(To read all of Samuel's birth story and my hospital stay/recovery, begin here: Tuesday, November 19, Wednesday, November 20, Thursday, November 21, Friday, November 22, Saturday, November 23, Sunday, November 24, Monday, November 25)
It is really hard to process everything that happened to me. I was so groggy through so much of it. I don't know what I remember versus what was told to me versus what I've seen pictures of. In the moment, I never felt particularly traumatized by anything that was happening. Looking back, it is amazing to me how many complications piled on, one after another. I can't say that my experience strayed from any ideal birth plan that I had, since I had been so careful not to have any hard and fast expectations about the birth. At the same time, who would ever plan for preeclampsia, a failed induction, a c-section under general anesthesia, and days of dealing with the weak fogginess of low hemoglobin levels.
As I've done a little reading, I realize that my blood symptoms put me close to HELLP syndrome territory, even though my doctor never talked about it. I wonder things like whether I was actually sick for longer than just that day or so right before Samuel's birth, and whether there would have been any way to head it off sooner, though I don't think so.
I hate the way that I spent four days in the hospital after Samuel's birth, feeling generally alert and normal in the throes of conversation, but so foggy afterwards that I don't remember a lot from those conversations.
I love that so many people took such good care of me. My family was amazing. They must have know that I was not myself and struggling in the hospital, but didn't let on. They sat around in a boring hospital room for hours, just to be with me. I love all of my nurses. They all were kind and wise and helpful and so encouraging. Dr. Locke is amazing. A thoughtful, non-anxious presence who will tell you the facts about your situation before making his own recommendations about care, so that you feel like you have understanding and a say in what's happening.
It's been amazing to me over the last week since leaving the hospital just how much water weight I've shed, and just how much my intense bruising (from doing a c-section with super-low platelets) is fading. In a lot of ways, life is returning to normal, even if the first week home was abnormal because of having my parents around all week, and all of my sisters and husbands and fiances and nieces and nephew around for Thanksgiving.
My body has done a ton of healing. No more steri-strips left over my incision, bruising and swelling ar way down, no more pain or pain meds, my feet and ankles back to their skinny selves.
My brain and heart still have a little ways to go.
I am in love - IN LOVE - with baby Samuel. He is a beautiful baby. Snuggling with him makes everything in the world seem right. We've taken him on a bunch of walks, which he loves. He's getting better at sleeping between nighttime feedings. He doesn't mind being held, and doesn't mind being set down. He is generally unfussy except when he is hungry, needs a diaper changed, or has cold toes. Everybody thinks he is adorable.
I am equally in love with Matt, who has been everything and more to me through all of this. Staying strong for me through all the medical stuff that makes me so so anxious, being head-over-heels in love with Samuel and being adorable at showing it, being the guy who helps me find things and gets things for me and holds me when I'm feeling sad and encourages me when I need it. I have seen yet another new side of Matt now that we have this baby, and I feel even more blessed to have him as my husband. I really can't find any of the right words to say how much my heart is overflowing.
But as for me, I'm struggling with the let-down. I've spent the last 9 months obsessed with my pregnancy, obsessed with the hope and dream of bringing a healthy baby into this world. Before that, nearly five years of being obsessed and occupied with trying to get and stay pregnant. So now that Samuel is here, lots of things that used to occupy my brain (all the time!) no longer do, and my head hasn't figured out how to deal with the empty space. Maternity leave means that my world has come to a screeching halt, and I'm struggling with the unstructured, quiet days, and especially with not being around people on a consistent basis. I absolutely loved having my family around the week for Thanksgiving week, but now feel lonely with them all gone and back to their normal, ordinary lives.
In some ways, it's like everybody else goes back to normal except for me. And I'm instead adjusting to the new normal of having this beautiful baby around. My identity has changed permanently. My daily routines are new and different. I, unlike everybody else, don't have a "normal" to go back to. And that's a little jarring.
