From December to March

Yes, this is a big leap, but I can't remain in the past forever! And so, here are memories from the first four months or so, "en vrac":
I remember Christmas, our first Christmas as our own family! We all went to midnight mass and hung out at Ford Hall drinking egg nog, hot chocolate and mint schnaps until very late... it was great! Paul and I had sushi on Christmas eve and pates, cheese and cold cuts on Christmas night. We even had our own little tree. Lovely! C behaved like a newborn through all this: she slept. We were trying to take pictures of her with her gifts under the tree, but they had to be pictures of her sleeping under the tree!
I also remember our ministry meetings on Tuesday morning at the rectory of Notre-Dame. C started by sleeping through them like she slept through everything, but little by little, it was harder to handle her. It became a little easier as I became more skilled at this whole breastfeeding thing. Thanks here to Constanza who will remain my breastfeeding idol! I was truly inspired by seeing her nursing R while walking around, talking to friends and scolding MG. That's multi-tasking for you!
After most of those ministry meetings, I would stop by the office to say hi to Sylvia who seems to appreciate C's visits a lot still. I especially remember C at 6 weeks cooing and smiling non-stop at Sylvia until she (Sylvia, not C) was crying.
Then there was California! We went to the bay area mainly to visit Walter, C's Great-Great-Grand-Father who is 101. What a special moment! He held her and she took his finger, to his great delight. You don't see a five generation bridge like that everyday... We took this opportunity to visit with Great-Grandma Harriett as well, who was delighted, as well, and with Tante Dominique, Oncle Christian and cousins. Carmen quickly found out how to make C burst out laughing, which she had just started doing. Kids somehow understand each other. Gabrielle seemed very intrigued by her little cousin and we had to keep reminding her to be gentle: "Tout doux Gabrielle, tout doux."
Finally, C's baptism. It was beautiful, of course, not because of anything we did, but because of the obvious abundance of grace. What could be more beautiful than God claiming my little one as His own? Many people made the trip and it was a very joyous feast!
Through these first three months, C slept great! She had an established 5+4 hours sleeping pattern until California where the schedule got a lot less regular. I suspect she started teething around that time too. The faucets opened and my little one, who had never even needed a bib before, started drooling and drooling. Between cradle scalp, eyes full of buggers and drool all over, she was a really cute baby!

The First Days

I will continue relating the beginning of C's life and eventually, hopefully, will catch up to present times. Please humor my flashbacks for now, will you?
After the adventure of her birth, C's was understandably tired and slept for pretty much the whole following day. She just met with her Godmother, who was asleep on a couch outside the OR, before retiring for bed. Daddy wheeled her out of the room, introduced her with the emotion and extravagance that are so typical of him: "Here's da baby." Then we all crashed. Or at least C and I, while Daddy went back home on the subway (he refused to take a cab even though it was about 3:00am!) where he met my parents and his mom all waiting for news. That was the zeroth day. Yes, they start counting at zero. Like computer scientists. Weird...
The rest of the stay in the hospital was fortunately uneventful. I looked terrible and was not allowed to shower before day two because of the staples holding me together. Recall that I had been in labor for two and a half day before that, which means that I was covered in pretty much everything a human boday can excrete. I still resent those pictures, though I could at least blame the smell on C. She had to spend the last 24 hours of our stay getting a tan due to the very pretty yellow hue of her skin, but I was allowed to go see her and nurse her whenever I wanted. We got acquainted pretty fast and I only despaired trying to nurse her a couple of times, and I don't think I cried at all. Amazing. I finished grading my students' problem sets in the mornings there since I was invariably awakened at 5:00 by doctors or nurses doing rounds, taking my temperature, etc. C's bilirubin levels having returned to normal, we were all sent home on Wednesday, finally.
I can not be grateful enough to my parents for staying with us and helping. They did everything! I started taking walks right away, not wanting to remain an invalid any longer. These walks probably greatly exercised my parents' patience since they proceeded at the speed of a procession. I mean a solemn procession, not the ones you see young priests run at the beginning of mass in parishes where the attention span of the faithful is deemed extremely short. Nursing was very painful and our second night at home was terrible. C's would not latch on and cried disconsolately and I didn't know what to do! Daddy tried cup feeding (I fortunately had pumped some milk during the day), but that's not easy either! It was only that one night though. From then on, C settled into a 5+4 hours night rythm which was very agreeable to everybody. She also decided that crying was not necessary since I was sleeping right next to her, so she would just make little noises to wake me and tell me she was hungry. She went to daily mass right away and instantly made a lot of new friends there! She has since always been really good in church. She doesn't sleep through mass anymore, but she very rarely cries or fusses. Very quickly, she started wanting to hold her head when in the burping position. Since she was very unstable at first, we had a lot of baby head to mommy nose encounters... I learned to turn my face away or shield it. I remember those first days as being filled with joy. I remember going to bed and looking at that little person sleeping in the co-sleeper and not being able to believe how good God was. I would put my hand on her little belly to make sure she was still breathing and feeling her all warm and peacefull would fill my heart with love, and my breasts with milk... Those usually come together. Well, in those days, my breasts would spew milk pretty much anytime they felt they could. Trying to get dressed after a shower without putting milk all over my clean clothes became my new hobby, as well as nocturnal avoidance of wet spots on the sheets and subtle shirt inspections for dark circles. The joys of motherhood!

A Beginning

Here I am. I don’t like the idea of writing a blog. I feel the dangers of solipsism lurking in the shadows. But, I like the idea of writing a journal detailing the beginning of our life with C, thinking that it could become a nice way for us to remember this blessed time and for her to see it through our eyes. So, here I am.

Obviously, I’ve already failed in my stated goal, given that C is almost six months. I think I should start by relating the story of her birth. I’m sorry for those of you who have already read through it or listened to it all.

