We’re almost five months in with baby number two and it’s incredible how familiar yet different the journey is when you’re doing it for the second time. There’s more confidence in basics like breastfeeding, diapering, sleep, and understanding cries but it’s also a new baby with a new personality. This post is sharing everything we’ve been using so you can know what you need to survive with a newborn baby.
14 months ago, my son was born and things did not go to plan. I was prepared for a natural birth but I got too tired to fight against the interventions being thrown at me for not progressing quickly after only having been at the hospital for a few hours. Things went downhill and I ended up with an unwanted c-section. Recovering from major surgery (people seem to forget that it’s major surgery) while dealing with hormones and a newborn is difficult but the repercussions from a c-section don’t end after a few months. Here I am, over one year later, with my postpartum update and I want to share how things are going for me, physically AND mentally.
Today I’m sharing my birth story! My sweet baby Henry is now 6 weeks old and though I wanted to post this sooner, the mixed emotions of writing this and caring for a newborn made it a longer process. It was hard, but I’m glad to have this big life moment written down for memory sake.
Having a baby was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. This birth story is long and emotional for me since a birth plan gone wrong left me feeling guilty and full of grief. Some may read my experience and say, “Be grateful it wasn’t worse” or, “It wasn’t as bad as you make it out to be”… but this is my story, my experience, and when failed expectations meet postpartum hormones, there’s bound to be significant disappointment. Even though it was a rough beginning, I am so blessed to have a happy and healthy son.
During the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, I started experiencing light contractions that continued to grow in intensity. Monday, August 13th I woke up to a different kind of contraction but I’d already learned not to get my hopes up. These contractions continued throughout the day about 1-3 times an hour. Brady arrived home from work around 6:30 and while we were eating dinner, I knew that the contractions were becoming something more. I lost my mucus plug and had my first bloody show (sorry for TMI but this is a birth story!) before we got in bed around 9:30 PM. I made the call to skip my heparin shot since I wasn’t supposed to take it once I went into labor and it seemed as though I was. By bedtime, my contractions were a minute long and 5-10 minutes apart. They weren’t intense but I was only able to get 2-3 hours of iffy sleep in the middle of the night.
39 weeks and 6 days today and tomorrow is the baby’s original due date! I’m seriously hoping this is the last update I need to post because isn’t it the wish of every pregnant person to be done at this point! The last few weeks have been slightly nerve wracking since I’ve been dealing with precursor symptoms for preeclampsia including one pretty high blood pressure reading that almost sent me to the hospital. Luckily for me, things have settled down and it’s not as big of a concern right now though it’s still being monitored. I was nervous because for a while my OB was strongly suggesting an induction which is not my preference as long as myself and the baby are doing ok.
Otherwise things are headed the pretty typical route – I’m exhausted, swollen, and so so ready to meet my baby boy.
At 40 weeks, baby is now 20.2 inches, about the size of a pumpkin and weighs around 7.6 pounds. The OB did a rough estimate at my appointment on Friday about what she thinks his size will be and she’s guessing that he’s about 6-6.5 pounds so we’re excited to see once he’s here!
We are officially past the point where, if I went into labor, I’m no longer “pre-term” but “early-term”! It feels so real that this baby could come at any time and that feeling grew exponentially after our hospital visit a week ago…
Wednesday night was our final prenatal class out of the 4 free classes offered with our insurance. We’d done the others within the same building where Brady works so that had been really convenient. This last class wasn’t available at any close by locations so we signed up to take it in DC. It was a pain to get to because DC is the worst but the facility was nice and the class was helpful to an extent. This class focused on labor and delivery but didn’t offer any hands on training and was very much geared towards those expecting a typical hospital birth and not planning to go natural.
I meant to post last week with my 34 week update but with my pregnancy brain, I forgot my password and locked myself out of my blog… lol. Oops. I’ve been starting to accidentally add weeks to my pregnancy – I keep thinking I’m 37 weeks and after enough times of realizing that wasn’t true, I’ve apparently mentally adopted 36 weeks as how far along I am. SO here we are today with my 35 week update and man, oh man, is it feeling real that this could happen at any time. Last week I looked at Brady as we were getting ready for bed and said, “Our baby is due next month”. I wish I had filmed his reaction because it starts with the “wow, that’s crazy and I’m excited” face that turns into the – “crap, that’s like no time to get everything done” face!
We’re both feeling the stress at the moment as we’ve been working really hard (mostly Brady) to finish painting the rooms that are getting new carpet installed tomorrow! Home projects are extremely time consuming but thankfully we’ve had so much help over the last couple months and weeks especially. I love the color that got painted in the nursery and I can’t wait to share photos once we’ve built the furniture and put the room together!
One of the things that I’ve been terrible with this pregnancy is taking belly photos. It’s something I’ve wanted to do because it’s exciting to see the progression… but I keep forgetting, or not feeling in the mood to have photos taken so I am a bit disappointed in myself. Here’s my belly saying goodbye to the old orange carpet.