Snapshots from 28 days Post-Partum: Our First Few Weeks at Home

Our new normal...

Here is my second post about my post-partum recovery. Click here for the first...

Home. Some women want to stay at the hospital for as long as possible and I can see why. Meals and pain meds appear magically and help is available at the push of a button. But I was anxious to get home. Going home meant no more nights interrupted by nurses and doctors, but more so it meant comfort and getting to see Kiara and beginning to settle in to the new normal of life as a family of four.

Days 3-5: My sister, Yukiko, and Dad stayed with us for these first few days which was an incredible help. Yukiko cooked and cleaned and held baby. Dad held baby too and although having him there reminded me of the loss and absence of Mom, his presence also reminded me of the preciousness of this time together. In terms of healing, I alternated taking ibuprofen and NorCo every three hours. I continued bleeding but not very heavily. My incision area felt numb but there was no bleeding. It was a challenge lifting myself out of bed or up from the couch with no abdominal strength, but I somehow figured out how to roll out of bed for late-night feedings. Baby-boy had his first check-up on day 5 and was putting on weight so we were looking good.

Kiko: best post-partum-helper ever!!!

Days 6-7: That first weekend home, exhaustion and possible postpartum depression started to seep in around the edges of my recovery. Lots of visitors, very little sleep, and nipple soreness had me cranky and wanting to be left alone. Nursing was easier the second time around only in that I knew what it required. It was still painful, particularly those first moments getting latched, but I knew i just had to get through this part and it would get easier. I started moving a little more efficiently with my compromised abs and at some point in here I weighed myself: 22 pounds heavier than I was when I got pregnant. Ugh.

Day 8: Baby-boy turned one week old and things quieted down a little. My sister and Dad flew back to Portland leaving David home to help. Kiara spent her days at daycare so I was able to get lots of rest which helped me feel less overwhelmed. After days of stool-softener and coffee the pipes moved! I can't say they were flowing freely, but we had movement that clogged the toilet.

Day 9: I walked half-a-block to get coffee on day nine and although I have no idea if there was a connection, I started bleeding from my incision that afternoon along with heavier bleeding (which had subsided to nearly nothing the previous two days). I called a nurse for advice and she wasn't too concerned but she told me if I developed a fever or redness and worsening to go to the ER.

Day 10: The next morning the bleeding was worse so I called the nurse back and scheduled an appointment to see an ObGyn that afternoon. The doctor checked out the incision, removed the surgical tape that remained and irrigated the wound. He collected a sample for the lab and sent me on my way.

Days 11-13: I tried to take it easy for the next couple of days to let the incision heal. I finished the NorCo and the ibuprofen alone was fine for pain management.

Day 14: After a nice walk to the farmer's market in the morning and feeling like I was doing better, my doctor called to let me know I had an infection and started me on antibiotics. Booooo.

Days 15-17: My incision was still bleeding and I still had some bleeding (last of the lochia?) but finally things started clearing up. Finally! Thankfully breastfeeding was going well and was less painful or I would have been a mess. David went back to work so Gabe and I settled into quiet days at home, nursing and binge-watching tv. I tried to write and read a little each day, but sleep usually won out over creativity.

Day 18-25: I tried to continue to take it easy even though I was feeling restless. Nursing sessions started stretching to two-hours apart and Baby-boy started sleeping more at night. I finished the antibiotics and figured I was back on track.

Day 26: Mysterious itchiness! I hadn't eaten anything different or used any new products but that night I started itching. It started at my knees, belly, and back. Itchy, itchy all night and the next day it got worse. I figured it was just hormone changes but who knows. The worse came when these hives hit my mouth and I looked like I'd had bad botox. I was convinced this baby had ruined my body and I'd be itchy for the rest of my life.

Day 27-28: The hives continued through the next day, but by evening my face returned to normal and the itching subsided. I was no longer bleeding. From anywhere. Yay! My milk production was good and Gabe started taking a bottle when needed so pumping allowed me to get a break from being the sole provider of nutrition which was a big relief.

So, after four weeks, I finally felt like I had my body back. Although it seemed like forever with that infection and a touch of the baby blues, overall my recovery was smooth but it only feels that way because it's over.