After waiting for C to decide to come for a full two weeks, we decided to induce. Two weeks is the maximum anybody I know, doctor or midwife, will wait. So Paul and I headed to the hospital on Thursday night. They checked me, I was still at 1 cm, too small to even strip my membranes (my doctor had tried already two or three days before and failed). They put a Cervadil in to ripen the cervix. It was to stay in for 12 hours. Since I was GBS positive I had to have a shot of antibiotics and so was hooked to the IV and to the monitor right away. The morning crew told me that I should have been allowed to get disconnected from those during the night, after I had already spent the night on them. Grrrr. Anyway, stronger contractions started that night. Strong enough to make me moan, but not enough to wake Paul up. (He was sleeping in that tiny folding chair they have at the hospital and snoring quite noisily.) I sat on the ball at least half the night, rocking. I was excited and happy to finally be feeling real contractions. They checked me in the morning: 1 cm. But they said that my cervix was soft so they started the Pit. The contractions then became intense and painful, the way Pitocin induces them. I had two awesome friends there, Ruth and Alyssa, helping me through the contractions. I used the ball, was on the floor, on all-four, etc, etc. I also "vocalized" (ie screamed) a lot. It was a pretty intense day. I used most of the techniques I had learned in books, yoga class and birthing class. We also prayed the rosary, the sorrowful mysteries since it was Friday. Appropriate. Some of the contractions made me feel like I couldn't do it anymore, but I did. Then they checked me at 7pm: 1cm. Can you imagine? I was not supposed to be induced! I was not supposed to have a hard labor! I was supposed to birth my daughter naturally and in less than 10 hours for sure! I cried so hard! If you've tried crying through contractions you know that it's not that easy... We decided to stop the Pit at about 10pm, so I could get some sleep and start again the next day. The contractions weren't stopping though so I asked for some pain medication to help me sleep and got about 4 hours of peace.

We restarted the Pit at 5am. I felt fresh and ready to battle! The contractions started being very intense right away and the first time they checked me I was at 2 cm! Progress! Then 4 cm at about noon! When we prayed the joyful mystery, I was ready to stop at the Nativity and contemplate it until I gave birth to my own child! By that time though, the contractions were so intense, and I was so tired! The pain was not going away between contractions anymore and I could not relax at all. So I asked for the epidural. We then had a party in the room. All of a sudden, I could laugh! It was a great relief. I knew it was the right decision, I had been in labor for 36 hours already! Next check at about 4pm I was at 7 cm. We all thought that this was it, C would be born at about 7pm. This was transition starting, even though I couldn't feel it. That is, until I called a nurse to help me prop myself up a little. However, when doing so, the epidural detached and the nurse technician did not notice. Surprise! 30 minutes later I was actually experiencing transition... Pain and trembling and all. The actual nurse and the anesthesiologist were pissed at the technician. Anyway, I got more drugs and 30 minutes after I was back to no pain-ish. My left side did not take this time, so I had half contractions. Nothing would do, I just had to deal with it. They checked me again. I was hoping to be fully dilated, but I was still at 7cm, and C's head was only at -1. Mmmm. My temperature was also rising (they had broken my water sometime around 1pm) which meant that I was fighting an infection. At 10pm I had a fever and C's heart rate was higher than is desirable. They told me that if I was not ready to push at midnight I would have to have a C-section. For two hours, I sat/squat in bed, did hip circles and cat-cow's. At midnight I was almost fully dilated, just a little cervix remaining here and there, but she was still at -1!!! She did not want to come down. And her heart rate was still not good. So they prepped me and we went to the OR. I was given a spinal and basically crucified to the table. Your arms have to be out of the sterile portion, so you lay them straight out... yeah, weird feeling. Oh, and they had left the epidural run out and stopping the Pit did not stop the contractions, which means that the whole time the were prepping me I had huge contractions and was screaming with all my might. Screaming really does help! The coolest part of this, at least for me, was that I was able to see the surgery through its reflection on their big lamp. I saw them cut my skin and tissues, take out my huge uterus, cut it open and take C out! She came out screaming like a good baby and got two Apgar scores of 9, so she was all right. There was some meconium in the water though, that had not been there before. Both doctors said that sectioning had been the right decision given the meconium. I also saw them sow me back and then staple my skin together. It's good I don't mind the sight of needles and blood, imagine someone who can't stand it looking up and seeing themselves being cut open! I did mention it to my doctor afterwards, they might want to be more careful! I nursed C in the recovery room about 30 minutes after her birth. Feeling her little body against mine was like nothing else I've ever experienced...
So there, it wasn't my planned birth at all. A typical example of a cascade of medical interventions. I do think that we did everything we could and therefore don't really have any regrets. I am disappointed that I wasn't able to give birth to my child naturally, but I'm grateful for modern medicine, which allowed me to have a healthy little girl. We still don't exactly know why I would not dilate or why she would not come down. She was not too big and I had been super active the whole pregnancy. Everything was done right. This means that it could happen again with the next pregnancy. My doctor thinks I probably have a 60-70% VBAC chance. She also says that she has performed 5th and 6th C-sections on people. The risk of complications increases with each, but I would certainly be able to have a couple more kids, God willing. At this point, this is the only thing bugging me still: the fact that needing C-sections means that there is a limit on the number of children that it is safe for me to have. That limit, especially by the time we have a couple more, is probably higher than the number of children I would have, but you never know and I simply don’t like having that hanging over my head. I am determined to do even more, if possible, to avoid a section next time. I will consult a NAPRO specialist as soon as the JPII Center for Women opens and hope that, if my problems are due to a hormonal imbalance, they can be fixed.

This is enough for a first post I think! I will start telling the beginning of C’s life in another one, soon. Promised.