(no subject)
Liliana Kathryn Bunting was born on October 3, at exactly 37 weeks and 1 day through a horrible, stressful pregnancy. For 36 weeks I tried my hardest to keep her safe, keep her healthy. For 16 weeks, I was able to keep the gestation hypertension from developing into preeclampsia. 16 weeks of stringent dieting, exercise, medication, then bedrest and two hospital stays, and finally at 36 weeks my 6th 24hour urine test came back positive for protein and my blood pressure was over 200/110. They decided to induce me.
Lily had other ideas. When we got to the hospital I was already 2.5cm dilated. They decided to hold off on induction to see what I would do. Labor started on its own around noon, they gave me an epidural because my blood pressure was so high they didn't want to risk the pain. So far the only issue was that my little girl squirmed so much she wouldn't stay on the monitor.
At 1:00, John left to go get some lunch. They told us it would be several hours before she was born. I was drugged and couldn't feel a thing, I started dozing. The next thing I knew there were two doctors and three nurses in my room. I had progressed to 4cm and her heart rate kept dropping below 90. They asked where John was, I told them he had left and they said to call him back ASAP. The doctor went and got my cell phone out of my purse for me and told me to get him in here fast. I called him and my mom, I didnt know what was going on. They stayed in the room until he got back, checking her heart rate. It would go up to 130, then back to 80 for a bit .... they didn't know what was going on either. John came back and they told us her heart rate was dropping and they recommended a c-section.
I didn't want a c-section. I wanted to have my baby. I wanted to hold my baby. I wanted to have one damn thing go right. But then as we were talking about it her heart rate dropped to 60 and I knew her being alive was more important than how she was born. This time it didn't jump back up. Suddenly there were a million people in the room and they grabbed the bed and started booking it to the OR. The anastesiologist was in the elevator with me doing pin-pricks, they didnt even move me from the hospital bed. We got down to the OR and they strapped my arms down. John wasn't there yet, I couldn't stop crying. They kept telling me everything was OK and they'd have her out in 20 minutes, she'd be fine. My bottom half was numb, my top half was strapped to the table, everyone was talking at me and around me and this beeping alarm kept going off.
They cut me open. It hurt. John came in and there was a nurse standing next to me explaining what was happening. I felt them pull her out of me, but there was no cry. I kept listening, but nothing. I kept asking why she wasn't crying, John told me just to wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. He looked over the barrier, she was blue. It was an eternity of silence before she started to cry, and then it was just this tiny pathetic little whimper and little breathy gasps. But there was noise. I wanted to see her, but they wouldn't let me. They cleaned her off, they took their time. When they finally brought her over I couldn't touch her, I was strapped down. I turned my head and got a glance, they took a picture, and she was gone. I told John to go with her, whatever he did he had to stay with her. He left, and then I was alone.
My blood pressure was too high. I lost a lot of blood. The c-section took another 2 hours, and then they put me in the recovery room and wouldn't let me go until my blood pressure came down. Lily was born at 2:53, and I didn't see her again until almost 7PM. I didn't see anyone. I was alone. Later my mom told me that she had offered to stay with the baby and let John come see me, but he told her I'd kill him if he showed up there without her. This is why I love him. He knows. They took her to the nursery and she met Wynnie and my mom and Chelsea and John's mom and stepdad, and dad and stepmom, everyone got to see her. They all came and left again.
They finally wheeled me back up to my room. Four hours after my baby was born, I got to hold her for the first time. Everything I didn't want, everything I was afraid of happening, it was living through a nightmare. The only bright side was that she made it through. She was fine. She was perfect.
Except. Except there is no perfect. Because she was so early, because I failed so miserable at carrying her, that she didn't have time for her brain to develop fully, and that suck-swallow-breathe reflex that babies are supposed to be born with didn't have time to imprint. They kept me on an IV of magnesium sulfate because my blood pressure was so high, I was stuck in the bed from the c-section, I couldn't move. My baby was crying, but she couldn't nurse. We tried, and tried again. All through the night we tried, until the nurse finally gave her some formula from syringe to calm her. We tried again.
I was in the hospital for three days, and Lily never nursed. Sugar water, formula, nipple shields .... she got formula from an SNS system. She would scream herself hysterical. They told me it would get better when my milk came in ... whenever that would be. We went home. I pumped colostrum, but only a few mLs at a time, not enough to sustain her. On Wednesday night at around 4am, as she screamed hysterically, I sent John out to get some formula. She ate, then she slept. She was quiet.
Thursday we had her first doctor's appointment. My milk still hadn't come in, she wouldn't latch to feed, I pumped every 2 hours but nothing came out. She lost 12 ounces. My 6lb 3oz baby was now only 5.5lbs. The pediatrician got a sample formula bottle and fed her right there in the office. On the way home I sat in the back seat with her and just cried. It seems like that's all I've been doing. I failed at carrying her safely, I failed at giving birth, and now I was failing at breastfeeding. Everything I wanted for this pregnancy, this birth, this baby, the opposite seemed bound to happen. All my ideas on what makes a good mother and a healthy baby were adding up to nothing but failure. Breast really ISN'T best, what's best is not starving your child.
Lily slept constantly the first few days. She never seemed hungry, so I didn't wake her up to eat. I called the lactation hotline for my hospital and we went in for another consult. They told me that she was sleeping so much because she didn't have the energy to be awake. She was burning all her fat reserves, just trying to stay alive - there was no energy left for consciousness.
A week after she was born, my milk finally came in. I pumped and bottle-fed, but it still wasn't enough. I needed the formula. At least she had enough energy now to open her eyes and have wet diapers. She got stronger, strong enough to breastfeed with a nipple shield - but her latch was too shallow. With the formula, Lily gained back the weight she had lost, but today at her two week appointment she hadn't put on any weight. She's still an ounce shy of her birth weight.
I always thought motherhood was supposed to be natural. Natural delivery was healthier than a csection, breastfed babies were healthier than artificial formula. A woman who worked hard enough and cared about her child would breastfeed. I looked down with disdain at mothers who scheduled csections or bought formula as women who didnt care enough about their babies to do what was best for them. But I have to let all of that go. I cried my way through her birth, and I can only remember it now as living through a nightmare. But that was how my baby needed to enter the world. It was the happiest day of my life because it brought her to me, it shouldnt matter how she got here. I have to let go of my expectations and the standards i had for myself as a mother before this began. And how silly to be worried about breast of bottle-fed, when faced with the reality of is my baby FED? does she have enough energy to grow? to have a dirty diaper? to wake up?
some people get to have the ideal brith experience. they never have to deal with the realities of infertility or high risk pregnancy, fetal distress, failure to thrive. All of these terms have been applied to Lily and I at one point or another. What's important, what's really, TRULY important, and I need to write this down and tell it to myself every.single.day., is that she's here, she's healthy, she's happy. She's my miracle. The rest? The rest is just details. And I have a choice. I can cry my way through raising her, just as I did through her birth - or I can let it all go, and celebrate her life.
I know what I have to do. Besides - I think she's getting tired of my tears dripping on her perfect little mis-shapen head. :D