Snapshots from 28 days Post-Partum: The Hospital Stay

There is so much out there about birth stories, and pregnancy, and parenting but there is so little about the early days postpartum and the recovery for women. It probably has a little to do with the fact that new mothers are too exhausted, too caught up in day-to-day survival to take note of what those early days are like. And let's be honest, much of it is quite unpleasant to experience so looking back on it is no treat. But, while it's fairly fresh in my mind and body, I thought I'd try to capture my experience this go around. This first post is about the hospital stay and the next will be about those early days at home.

These posts are not for everyone. They will contain descriptions of bodily functions so proceed if you'd like. Here are a few snapshots from the first four weeks after the birth of Baby-boy.

Day 1: The immediate recovery after my early-morning scheduled c-section was all about getting Baby-Boy to latch and regaining feeling below the waist from the spinal anesthesia. Baby seemed to know what to do and latched naturally even though it was awkward to hold him because I couldn't sit up. Thankfully hospital beds prop up.

I was tired, but the adrenaline of the new baby and a steady stream of visitors kept me from sleep.

Initially my legs were completely numb, but feeling returned slowly after a couple of hours starting with tingling and then, suddenly, I could move them again. Nurses applied legs compressors to help with circulation. The IV kept pain meds flowing so I was comfortable and a little groggy.

 I was able to capture this moment from my hospital bed...
before getting sick.  

The rest of the day involved continuing to nurse and waiting for my appetite to return. I started slowly with water and then jello. Nurses took my vitals every two hours and I was able to stay awake and greet friends and family who stopped by to meet the boy.

A lactation consultant came in and gave me the latest advice for getting newborns to latch. Gabe found his way after a while and I was able to nurse in a pretty relaxed position for the rest of the day and night.

Apparantly, I wasn't ready for food. Twice that first day I threw up. The second time I managed to projectile vomit bright red liquid jello all over David (perfectly timed when the room was full of visitors, including Kiara). Awesome.

By the end of the day I was able to hold down crackers and juice. David tried to get some sleep, but with nurses in and out all night and baby-boy nursing most of the night, I was recovering but we were both pretty tired.

Day 2: The next morning a nurse removed the catheter and shortly thereafter I got out of bed for the first time post-op. After my first c-section, when I first stood up, I was caught off guard by the rush of blood. I didn't know anything about lochia shedding. This go around there was no rush of blood like I'd experience before and in general, my bleeding was considerable lighter.

Next, I made my way to the bathroom to start getting all of the water off that they pumped in me for the surgery. The bathroom was stocked with lovely mesh undies, pads, and chucks for me to where to soak up all the blood. I definitely needed all of it last time, but this time, not as much.

That morning the doctor removed the dressing from my incision and inspected the wound. For my first c-section, they'd used staples and this time they used surgical tape. She said things looked good.

For the rest of the day, I continued to nurse and get that skin-to-skin contact with Baby-Boy. My appetite returned and by the end of the day, I was ready to find out what needed to happen to get out of there and head home.

That evening I switched to oral pain relief, ibuprofen to start, and then NorCo which helped me get  some sleep that night.

Days 3: I wanted to get home on that third day and a handy chart on the wall let me know what needed to happen. These steps included things like lactation consult, hearing test, baby physical, and discharge orders. We took care of the paperwork for the baby and I continued on the ibuprofen and Norco for pain management. That morning, David and I walked with baby through the hall.

After a long discharge conversation with a nurse who gave us way more information than we needed about SIDS and baby care in general, we managed to get all of our items checked off. David picked up my prescriptions and transportation wheeled me to the car. My orders: take it easy, take pain meds as needed, don't lift anything heavier than ten pounds, and take care of that baby (which really means keep nursing so he gains weight). With that, I gingerly climbed into our truck and winced over every bump as we made our way home.

A Letter to Our First Born...

February 1, 2015

Dearest Kiara,

 

I am cherishing these last days with you, not because I won’t be with you any longer, but I know in ways you are likely to never remember: that you are our first, our favorite, our beloved only daughter.

Hopefully, you will feel that forever, just how special you are, how much love and laughter you have brought into our lives, so before the new baby joins us and completes our little family, I want you to know how precious these first years of motherhood have been with you.

