emerging from the fog...

Hi!! After a somewhat difficult postpartum recovery, a move to Maine, and adjusting to no more than 1 to 3 hours of sleep at a time, we are feeling like we're finally emerging from the fog of new parenthood! I'm not sure anything can prepare you for the challenge and joy of the first couple of weeks of being a parent - we have fallen hard for our little man, but also struggled with painful breastfeeding (all better now in that department, thank goodness!!), lack of sleep, and true exhaustion for me as a result of hemorrhaging after Bennett was born.

By way of an abbreviated birth story, after hitting the 42 week mark, my midwives decided I should be induced, and we checked into the hospital the evening of May 24. I was given a Cervidil insert - which was meant to start to get me ready for the induction that was planned for the following morning via Pitocin - but my body must have been very ready for labor because Bennett was born about 7 hours after my contractions started! I have to say that it was a rather confusing labor because of the strange effect Cervidil had on me...

The contractions became extremely intense several hours after I received the insert, and we called in the midwife to have it removed because I was having literally no break between double-headed contractions (and yelling for an epidural, which in the end I am very happy I never got!). Then it seemed that the contractions were finally slowing, and Dan, Mom, and I got into bed. Mom said later that at this point she was relieved that I would finally get some rest so that I'd be ready for the induction in the morning! But maybe 30 minutes later, I felt my body involuntarily shudder in what felt like a push and called for the midwife - when she arrived, she checked me and announced that I was 9+ centimeters and almost ready to push. As it turned out, what we thought was early labor intensified by Cervidil was actually my transition! My water broke naturally at 10 centimeters during one of my first pushes, fire hydrant style, hitting the back wall of the room (too much information?? sorry!). I pushed for about an hour or so, but my contractions were only 5-6 minutes apart so I was actually falling asleep between pushes and the progress was sort of like two steps forward, one and a half steps back. My midwife suggested a little Pitocin to cluster the contractions - and Bennett was born all at once just 10 minutes later. I remember pushing as feeling very instinctual and not that painful (compared to my contractions), and immediate relief and an adrenaline rush the minute he was born.

And by way of an abbreviated aftermath story--since I'm still a bit traumatized--let's just say that my uterus wasn't able to contract how it needed to (because of a full bladder), which resulted in hemorrhaging, then a (I'll just say it...) horrific, un-anesthesized obstetric intervention to stop the bleeding, and finally emergency surgery under general anesthesia to repair the damage from the intervention. I ended up getting four units of blood, but since blood is such a scarce resource, hospitals don't quite give you enough to fully replace what you lost, and I was pretty weak and tired for a few weeks. Dan called this experience the perfect storm - one unfortunate incident led to another and so on. For my dear friends who have yet to give birth, please don't let this scare you - there's no reason to think it would ever happen to you!! I think that in retrospect, what I've heard women say about their natural (as in, pain medication-free) births was true for me too - when you think you can't do it anymore, that means you've made it through the hardest part, and baby is almost with you!

I want to write more about how amazing Bennett is, how happy we are in Portland and in our new house, near family and friends, but I can hear little Bennito Burrito waking, which means I'm back on duty!! Lots of pictures from the rest of Bennett's first month below.

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