Charlotte... the first month - A Recap!

Wow, has it ever been a crazy time since my last post!  Luke was here for about 3 weeks before we welcomed the third member of our little family into the world - great timing, eh?!  We've been just a tad bit busy since then, trying to figure out this teeny tiny little person and learn about all her needs and meet all her needs.... it's a full time job, that's for sure!  Then of course there's the sleep deprivation... that could be a post all in itself!!  For some reason I was unprepared for that... and clearly I didn't rest as much as I should have before she was born... I think I might be catching up on sleep forever at this rate :)  It's been a whirlwind month since little miss Charlotte entered the world, but I will try to recap as best as possible.

My due date was December 17th, but as we all know, that's just an estimate, and I was dilating early as it was, so it wasn't surprising when my water broke a week early.  The whole "water breaking" thing had always made me a little apprehensive... I didn't exactly want it to break while I was out and about, and I certainly didn't hope for it to be when I was in a public place like the grocery store or something!  I couldn't have asked for better timing though - I was laying in bed on Friday morning, slowly waking up...Luke had his hand on my belly feeling the baby move, and all of a sudden I heard and he felt a POP, POP.... and I knew immediately what it was.  I had just read an article about how one lady claimed she heard her water break and her husband didn't believe her... well it's true :)  I stood up, and yup, there was no question what was happening!  I surprised myself with how calm I was... I told Luke he really needed to get upstairs asap and tell my Mom not to leave for work (she was literally walking out the door!) - thankfully he caught her in time!  We knew that our family has a history of dilating early and fast, so I had a shower, finished packing my bag, and headed to the hospital!

We got to the hospital at about 10:00, and she was in our arms a little less than 5 hours later!  It was definitely a quick delivery, especially for my first.  For as prepared as I felt I was, I came to quickly find out it was nothing like I thought it would be :)  We had learned so much in our prenatal classes about pain control and tricks and tips that we could use to help with labour pains, etc.  I had brought along all sorts of things - anything and everything I could think of to help me with any sort of pain I had - an exercise ball, massage tools, my ipod, heating pads, a bathing suit for Luke in case we needed to use the shower, etc, etc.  I felt so ready!  And I used almost none of it :)  ha!  I thought for sure that I would get in the shower to ease my pain... I did not.  I thought for sure that I would walk a lot through labour - I found that laying on the bed actually helped me...very odd!  I thought for sure that I would not use my ipod - I really just brought it as almost an afterthought - I turned it on the minute we got there and it played the entire time!  I didn't use any of the massage tools - the one thing that I turned to every time I felt a contraction was that I got Mom and Luke to rub my legs and the pressure point on the palm of my hand.

I had heard stories from our prenatal teacher about how she's seen some women become so relaxed and so tired between pushing contractions that they actually fall asleep for those brief moments between contractions.  I thought this was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard - I couldn't imagine falling asleep during that much trauma! :)  Well, I did!  I was a little odd in that my pushing contractions varied between very close together, and then 5 minutes apart!  It was very strange!  I think it really helped me though - I was able to rest and prepare for the next one.

Little Miss Charlotte was born at 2:51, with the umbilical cord wrapped loosely around her neck, and born fairly blue.  She didn't cry for what seemed like the longest time (I know it likely wasn't that long, but to me it seemed like a lifetime).  She was attended immediately by a couple of Pediatricians and they helped her along for a couple of minutes and she let out a giant cry before we could get ourselves too worked up :)  Luke was able to cut the cord and she was snuggling with us before we knew it.  It was impossible to take my eyes off of her - she was so beautiful.  She couldn't stay with me as long as I had hoped because I had to get stitched up and unfortunately it was fairly extensive, and I was moving around too much to keep her on me.  They did all her measurements during this time and Luke got to snuggle her for awhile.

They actually had to take me into the OR for some extra repairs... I wont go into details, but man oh man was it an interesting time!  I had a spinal, which was an experience!  I felt absolutely nothing on my lower half, and when they moved my limp legs into the stirrups it felt like they were still straight out in front of me and that the legs that I could see were indeed someone elses :)  It was incredibly weird!!!

After an hour and a half or so I was able to be in Recovery and see Luke and my family and hold my sweet baby again.

They finally moved me to a room in the Mother/Babe unit, but after a few hours they told us that we would unfortunately be getting a room mate :(  Big bummer!!  Luke unfortunately had to go home once the new mom was moved in, so that left me alone with this new teeny tiny person to take care of by myself, and I was pretty much strapped to the bed because I had an IV in one hand and my catheter really didn't allow much movement, so I had to call the nurse every single time I needed Charlotte picked up from the bassinette!  It was ridiculous, and such an incredibly long night!  The second night Luke was able to stay but it was an equally terribly long night with little Miss Charlotte sleeping for about an hour total.  Who knew that this would become a trend ;)

We were able to take our sweet baby girl home on Sunday - thus beginning a long month of sleep deprivation, constant feedings, about a million diaper changes, and more rewarding memories and photos than we could ever have imagined :)

It's been a bit of a struggle and learning curve, but that was to be expected.  I had mastitis about a week in, and that messed things up for me.  I had a really bad fever and was pretty much out of commission for a good 24 hour period.  Luke was amazing and took such great care of me and made sure Charlotte was fine.  Since then it's been a struggle with the breastfeeding, which is a big bummer, but it's eventually getting better.  I'm finally starting to settle down in terms of raging and crazy hormone levels and emotions!  and I'm definitely healing perfectly fine, which is great.

Charlotte is thriving and an absolute joy :)  She's finally starting to sleep a little bit (last night she slept for 5 straight hours - it was glorious!!!), which is great.  She had her night and days mixed up, so hopefully that's changed!  She struggled with her bilirubin levels for awhile and we were worried that she would have to be admitted to the hospital to be put under the bili-lights, but we were able to get her levels down and not have to do that (we were very relieved).  She's eating like there's no tomorrow and gaining weight like a little chunky monkey.  She weighed 9 lbs and 4 oz at her last doctor's appointment (last week), so we're looking forward to seeing what she weighs at her next appt next week! :)

And for your viewing pleasure, some of my favourite photos of my sweet little girl :)