You entered our world and have stayed so incredibly agreeable. Even though my expectations for how you would join us were unmet, you didn’t seem to mind being cut and pulled from my womb. You cried a little, the air a shock to your little lungs, your mother shivering on the table as your father held you, not knowing how to comfort either of his two women.

I looked for you, couldn’t wait to hold you, as they bathed you and struggled to take my blood pressure for what felt like forever when all I wanted was to feel you against my skin. And when they finally placed you in my arms, I couldn’t believe the love I felt immediately for this little girl. For my Kiara.

And in those early hours, when I didn’t wake you to feed you, when I slept and hoped I was doing it right, when, really, you needed to eat, and I wasn’t doing it right, you ate when I did bring you to the breast and you slept and responded to our shushes and swaddles.

And then I fed you, in a marathon of milk, when they told us you weren’t gaining weight, that I wasn’t doing it right, that it wasn’t about the milk production, it was just that I needed to wake you up and feed you every couple of hours. Even then you went along and you gained the weight and you and I, mother and daughter, fell into that unique space reserved for new mothers and their babies.

There was the exhaustion, the dawn feedings, the afternoon sessions, the evenings, when the day was nearly done and you figured out days and nights and started sleeping for longer stretches.

We traveled up to Oregon that summer to introduce you to my family, and to Bend, where I grew up. You traveled well and won the hearts of all of your cousins, your aunties and uncles, your grandparents.

You adjusted beautifully to daycare, where you made your first friends and we learned how to trust professionals who knew better than we did, who had done this so many times before.

And then, just as you were crawling, I tore my Achilles. And then the dog bit your ear forcing us to the decision we should have made long before: to re-home our dog and simplify our lives.

You turned one. You thrived. You started to walk and talk and you haven’t stopped since. You jump and hop and run. Your babbles have become words, phrases, and tall tales. I have loved hearing about what is going on in that head of yours.

You have been excited about the little brother about to enter the world. You gently tap my belly to say hello, apply little kisses, and imagine baby brother wants to dance and sing and play with you. You have already decided that your Super Sister t-shirt is your favorite and anxiously await Baby Gabe's arrival just like we do.

But in these last days that you are our precious only child, I will breathe in your energy and enthusiasm and hold on to my absolute and boundless love for you, my favorite little girl in the world.

52 Poems: Week 16 Billy Collins

She's cute, but why did she make me so dumb?

Jane Hancock of the UCLA Writing Project introduced me to the poetry of Billy Collins. I just came across this poem and I think I can relate, but I can't really remember. For over a year-and-a-half now, I feel my brain has left me. Baby brain, I am telling you, is a real thing. Becoming a mother has made me so stupid
I forget students' names, why I'm standing at the fridge, my phone, what street Kiara's daycare is on, all of it. My mother would say I've always been a little forgetful (lost jackets and sweaters, scarves and mittens) but now it's ridiculous. Today I lost my wallet (then found it), my keys (found them too), and my mind (maybe I just need a little more sleep).

Forgetfulness
Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

52 Poems: Week 15 "Haircut"

So, for National Poetry Month my students are working on collections and I am working on poems about motherhood. If you read last week's poem, you will recognize a few touchstones in "Haircut" in this call of words poem about those first snips of  Kiara's hair.

Haircut

by Noriko Nakada

Inspired Pablo Neruda's “You Will Remember”

Today I cut your hair

for the first time

just after your first birthday

because of Filipino tradition.

I consider keeping

those precious wisps of hair

like tiny feathers between my fingertips

and tying them up in ribbon.

I can hardly believe you—

the girl molded like clay

in my swollen womb—

are this little person sitting here now.

But the morning is busy

so I watch your feathery wisps

wash down the kitchen sink

and float away in silent water.

Kiara's Birth Story Part III

This is the last part of Kiara's birth story. It's a little painful so don't feel like you have to read it.

Here are links to Part I and Part II in case you missed them.

Part III

They rolled me into surgery and I told myself it would be okay. The room was bright and filled with people. I moved from the bed to the table. They were surprised I could still move so much. Yeah, the epidural had worn off.

They laid me out like I was on a cross, drew up a blue curtain, and prepped me for surgery. The anesthesiologists added an additional dose of pain meds. Cold numbness returned. I stared at the bright white ceiling and thought of my baby girl. She would be here soon. I would finally meet her. An anesthesiologist pricked me with a pin to help determine if I was numb enough. I guess I was numb enough. David came in and they started.