I spent two weeks being intensely cared for by other people, mostly for health reasons, but partly because of the excitement of having a new baby in the family. It's taking a little work to figure out once again how to take care of myself, and how to get back into the swing of things like cleaning and cooking and taking care of a house.
Sometimes I feel a little trapped - I might want to get out, but Samuel still needs to be away from people for a while until his infant immune system starts to bulk up, so if I want to go anywhere, it is likely all by myself, and not with Matt, or not with Samuel, and I can only do so in hour-long windows because I need to get back home to feed the baby on his every two-hour schedule.
I've spent a few evenings on tearful FaceTimes with my parents, just feeling lonely and slow to adjust to the quiet days and evenings of maternity leave. I know that I need to be more disciplined about planning and then actually doing projects and keeping myself busy, but sometimes it's hard to find the motivation.
My first truly good day this week was the day that I sat down and finally wrote out every detail of Samuel's birth story and the days that followed (which I have since published on the blog in daily chunks). It is good to dump all of that out of my head. It is good to process it by writing it down. It feels good to get it on paper so that I don't forget it. Because even if it wasn't ideal, even if it was a really hard few days, it is something that I don't ever want to forget.
Also, homemade Swedish rye bread toast and hot chocolate make just about everything feel a little bit better. And there is Christmas decorating to do, and a little work to accomplish that I didn't finish before Samuel's surprise early arrival, and these things, too, help me feel more and more normal, and less and less weepy.
Because here's the thing: everything in life right now is VERY GOOD. I have a healing body, a healthy, BEAUTIFUL baby, a loving and lovable husband, a mostly-clean house, food on the table, clothes on my back, the luxury of time away from work to learn how to be a new family of three...and so even if the transition is kicking my butt a little bit, I know in my heart that I am nothing else but absolutely grateful, and overwhelmed by blessing.
It is really hard to process everything that happened to me. I was so groggy through so much of it. I don't know what I remember versus what was told to me versus what I've seen pictures of. In the moment, I never felt particularly traumatized by anything that was happening. Looking back, it is amazing to me how many complications piled on, one after another. I can't say that my experience strayed from any ideal birth plan that I had, since I had been so careful not to have any hard and fast expectations about the birth. At the same time, who would ever plan for preeclampsia, a failed induction, a c-section under general anesthesia, and days of dealing with the weak fogginess of low hemoglobin levels.
As I've done a little reading, I realize that my blood symptoms put me close to HELLP syndrome territory, even though my doctor never talked about it. I wonder things like whether I was actually sick for longer than just that day or so right before Samuel's birth, and whether there would have been any way to head it off sooner, though I don't think so.
I hate the way that I spent four days in the hospital after Samuel's birth, feeling generally alert and normal in the throes of conversation, but so foggy afterwards that I don't remember a lot from those conversations.
I love that so many people took such good care of me. My family was amazing. They must have know that I was not myself and struggling in the hospital, but didn't let on. They sat around in a boring hospital room for hours, just to be with me. I love all of my nurses. They all were kind and wise and helpful and so encouraging. Dr. Locke is amazing. A thoughtful, non-anxious presence who will tell you the facts about your situation before making his own recommendations about care, so that you feel like you have understanding and a say in what's happening.
It's been amazing to me over the last week since leaving the hospital just how much water weight I've shed, and just how much my intense bruising (from doing a c-section with super-low platelets) is fading. In a lot of ways, life is returning to normal, even if the first week home was abnormal because of having my parents around all week, and all of my sisters and husbands and fiances and nieces and nephew around for Thanksgiving.
My body has done a ton of healing. No more steri-strips left over my incision, bruising and swelling ar way down, no more pain or pain meds, my feet and ankles back to their skinny selves.
My brain and heart still have a little ways to go.
I am in love - IN LOVE - with baby Samuel. He is a beautiful baby. Snuggling with him makes everything in the world seem right. We've taken him on a bunch of walks, which he loves. He's getting better at sleeping between nighttime feedings. He doesn't mind being held, and doesn't mind being set down. He is generally unfussy except when he is hungry, needs a diaper changed, or has cold toes. Everybody thinks he is adorable.
