The Joy Of Illinois

Addison had slept so well in the hospital, to the extent where we had to wake her after several hours to feed her, and she still fell asleep again during the feeding as well. But once we were home, we had quite the opposite problem over night, she was awake and screaming her head off for hours at a time in the middle of the night. She seemed to want feeding constantly, and I was exhausted. We had already seen the lactation consultant on Tuesday, but her advice just wasnt working anymore.

So we went back Thursday, where they weighed Addison, then I fed her for 15 minutes on one side, then they weighed her again, but she had not gained anything. So I used their double pump for 15 minutes, and discovered that I had basically been starving the poor child for her first few days of life, as I only managed to get literally a few drips of milk out! So they suggested I rent the pump, and use it every 3 hours to get the milk flowing, and in the meantime feed her formula.

We have now had the pump a whole week, and while the supply has increased from that first attempt, I am still only getting just about enough to cover the bottom of the bottle on each side, not even a whole ounce in total, whereas she is taking 3 ounces of formula every 3 hours. I can't see it ever getting to the point where I can actually breast feed her again, but have decided to keep the pump for another week so at least she can get some goodness from me, better than nothing.

Other than that, she is faring well. In fact almost too well. We went to the pediatrician last week, and she weighed 8lb exactly, having lost 7oz off her birth weight, then we went back yesterday, at age 11 days, and she was 9lb 1.5oz! I think we had been over-feeding her though, as she had still been up all night, seemingly demanding food constantly, and still not settling at all, but maybe she was uncomfortable from over eating. We actually had a good night last night, she fed only every 3 hours, and slept inbetween times, but was sleeping in her car seat and we used a dummy for the first time, both on the advice of the doctor, who basically said do whatever works to get her to sleep and keep us sane. Apparently we should expect this crying in the night phase to last for about the next 6 weeks and get worse over that time, but not to worry about her getting into bad habits, as once she is over this, it should be easy to break her of them again.

She has had a couple of sponge baths, and screamed her head off throughout, but her cord fell off at 10 days, so next time she will get a proper bath, which will not be popular either. But she will get to love it in time I am sure. She also hates having her nappy changed, crying until her clothing is all back in place again, then stopping like she has a switch that has just turned to off.

Reggie does not like all the crying, usually moving away, and I am sure she is wondering when this little bundle will be going back again!

Once the hell of giving birth was over, our friends Amy and Kevin brought us a pizza, and I swear that was the best pizza I have ever eaten! I had not been allowed to eat anything since Friday breakfast time, and it was now Saturday tea-time so I was starving. During the last few hours of delivery I had also been craving a nice big glass of coke with lots of ice, so I made sure that was on hand for straight after. I had at first been allowed to drink water, but then was restricted to only ice chips during the last few hours.

We were then moved to the next room, where we would spend the next 2 nights. Gordon stayed with me the whole time, and Mum went home overnight to be with Reggie. The hospital layed on a special celebratory dinner for two on Sunday night with steak and champagne, brought in on a table complete with white table cloth, it looked just like room service in a hotel. We had several visitors during Sunday, and unfortunately the dinner was brought to our room at the ridiculously early time of 4.30pm, when people were still with us, but we were able to reheat it later, and it still tasted good.

I was breast feeding in the hospital, but it was pretty painful, so I asked several times to see the lactation consultant, but basically it seemed the weekend is not a good time to give birth as she is not on duty then, and she was off sick on Monday. So we came home Monday, then went back Tuesday to see her. Turns out Addison had not got the latch down right, so after some help I went home again with some aids to help encourage her to suck, and feeling more confident.

Well, we finally had our baby, 4 days late.

My waters broke on Friday 28th September. It was not like you see on TV, I was not left standing in a puddle. It was actually just a tiny little bit, then about an hour later, a tiny bit more. So I went to see my OB, and they sent me straight up to the maternity ward. Mum had come with me, and we had taken my bag just in case. I was apparently still only 1cm dilated, which I had been for about a week already. So they were planning on inducing me, otherwise I could have been there days before anything else happened.

So I got onto the maternity ward around 2pm Friday. I had just done the admittance forms and been taken to my room when Gordon arrived from work. Everyone over here gets a private room for delivery, which is pretty big, with a hospital bed, a sofa bed, a couple of other chairs, TV and DVD player, and en-suite bathroom. You stay there til the birth, then get moved to another private room, slightly smaller but also with sofa bed for the Dad, TV and DVD, and en-suite bath. I have since learned that giving birth in an NHS hospital in the UK is a vastly different experience, and I am glad I did not have to go through that. It was horrific but at least it was in relative luxury.

I was put on Pitocin to induce labour, and wired up to fluids as I was not allowed to eat anything. The thing I was most disappointed about was that I was not able to use the birthing tub, which had been the main part of my birth plan, as the waters had broken already. The contractions started fairly quickly after the drugs took effect, and by around 9pm Friday they were every 2-3 minutes apart and really painful. But when the doctor checked and told me I was still only 1cm dilated, I felt like crying! I knew there could possibly be many more hours to go and I couldn't take the pain any more, especially as I was tired as well, so I asked for the epidural, which I had around 10.30pm. But I hated it, it really freaked me out. I stupidly hadn't realised that my legs would be completely numb, and I hated the fact I couldn't feel anything at all. It took me almost 2 hours to calm down enough to fall asleep. Gordon and Mum slept on the sofa bed and gliding chair. We took up offers from various friends to walk and feed Reggie for us while we were there, so she had a parade of people through the house, but seems to have coped very well.

Saturday morning they said I was fully dilated but there was still some cervix over the baby's head, so they would leave me to labour down for a while, meaning allowing the baby to move down without pushing, which sounded fine to me as I was scared of that part! They said we could do that so long as the baby was not under any stress, and until I felt pressure and the need to push. The monitors showed the baby was fine, but several hours later I still could not feel anything, which did not surprise me since I was still on the epidural. So they turned that off for a while, then I started the pushing part around 2pm.

At first I thought it was a lot easier than I had expected, since I didn't feel the pain of contractions as I was concentrating and holding my breath to push. But after 2 hours of that, I was worn out, and telling the nurse to count faster (I had to hold my breath and push for a count of 10, 2 times in each contraction)! Finally I gave birth to a baby girl at 4.19pm Central time Saturday 29th September. She weighed 8lb 7oz, which was a bit of a shock since all predictions from the doctors had put her at between 7 and 8lb. She was 19.5" long.

We have called her Addison Janet, possibly to be known in the future as Addie or AJ, and she is just adorable.

See Gordon's blog for photos: http://www.chicago-usa.blogspot.com/