I felt the tugging of my body against knife. I tried not to think about my body flayed open, and waited as David held my shoulder. I could both feel and not feel what was happening and then there was a cry and. She was here. I turned to my left where a nurse held a bloody, screaming baby. “She’s beautiful,” David said, but I wasn’t sure.

Then the baby was gone, but the pain was there, a growing, burning ache. David went to cut the cord and be with our baby.

One of the anesthesiologists told me congratulations. I nodded. I just wanted it to be over.

“What’s wrong?” she asked and I shook my head. I had no words for the pain I was feeling. The doctor was hard at work. It felt like he was vacuuming my insides. I couldn’t breathe, and then I asked, “How much pain am I supposed to be feeling?” The anesthesiologist paused for a moment. “What do you feel?” I described the tugging and pulling going on below my abdomen and the room went quiet. “We’ll give you another dose.”

David was with the baby. The doctor worked in silence. My body turned cold. I couldn’t stop my arms from shaking. The baby wailed. The pain persisted and the tears came. The burning pulling and tugging of my body against the doctor’s strokes was too much. “We’re almost done,” he said.

David was there with our crying little girl and an eternity later, they finished. Weeks later, David told me he thought was going to lose me on the table, but I never thought I would die. I just lay there, quivering, until someone crossed my arms on my chest. That’s when I started to breathe again. I stopped shivering and they rolled me into recovery. I held my gorgeous newborn daughter to my chest. She was here, crying but healthy. We were okay. 

Kiara Harper Nakada-Gantt April 1, 2012 12:34 am 7 lbs. 8 oz.

Kiara's Birth Story Part II

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Part II

By 5:00 am Saturday morning, I was exhausted. I’d been awake for almost 24 hours, laboring for about six. The nurse was optimistic. She said I was reacting well to the Pitocin. We would surely have the baby before April 1. She went off duty at 7:00 am when I was about 5 cm dilated. She was our good luck charm. When she left, things went downhill.

I asked for pain meds which they gave through an IV. Those meds sucked me into a fitful sleep. I couldn’t keep my head up, but I could still feel the tug and pull of contractions through the soupy fog of a darkened room where nurses and doctors came and went. They asked me questions, but my responses were sluggish and confused. I eventually asked for the epidural. I suppose this was my surrender. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. It was so much work.

There were a couple of C-sections happening, so the anesthesiologists couldn’t get to me for a while. When she did, she reminded me of one of my students. I was still under the influence of the first pain meds. I tried to play it straight, like the meds weren’t making me completely loopy. I was a drunk trying to fake sobriety. I wasn’t convincing, but I followed her instructions, at least I think I did.

The epidural froze me to my bed. I couldn’t move. My body was asleep but I was wide-awake. I couldn’t stop shivering. My body tensed, fighting the drugs that urged my muscles to relax. Finally, someone pulled a blanket over me. I warmed up. I fell asleep. I was still only 5 cm dilated.

The doctor decided to break my water. She pulled out what looked like a long chopstick. I think it was then she mentioned that in a couple hours, if I still hadn’t progressed, we would need to go C-section. I heard her, but I was still telling my body to open, urging the baby to drop, to let me push her out.

I didn’t progress. It was almost April first, a day for fools. The doctor said they’d prep me for surgery. The baby would be here before midnight. Through exhaustion and the epidural, I struggled to accept that there would be no pushing, no vaginal delivery.

My family arrived from Portland. As I’d struggled through 24 hours of labor, they survived a harrowing flight and arrived in LA before the baby. Through weary tears I told them we were having a C-section. They told me it would be okay.

The epidural started to wear off. The pain of contractions seeped back in. I told the nurses, but they were busy prepping me for surgery. They replaced the meds, but the pain persisted and then they had to unhook my IV to transport me.

As they rolled me to surgery I told them, “I’m not numb. I can feel the contractions. I need you to know I’m not numb.”

They told me not to worry. The anesthesiologists would make sure it was all right.

Click here for part III

Kiara's Birth Story Part I

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So, here's a first glimpse into how Kiara Harper came into our lives... The images are courtesy of David. You can check out more of his pictures on his photo blog. 