I am equally in love with Matt, who has been everything and more to me through all of this. Staying strong for me through all the medical stuff that makes me so so anxious, being head-over-heels in love with Samuel and being adorable at showing it, being the guy who helps me find things and gets things for me and holds me when I'm feeling sad and encourages me when I need it. I have seen yet another new side of Matt now that we have this baby, and I feel even more blessed to have him as my husband. I really can't find any of the right words to say how much my heart is overflowing.
But as for me, I'm struggling with the let-down. I've spent the last 9 months obsessed with my pregnancy, obsessed with the hope and dream of bringing a healthy baby into this world. Before that, nearly five years of being obsessed and occupied with trying to get and stay pregnant. So now that Samuel is here, lots of things that used to occupy my brain (all the time!) no longer do, and my head hasn't figured out how to deal with the empty space. Maternity leave means that my world has come to a screeching halt, and I'm struggling with the unstructured, quiet days, and especially with not being around people on a consistent basis. I absolutely loved having my family around the week for Thanksgiving week, but now feel lonely with them all gone and back to their normal, ordinary lives.
In some ways, it's like everybody else goes back to normal except for me. And I'm instead adjusting to the new normal of having this beautiful baby around. My identity has changed permanently. My daily routines are new and different. I, unlike everybody else, don't have a "normal" to go back to. And that's a little jarring.
I spent two weeks being intensely cared for by other people, mostly for health reasons, but partly because of the excitement of having a new baby in the family. It's taking a little work to figure out once again how to take care of myself, and how to get back into the swing of things like cleaning and cooking and taking care of a house.
Sometimes I feel a little trapped - I might want to get out, but Samuel still needs to be away from people for a while until his infant immune system starts to bulk up, so if I want to go anywhere, it is likely all by myself, and not with Matt, or not with Samuel, and I can only do so in hour-long windows because I need to get back home to feed the baby on his every two-hour schedule.
I've spent a few evenings on tearful FaceTimes with my parents, just feeling lonely and slow to adjust to the quiet days and evenings of maternity leave. I know that I need to be more disciplined about planning and then actually doing projects and keeping myself busy, but sometimes it's hard to find the motivation.
My first truly good day this week was the day that I sat down and finally wrote out every detail of Samuel's birth story and the days that followed (which I have since published on the blog in daily chunks). It is good to dump all of that out of my head. It is good to process it by writing it down. It feels good to get it on paper so that I don't forget it. Because even if it wasn't ideal, even if it was a really hard few days, it is something that I don't ever want to forget.
Also, homemade Swedish rye bread toast and hot chocolate make just about everything feel a little bit better. And there is Christmas decorating to do, and a little work to accomplish that I didn't finish before Samuel's surprise early arrival, and these things, too, help me feel more and more normal, and less and less weepy.
Because here's the thing: everything in life right now is VERY GOOD. I have a healing body, a healthy, BEAUTIFUL baby, a loving and lovable husband, a mostly-clean house, food on the table, clothes on my back, the luxury of time away from work to learn how to be a new family of three...and so even if the transition is kicking my butt a little bit, I know in my heart that I am nothing else but absolutely grateful, and overwhelmed by blessing.
Hello, dear sister! Your "ramblings" are so honest and true and lovely. Even when they're about sadness and struggle, they are lovely in how they express the workings of the heart and mind. I'm so glad you're writing all this down - you will treasure these words in years to come. In the same way your body is healing over time, time will work in your heart. That infuriating little phrase "it takes time" is just so true. Not for the disappointments to go away as if they didn't happen, but rather for them to find their proper place in your story. You will grow stronger...your hormones will stabilize...sleep will get longer...you will find new routines that you love. But you don't have to do that quickly! You are right - you are forever changed. And that takes a while...a lifetime?...to get used to. On a final note in the longest comment ever, I would come a babysit in a second if I could, so you and Matt could go to dinner! :-) Counting the days til you come for Christmas. Love you so much!
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