I’ll feel a lot better. So far, I don’t feel ANY better, which I’ve been told is due to the swelling going down and the nerves knitting together. Percoset is definitely my friend right now.
Everything else has been very good. Isla frets and fusses occasionally, but overall has been very easy to soothe. Of course we think she’s adorable, and we’re enjoying getting to know her various noises and facial expressions. I particularly like an indignant squawk she makes when I rearrange her. I *think* breastfeeding is going very well, though it’s kind of hard to tell. The bottom line is that she feeds regularly and seems satisfied. At the doctor’s we’ll find out if she’s got any jaundice problems. (Since she was born a little early, it’s more likely.) Basically, if she’s processing food (ie milk) she won’t have bad jaundice, and she won’t have lost weight. So if both those are good, I’ll be confident feeding is going well. If they’re not, the doc will probably talk to us about supplementing. Now, unlike many, I don’t think formula is the devil, but I’m really enjoying breastfeeding, and I’d like to keep doing it, so I know I’ll feel really bad if they tell me we need to supplement. So far breastfeeding has been somewhat uncomfortable but definitely tolerable, so I think she’s getting a decent but not perfect latch. Also, I think my milk is in today. My breasts and giant and hard – very disturbing, actually.
I am tired, of course, but so far, thanks to my awesome husband, I’m getting a decent amount of sleep. I have been taking the advice to sleep when she sleeps, and that’s been working pretty well. B takes her often during the day so I can just snooze without having to worry about it when she fusses and whatnot. It’s going to be a lot harder when he goes back to work, but my parents are coming Tuesday, so I think they’ll fill in. Frankly, all the visitors we’re supposed to be getting are really stressing me out. Yes, I want the help, but I also selfishly love having our little family unit and getting to share every moment of Isla’s time with B.
Days definitely have their ups and downs, but overall, life is pretty blissful right now.
Jonathan is happily cuddling Isla on the couch. Actually, to be specific, he’s making faces at her to see how she reacts. She had a good feeding an hour ago, so we’re all content at the moment. Once I get my photos processed, I’ll be posting lots and lots.
I figure there’s no time like the present to write down the birth story. If you’re not interested in gruesome details, now would definitely be a good time to stop reading!
Yesterday, I was taking a nap at 3 PM in my bedroom. Jonathan was out chatting with the neighbors, and I was mentally telling Isla I hoped she would arrive soon. Then, all of a sudden, I felt a small gush. I though, Oh my God, did my water just break? People’s water only breaks in 10 to 15% of pregnancies before labor starts, so I thought it was pretty unlikely to happen to me. I also figure she’d show up on her due date, not 2 weeks early. Anyhow, I went into the bathroom and determined that I was leaking fluid, and I figured that my water had in fact break. I told B that my water might have broken, and he assumed that it didn’t really happen. I went back in the bathroom and experienced a second gush, and I informed B that my water had definitely broken. I started freaking out a bit. I wasn’t feeling any contractions but I knew my doctor would want the baby out in 24 hours, and I was just really scared and not wanting to go through labor. The physics of it are just too unreasonable!
We called our doula, and we agreed to get ready in a leisurely fashion, then call the hospital, as my doctor had told me to do. I hadn’t finished packing my hospital bag, and B hadn’t packed his; this was all planned for this weekend. We bustled about doing this and that. After about half an hour, I got in the shower, and I was in the shower when I felt my first contraction. It was so mild, it really wasn’t any worse than Braxton-Hicks. I was happy to feel something, since I’ve been afraid of Pitocin the whole time, but unsure if it would turn into anything. I finished my shower, and B and I kept getting ready. Meanwhile, I started having contractions. They were uncomfortable, but definitely bearable. Basically, after a fairly short time, I was having contractions at least every five minutes. Every other contraction was much stronger – they alternated hard, easy, hard easy. The hard ones were also longer – 30 to 45 seconds, and the easy ones were 15 to 20 seconds.
About an hour and a half after my water first broke, I called the on-call doctor, and she told me to come in, and if my labor hadn’t started, they’d start it for me. The latter was exactly what I didn’t want, but I was pretty sure that I was going into labor on my own by that point.
We got out the door in another half an hour, about 2 hours after labor first started. The contractions continued to get stronger and closer together, continued to alternate between hard and easy, and by this time, the hard ones were very painful. In addition, by the time we got to the hospital, I was having contractions every 2 to 3 minutes.
Check-in was quick and painless, and we went straight to triage. I was strapped onto a very uncomfortable thing that was a cross between a stretcher and a bad. I was in significant discomfort / pain on the stronger contractions by this point. Initially, my coping mechanism was cursing like a sailor. This gradually morphed into a lot of moaning and groaning as labor went on, until the I couldn’t handle it anymore and went back to cursing.
Anyway, they did a visual (as opposed to internal) examination of my cervix and estimated that I was 5 cm dilated. I should mention at this point that the groin pain I’d been dealing with for the last 20 weeks of pregnancy got MUCH worse when labor started. I found I was uncomfortable in basically every position except lying on my back, sitting reclined, or sitting on a birth ball. Even the process of rolling from my back to my side was excrutiating; standing was terrible as was walking and so on. Hence, the moving around usually advocated during labor was definitely not on. As a result, being stuck on the terrible triage bed was not the end of the world.