She waited like we asked. I’d been counting the days to spring break, checking items off my lengthy to-do list and on the last day of school before spring break, four days before my due date, I shed my mucus plug in a filthy faculty restroom. I looked in the bowl at the cloudy mess and thought, well, maybe she is on her way early. Good. We are ready. 

We thought we were ready. 

I thought I was ready. 

Apparently, when they say you’re never ready, they speak truth.

I didn’t know what contractions felt like. Sure, there was “tightening” around my abdomen, but I expected pain. I experienced a little cramping, but less painful than the first day of my period. I had contractions, but walked through them, breathed right through them. On Friday night, three days before my due date, something felt different. I stood and walked restlessly. The tightening started happening more frequently, and then there was a trickle. A dirty brown liquid trickle. It was no gush, but it was enough for us to call the hospital. It was enough for the nurse at labor and delivery to tell us to come in.

In the car we started timing the tightening sensations. They happened about every three minutes. That seemed too fast, but I was unconvinced this was labor. Where was the pain?

We parked the car and walked to labor and delivery. A nurse hooked me up to monitors and told me I'd just had a contraction. David watched the monitor and told me contractions were coming every two to three minutes. The nurse slid a bedpan under my hips so the doctor could see how far I’d dilated. A woman in another room screamed through a contraction.

“Only two centimeters,” the doctor said, “And a lot of bloody show so I can’t tell if the water’s broken.”

She took a look with the ultrasound. My fluid levels were low. She admitted me. This was game time. This was actually going to happen. 

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It was a full house that Friday night at Kaiser’s Labor and Delivery. We settled into the last room. An IV was inserted, and I was still able to walk around and keep breathing through the pain. I knew if I kept moving it would help things along. David and I walked around the quiet halls. Time took on new meaning. It was about 2:00 am when we settled in to try to get some sleep.

It’s impossible to sleep through contractions coming every two to three minutes.

I kept breathing, focusing, checking the monitors to see how close together the contractions were coming. They started me on Pitocin to try to move things along. I should have known then, things were not likely to go the way I imagined.

 
Click here for Part II

A Life in Revision...

As this past March came to a close, I knew life would be changing with baby on the way and Overdue Apologies finished. I decided to take advantage of an opportunity to workshop my writing with Lidia Yuknavitch (whose memoir I wrote about in January) even though I would be overwhelmed by life with a newborn.

Kiara came into our lives before I could submit work, but in the past two weeks I've had the chance to send her work and in an email exchange she said of childbirth, "what a revision it is of all the chapters of your life."

In that one line, Lidia captured precisely how I'd been feeling since the moment Kiara arrived. She changed everything. I'm not sure who I am as a writer, or a woman, a teacher, a mother, a wife, a daughter, or sister. Everything has a new context. All is subject to revision.

I don't even know who I am as a blogger! Is this a mommy-blog, a craft-blog, a baby-blog? I don't know anymore, and although I've been writing Kiara's birth story, I'm not sure it belongs here. And with David starting his own Daddy blog, I'm not sure how much of my baby-girl I'll be posting, but she has arrived, and she has changed everything. We'll see if I figure any of this out come next blog post.

Preparing to Give Birth

It isn't the best idea to try to give birth to a book and a baby at the same time. Unfortunately, I'm past the point of no return.

The book is finally done. I was too long in the works to abandon, and since I can't imagine having the time or energy to get back to it until our little girl is, I don’t know, a teenager or something, I made myself get that book done. It's a middle school memoir. It's taken over six years: endless cups of coffee, hours of painful reminiscing, more hours at coffee shops, and dozens of reads by an amazing group of friends and family. With all of that work and much help, it's finally here.

The baby has been growing for nine months. The whole getting pregnant process, well, that took much longer, four years, five if you count recovering from the miscarriage. At first there was grief, then there was the excitement of trying followed by mild disappointment each month. There were tests, and more tests, and more trying on our own followed by growing frustration. We eventually sought out help again. This time, with hormone shots and a long straw filled with cleaned semen, we finally got that positive test. Now we are days, maybe hours from her arrival and ready or not, she's on her way.

The book is here.

The baby is almost here.

Thanks for waiting with me. 

I couldn't have done either without help.