There are so many things I've started to do and haven't finished this last week and a bit. In fact, the only things I've managed to do fully are feeding, showering, and...huh. I guess that's it. I started a blog post the other day and it's now outdated, I wrote in my journal for a bit, but only managed to get down 1/4 of my birth story, I've started filling in information in Eli's baby book but have put it down repeatedly, the laundry is washed but is sitting in baskets in the spare room, recent thank-you cards are half-done, and I won't even begin to tell you how many prayers have been cut short by a baby spitting up all over me.
Like I said, I've managed to feed Elijah, and keep myself pretty clean, and right now I think that's good enough. I guess those are my priorities, because you always make time to do the things that are most important to you.
I've heard of people who go weeks without showering regularly, or brushing their teeth, etc, and I totally get that. But for me, I crave the cleanliness because it makes me feel human and not like a machine.
Good days for me consist of feeding, getting dressed and prettied up (sans make-up, because that's one thing that is not a priority to me) doing one chore around the house, getting a nap in, and spending some time with Matthew. I feel pretty great on those days, but I still find the time passes too quickly.
Then there are the days where it's already 4pm and too late for a nap, and all I've done is fed and comforted my little boy and ate some food. They aren't bad days, they're just...days. I don't know what else to call them, because it feels like I just go into survival mode on those days.
All in all, though, having a newborn has not been nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. He sleeps for 3-4 hour chunks throughout the night, and getting up with him has not been a big issue yet. Sometimes I'm up for over an hour, but then Matthew takes him around 8am and lets me sleep another hour or two, and all is well. I don't know what I'll do this next week when Matt goes back to work, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
No, Elijah has not given me a bad taste in my mouth where newborns are concerned, and he's not even a perfect baby. He has gas issues (so we think) and has a hard time burping, and then 10-20 minutes later he has the hiccups and starts crying until he's spit up 3-4 times, and then he's fine. It makes him falling asleep after a feeding a little difficult, but we're adjusting. We kindof think we've been dealt a fussy (though thankfully not colicky) baby, but seeing as we've never had a baby before, we really don't know the difference, and don't mind it.
This might seem random, but I think I'm going to do the rest of this entry in point-form because then I can stop at any point I please and manage to get a post up already!
So here it goes.
-the surprising thing to me has been my own recovery. 11 days later and I'm still having troubles.
-my first visit out of the house was to go to a walk-in clinic on Friday. Long story short, I woke up and almost fainted, had a fever of 102 (38.85) hot-cold flashes and a headache. Was pretty sure I had mastitis, although only the infection-symptoms gave it away. Had to leave Elijah at home for fear of him catching something at the clinic. Was the worst hour, knowing he was so far away (a whopping 6 minute drive.) Doctor at the clinic thought my stitches were infected and that I didn't have mastitis. Gave me antibiotics. Midwife came by to check out and remove stitches, said they DON'T look infected, but who knows, I clearly had an infection, antibiotics could only help, yadda yadda yadda. Feeling 100 times better now, pretty sure it's a uterine infection, will be gone in 10 days, not too worried. Just a little pained.
-having a hard time with the muscles in my upper legs and bum area. Feels like I've been sitting too long, makes sitting w/o leaning forwards uncomfortable, standing gets tiring, so only laying down helps.
-stitches were hurting a heck of a lot (another midwife estimated 10 stitches, so there, now you know the rough number), had to put polysporin on them to go to the bathroom, it's working so I'm happy.
-engorgement sucks. Enough said. Waiting for the 2-week mark.
-Eli sleeps in bed with us. That started the first night we were home. He wakes up and gets fussy, and if we catch it before he's fully awake he'll go back to sleep quickly. If we let it go too long, he really wakes himself up and then I'm up 4-5 times a night feeding him to soothe him back to sleep. As it is, I've only been getting up 1-2 times throughout the night, so pretty nice. I also love snuggling up to him when I feel him move beside me. Especially when I've had a bad dream.
-had my first bad dream about Eli last night. He was spitting up my food undigested (as in, what I ate, not what he ate. Weird.) I mentioned it in passing to a doctor named Dr. Blitz (don't ask, I don't know) and she started running. I chased her wanting to know her opinion, but I realized that she didn't want to talk to me because she didn't want to tell me the bad news. Eli was going to die, and although he looked perfect and healthy at the time, he would slowly break down, be hooked up to tubes, and leave us. I woke up to a beautifully healthy baby who made all right in the world. And if I ever meet a Dr. Blitz, I'll be the one running.
-We took our first venture out of the house together yesterday. I woke up in the morning needing to get away from the house so we went to Matt's parents, ate their food for dinner, and hung out with Aaron, Rachelle, Rob and Kira. It was so nice and normal-feeling that it surprised me. It was also some practice for me with breast-feeding around other people without de-robing. I'm realizing I need many nursing shirts and bras or else life will be really difficult for a while.
-I had an epiphany yesterday. It was this. Life must become normal eventually, and I'm the only one who can make it so. The longer I sit around not trying to adjust, the longer it'll (obviously) take to adjust. So I've been attempting to bring some normalcy into my life, in little spurts. For instance, yesterday I wore jeans for the first time since labour. Until then it had been track pants and loose shirts. More comfy, but more grubby. Also, the whole leaving the house thing. That was a big step. Today it was church for the first time (more to come.) I haven't decided on what tomorrow's normal thing will be. Maybe an organized family home evening for our little family (SO excited!) Also, this week I'm going to go visiting teaching. Just for a one-hour appointment, but I'm going to leave Elijah at home with Matt, and that's a big deal for me. Oh, and I accepted an invitation for Matt, Elijah and I to go over to a friend's for dinner next Sunday, which is something only normal people do. I feel pretty good at my mock-normalcy.
