About That Baby I've Been Carrying Around...

He's OUTTA me!!!!!!

Allow me to introduce Jackson "Jack" David, born via cesarean on October 24, 2013 at 7:59 a.m. He weighed 7lbs, 10oz, and was 19.5" long, though the weight was likely skewed quite a bit by the ton of fluid he swallowed as they pulled him out. He was down to 6 lbs, 14 oz. 36 hours later, and they had to suction quite a bit out of his little tummy, so he was likely on the low end of 7 lbs. 

I am so, so, so happy to say that he is a champ nurser. In fact, they stitched me up, brought me into recovery at 8:30, and the first thing the neonatologist said was that he had been rooting on everyone, trying to breastfeed on any surface available. Thankfully, that has continued, and we've been off to a great start. Fingers crossed we can keep it up as long as he wants - I'd love to go as long as I did with Ava :)

As for mama, recovery was rough, or at least compared to what I expected. I had heard consistently that planned c-sections were much easier, but I had a hard time, and between the fact they had to do my spinal four times, and the reaction to the Duramorph block I had for 24 hours (one nurse wanted to put me in isolation because I had scratched my skin up so badly and had carried staph a few years back - thankfully my doctor looked at her like she was nuts!), but still - even then - I would do it all again in a second. If we wanted a third, which we don't and won't. And, sad to say, my doctor informed me in recovery that my uterine wall was so extremely thin, any subsequent pregnancies would be at extremely high risk of uterine rupture and he would highly recommend against it. For someone who is DONE, it made me feel surprisingly sad. 

Yesterday was the first day, one week postpartum, that I felt like I might survive. I've had some episodes of baby blues, but called into my doctor and had him temporarily up my dose of my meds to help me through this hormone storm! Yesterday, though, I was able to leave the house to go to Ava's preschool's trick-or-treating and costume carnival, AND took her trick-or-treating (more on that later), and whether it was getting out of the house or just faking a sense of normalcy, it really, really helped. Today, we had newborn pictures taken at our house in his nursery, and while the photographer shot some pictures, I managed to clean the house up a bit and answer some emails and just generally feel hopeful I won't always be underwater. I even put my pump together and used it and remembered to look for the alternate babas, since the gumdrop one isn't cutting it for my hungry little monkey.

Well, that's about all I have time for this second, but I will photobomb you like no one's business :) These are just from in the hospital! More to come later this week. Oh wait, it's Friday. So early next week....

The moment I met my son....and my fear of not bonding with him evaporated! Love at first sight.

Ava meets her little brother!