Apparently, there was some kind of baby boom on 2/4, and I ended up getting stuck in triage for about an hour and a half, until I was at 8 cm. During this time, contractions continued about every 2 minutes, alternating hard and easy. Both the hard and the easy became progressively stronger, longer and more painful. By the time we reached 8 cm, I was not a happy camper during contractions and was starting to request an epidural. Basically, I’d be very unhappy during the contraction and then recover between. I was still able to rest between contractions, and was somewhat holding it together with lots of help from B and my doula.
At that point, though, the pain started getting to the point that I was very unhappy. They finally found a room for me and wheeled me to the room on the stretcher thing. I started to demand an epidural, but my doula convinced me to try a hot bath. She filled the tub and I got in. I think the tub helped for one contraction, and then the pain just started steadily increasing to the point of being unbearable. Basically, I was in significant pain continuously, and the pain of contractions peaked, AND, the pushing sensation started. The last was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ve heard some women find the urge to push a relief, but for me, it was just one sensation too many in combination with the contractions. I demanded an epidural at that point. They checked me, and I was at 9.5 cm – basically fully dilated except for one corner or something.
I was still having alternating hard / easy contractions, and got through another easy contraction, and the anesthesiologist came in and gave me the epidural. The speed from which I request it to when I got it was actually incredible. The doc was very quick in giving it, and the relief was immediate.
Now, I don’t regret getting the epidural. I guess I don’t see the point of pain for the point of pain; to me there are good reasons to avoid an epidural if you can, and my experience made it clear why you’d want to avoid one if you could. By the time I got the epidural maybe 3.5 or 4 hours had passed since my water had broken; 3 or 3.5 hours at passed since that first B-H contraction. I was fully dilated, and even through the epidural, I felt the desire to push. At this point, however, they just told me to relax and let the baby “labor down.”
Unbeknownst to me, my blood pressure had dropped low with the epidural – down to about 105/40. I remember feeling lightheaded after receiving the epidural, but I didn’t say anything because I was just so relieved the pain had gone. Anyway, they gave me one drug, which didn’t work to attempt to raise the BP. After an hour or so, they tried another longer-acting or more powerful drug or something, which they injected into my muscle. It worked, but it had a known side effect of raising my baby’s heart rate from the 130s to the 160s. Not cool.
Since I wasn’t actively pushing, I’d guess it took about 2 hours for the baby to labor down and the nurses to decide it was time for me to push her out. I pushed for about half an hour or so, and they called the doctor. Unfortunately, they then found out the doc was busy, and 3 pushes away from having a baby, we had to wait a full hour for the doctor to show up. During this time, the baby regressed up the birth canal. Obviously, without the epidural I wouldn’t have been able to wait and would have had the baby with or without the doctor. It disturbs me that baby was forced to wait with her elevated heart rate and so on. That can’t have been good for her!
Anyway, the doctor finally showed up, and I pushed for another 20 minutes or so and got back to where I started, pushed a few more times, and out Isla came.
They put her on my bare chest, still covered with vernix (sp?). She cried basically immediately, and continued crying and crying. I guess this is an indication of health, but I didn’t really know what to do. Basically it was an overwhelming but wonderful period of time. The doula told me to talk to her, and I tried to calm her down. She and Jonathan and I were together for maybe 45 or an hour without them really bothering us – they maybe did some things to her while she was on my chest. I waived the Hep B shot and the eye ointment, but we accepted the Vitamin K shot. She eventually stopped crying, and they wiped her off a bit. After an hour or so, they weighed and measured her with Jonathan watching over her. She was 7 pounds 1.5 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. She has an incredible head of black hair which they kept telling me about through labor. She gets this from Jonathan, I think.
Anyway, overall our hospital experience was actually good. We had great nurses, didn’t experience any interventions I didn’t ask (um beg) for, and both Isla and I are in good shape. Next up – the first couple of days.
This week went by a bit more quickly, I think, probably because it’s been a stressful week at work. Overall, I feel OK. I’m very uncomfortable at times, but there’s a big difference between discomfort and feeling bad – sick or in pain, even mild pain. A lot of people aren’t feeling so hot by the time they get to this point, so I’m pretty happy that I’m feeling as well as I am. Sleep quality has definitely gone down, but I’m still getting a good 6 hours most nights.
Your baby has really plumped up. She weighs about 6.8 pounds and she’s over 19 1/2 inches long (like a leek). She has a firm grasp, which you’ll soon be able to test when you hold her hand for the first time! Her organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb.
We can’t wait to meet our daughter, of course. When I first found out I was pregnant, I felt this moment of elation, but that disappeared quickly, as I literally started throwing up the day we found out. At that point, I sort of started getting scared of being sick. Also, when I’m feeling sick, the task of caring for a newborn seems insurmountable; when I feel well, I’m confident we can handle it. Anyway, I have to say those weeks of morning sickness changed the tone of pregnancy for me. I had this pregnancy book I’d been all excited about writing in, but the questions were all, “How are you feeling?” (Like death.) “What foods are you craving?” (None. Hate food.) And so on. I put it away, and I haven’t touched it since. It was hard for me, and it was hard for my husband as well.
Lately, though, with the end in sight, we’ve been getting super-excited. Finally, the waiting is nearly over! No more worries about premature labor or anything like that. Obviously, childbirth is always risky, especially for the baby, but for whatever reason, I’m just not that worried about it. I feel like everything’s going to go fine. My body has been very good at making me uncomfortable, but so far it’s been good at keeping us healthy – at least in terms of the few things the doc can measure, like her heart rate and my blood pressure and weight and so on.
As a plus, today I found out I’m group B strep negative. Hurray! That means there’s no reason I’d need to go in to the hospital immediately if labor starts.