-church today was actually fun. Isn't that strange? I had been dreading it a bit, but the attention on me is gone now, and people just want to fawn over my little baby and how beautiful he is, and I can't help but agree. I totally don't mind talking with all and sundry about my little miracle, hence the fun-ness. Why not soak it up while it's still new and exciting? I'm told that life gets a little more difficult once the novelty has worn off, so I might as enjoy this while it lasts. At the same time, I think it'll be nice when Elijah is an established fact because then I won't feel like everyone is looking at me. Everyone is just looking at Elijah, but to do so they must look at me too, and that makes me a little paranoid. I just don't like being the centre of attention like that. Also, no-one asked to hold him which I had been worried about with it being flu-season and so many people shaking hands and so on, so yay. And besides, I wanted to hold him. :)
-Matt had the greatest time walking into church today. He is so proud of Elijah and wanted to show him off to everyone. He wanted to keep him with him all the time today, but I had to say no, because he'd have been too distracting in Primary when the sisters left and the Young Men took over for the last hour today. Matthew actually pouted a little, it was so cute.
-I have to say, I love pregnancy weight. At least, water-retaining pregnancy weight. It's so easy to lose pregnancy water retention. You just pee it out a few days later! Who knew it could be so easy? I'm beyond excited because my shoes fit again, so there goes the whole, "you'll go up a shoe-size permanently" thing. I'm ecstatic, because I have so many cute little shoes that I didn't want to say good-bye to. My rings almost fit too, but I might have to resize them after all because the little indentation at the bottom of my ring finger is gone, and that's what made them fit comfortably. Sad.
-my ankles are no longer huge. They're so much scrawnier than I remembered, and they actually look funny to me now, like I don't recognize them. It's been 4 months after all.
-we're pretty sure Eli is a G- baby and takes after Matthew a good deal. He looks a lot like this one baby picture of Matt, but I still have yet to pull out my own baby photos, so we could be surprised in the end. One friend of ours thinks that Matt and I look alike, because he can see both of us in Eli. I have a hard time seeing either of us in him, he's just Elijah to me. Well, he's kind of still 'Baby' to me.
-that's another thing. When will I really identify him as Elijah? He doesn't necessarily look like an Elijah, but I definitely felt that that should be his name. Will he grow into it? Is it my own perspective? Does any baby really look like an anything? Or at least anything other than a baby? I see Elijah and I think, "my little man," "handsome boy," "sad face!" or "oh my darling," but I have yet to think, "Elijah" when I look at him. I'm working on saying his name a lot more so that I attach it to him.
-he's starting to lose his newborn-ness. He's still a newborn, but that fresh-out-of the-womb look is giving way to the infant look and he looks different than his newborn self, like when he was getting weighed.
-I'm so happy to have Eli here, but there are parts of me that really miss being pregnant. I was more mobile when I was pregnant, for one thing (which seems so backwards to me. I thought life would be easier with a baby in my arms than in my tummy, but so far, that's not quite true.) I feel things in my stomach and my mind still thinks, "awwh, there's my little kicker!" only to remember that he's not there, and that it really is digestion. Then yesterday I was walking away from the mall singing along to the song that was playing and I realized all of a sudden that Eli wasn't inside of me to hear it, that he was sitting some 100 meters away in the car with Matthew, and that he existed outside of me. My actions and dietary choices still affect him somewhat, but he doesn't need me so much now.
-I've been thinking through my labour and delivery experience, and I've come to a conclusion. Hopefully I won't be repetitive in saying this, but I feel a little gypped. On the one hand, I'm so glad I got the epidural because it was truly heavenly. On the other hand, I did not even remotely have the experience I had anticipated, and it wasn't because of powers beyond my control. I know part of me chose to take a different route, but I also know that my midwife was not what I had expected in labour.
Midwives, to me, should be encouraging, resourceful and positive. They should also consider your birth plan and not let you make decisions on a whim when you're in a heck of a lot of pain. They should talk you through things.
My midwife never even questioned my decision to have an epidural though she knew of my scruples with it beforehand. She never suggested more comfortable labour positions, taking another hot shower (which had worked...) using the birthing pool at the hospital before I got the epi, having Matthew massage my back when it got bad, reminding me of why it hurt and what the outcome of such pain was (because honestly, it was so hard in the moment to remember that there was more to life than pain) and so on. At 11am when I got the epidural, I was already 7cm, and I had progressed from 3-4 to 7 in a matter of 4 1/2 hours, which I know is great. And yet my midwife never suggested to keep going a little longer and stick it out which I know I could have done, considering how I had waited 3 1/2 hours for the epidural.
So there you have it. I felt very left to my own devices and so the epidural and the switch to nurses was wonderful, and therefore not regrettable. Such is life. Although someone mentioned today to write a letter to the midwife practice and I think I will. Not a malicious one or anything, but a truthful, concerned one. Because I'd still have midwives again, but I'd want it to go differently.
-some of my favourite things about Eli: the way he smiles in his sleep after nursing, how cute his sneezes are (they sound like, "hep-tew"!), how you always know when he has pooped because it sounds like his diaper exploded (can't wait for that bomb to go off in the middle of a quiet chapel) how he sucks my arm when he's hungry and not quite there yet, how when he sleeps beside Matt and I he always turns his upper body so that it's facing me. Sometimes I worry he'll end up rolling over, he's turned himself so much. I love it.
-Elijah has already gained back his birthweight and then some. He pretty much had by the time he was a week old. No problems for him with nursing!
And...here are some photos!
Sleepy baby
Here's one with his eyes open
I love my little boyI had a couple more photos to post, but my modem is on the fritz, the internet is super slow, and I'm just going to get this post up before everything shuts down again. Okay? Okay. :D
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