Parenthood - week one

Ok so I finally have a quiet moment, while the little bean sleeps to give a few details of our journey into parenthood.

Mia is just awesome. We can't believe we made this precious little angel. It truly is a miracle of life. You can sit and stare at her all day long. She is such a joy.
We have had a very tough first week home. I have been dealing with some major complications from delivery that has made taking care of Mia very challenging for me. Gabe has been tirelessly working to pick up the slack with feedings, etc. while being very concerned about me. We have had our share of meltdowns this week from the stress of it all, but I am very hopeful that things will turn around soon.

Labor and delivery went fairly smoothly. Once they started the petocin around 6am on Thursday morning, Mia wasted no time. By 11am I was dilated to 7cm and getting close. By 12:00 the contractions were full force and I was begging for the epidural. That is when everything went haywire. I am in full blown contractions, they are trying to put the epidural in and telling me not to move (laughable), my water broke and Mia didn't like the position I was in and went into distress. The nurse was having a hard time finding a heartbeat. All this happens within about 30 minutes. Gabe was doing great keeping it together even though he was pretty stressed out and I think I was breaking his hand while I was getting through those contractions. After the epidural was in and Mia was stabilized, I was able to have an hour or so to recover a bit and calm down. The nurse was absolutely amazing. She was calming, soothing and knew exactly what to do. Leaving me be for that hour was crucial. By the time I was ready to push, I only had to push for 45 minutes. Everything was going great until Mia decided to come out with her arm across her face and gave me a nice size tear. My doctor insists its all fine, but I have since discovered that this particular tear is considered a fairly significant complication. eeek. Seems to be healing ok though.
All of this was a cake walk, however, for what I was about to deal with.

Woke up Friday morning with a rash on my back. By the time we left the hospital on Saturday, the rash was all over my entire back and moving rapidly. I was on fire. Apparently, I am having some sort of horrible reaction to something they did during the epidural. Agony....pure agony. Picture the worst case of poison ivy you ever saw and double it, and that is the rash I have. Pain, itching, the chills...I had it all. And all the while I am trying to breastfeed Mia. By Sunday, I am at the end of my rope. In tears, I call the doctor, who works me in on Monday. She took one look at the rash and called a dermatologist. He puts me on some topical cream and says it will be a few days. The next couple of days, things seem better, but lack of sleep and no appetite, plus the stress of the rash, and my breastfeeding efforts have gone down the drain. Guilt settles in. Meltdown. Then, the icing on the cake. Friday morning, I wake to find the rash has moved completely to my front side. All OVER my chest and torso, arms, neck, face, head and continues to move very rapidly. Terrified that I am going to go through another week of agony, I freak out. Time for a meltdown. 6am trip to the ER. Breastfeeding is officially called off. Now i am on some pretty high powered steroids and hopped up on Benedryl all day. Makes caring for Mia even harder. Needless to say, it has been a very tough first week home for all of us. It is now Saturday, and the rash seems to have stopped spreading. I am praying that things will turn a corner soon.

On a more positive note, Mia is doing great. She had her first check-up yesterday and got a clean bill of health. She was pretty jaundice when we brought her home from the hospital, but now that we have her on all formula, the jaundice has cleared up nicely and she is back to her birth weight. So we were happy to hear that.


Through all of this, I am so very blessed to have an amazing husband with whom I am more in love with than ever. He took over with Mia immediately like it was second nature to him. He has been making sure I get decent sleep to help me recover. When he is not taking care of Mia, he is working on the basement remodel or chores around here. He is running on 4 hours of sleep on average. I worry about him, but there isn't any stopping a man on a mission.

My parents have been a great help this last week as well. Mom and John were here the first week and my Dad and Linda are staying with us through the weekend. It has been a tremendous help to have them here.

All in all, we are doing pretty good. It could always be much, much worse. We can only hope that week 2 will bring a change for the better.