Baby Blues and 2 week update

Her brothers always watch over her. 

I had all kinds of ideas of what it would be like to hold my baby girl and know that I was bringing her home.  I would be so filled with love and joy that nothing else could ever occupy my mind.  I soon realized how wrong I would be, though. The night before discharge, I had a complete breakdown.  I was in a tremendous amount of pain from the c section, which I chalked up to trying to do too much too fast.  I saw my husband in my hospital room, holding Jordan, rocking her to sleep.  I lost it.  I couldn't hold my baby, rock her, burp her, change her... all because of how much pain I was in.  All I could do was feed her, and her daddy did the rest.  I felt like such a failure as a mother.  My baby would cry, and I couldn't even reach out and pick her up from her bassinet.  I realized I had no idea what soothed my baby when she cried, because I could barely sit up in my own bed without assistance.  I started thinking horrible things, like how my baby deserved so much better - she deserved a better mother. 

So I bawled my eyes out, just in time for my nurse to walk in with my pain medication.  She stopped short in her tracks and asked me what was wrong.  I just shook my head and cried.  After a few minutes, I was finally able to tell her I was in pain and that I couldn't take care of my baby.  She sat down on my bed and explained to me how lucky I was that I had my husband there, and that I had just had major surgery and no one expected me to be able to do all of these things that I was crying about. 

I cried harder. I couldn't even blow my damn nose because it hurt my abdomen so much, so I was a wreck. 

So my nurse said she wanted to share something with me that she didn't usually tell people - the other nurses weren't even aware. She told me that she had three sons at home, but her first baby - a boy, was stillborn over 20 years ago.  She shared this with me because she knew about Conner and Benjamin, and she suspected that my pain wasn't just physical - it was psychosomatic. She knew it must have been hard for me to be in the same hospital I had my twins in and subsequently lost them in.  We talked, in the middle of the night, with just the dim light on over my bed.  My husband stood to my right, holding our baby girl, trying not to cry. We talked about how people don't understand how our babies still count and how much we still hurt over our loss, despite the babies we had after our sons. And just like that, this nurse was my friend. I kept wondering how I was supposed to take care of Jordan when I couldn't take care of Conner or Benjamin. I told her how another nurse remarked that she wanted us to have our "happy ending" and to have "closure" and how offended I was that she thought that Jordan being here meant that her brothers never existed. She mentioned that she was glad I told her that; she would have to bring it up at a meeting so that the labor and delivery nurses could go through more training on how to be sensitive about the subject of loss. Through my tears, my pain subsided. She must have been right.  Just talking about the boys helped ease my physical pain.  

Communication.  See what it can do?  We both cried there as we shared our stories and our frustrations over being so misunderstood. We both were so sad that we felt that we couldn't talk about our sons openly to other people because we were afraid of what they might say or think. But we talked to each other, and it was like therapy. And through sharing what I went through the day Jordan was born, maybe nurses will be more sensitive and think twice before saying such hurtful things to mothers who have experienced loss. I have to urge all mothers who have had a loss to open up about it.  It is such a stigma to have lost a child.  It is taboo.  No one wants to address it, so no one knows how to react to it.  It's a vicious cycle that only we can break. 

She said something (among many things) that will stick with me: Jordan is my priority now, but I will always love and remember my sons.  She is right. I can't take care of my boys.  I have to trust that God is doing that for me.  I can do things in remembrance of them and in honor of them, but Jordan has to be my priority now.  It doesn't mean that I love her more than my boys or that I won't always think of my boys.  But I have to take care of my baby girl right now, and part of that means that I have to try to find a way to accept that I cannot take care of Conner and Benjamin. I don't know if I will ever truly accept that, and I will struggle my whole life trusting that they are okay and safe in the arms of Jesus. 

I'll never forget my nurse and how after our talk, she took Jordan up to the nursery for her carseat test.  She picked up my little girl, gave her a kiss on the head, and told her she was going to go to the nursery with Auntie for a little bit. She gave me the biggest hug and kissed my head and we cried together. On her way out, she said she hoped that our boys were all playing together up in heaven.  I said I think they are. We both agreed that the thought of them together made us feel better. She will always be my favorite nurse and I will always think of her when I think of Jordan's birth story. 

I do want to add a little bit of happy in here, too.  I feel better now. At Jordan's last weight check (at 11 days old), she was 5 pounds, 12 ounces - 9 ounces more than her birth weight!  She is growing quickly - she has already outgrown her preemie diapers and we are now using newborn diapers on her.  Also, her newborn outfits that she used to be swimming in (see below for her "take home" outfit) are beginning to fit her... I can't believe it.  I mean, c'mon. She's two weeks old.  How is she outgrowing anything??? But here we are, holding our baby who is noticeably heavier and watching her literally grow everyday.  My doctors weren't kidding - they said once she was born, she would catch up in size quickly.  I feel accomplished, like I am finally doing something right - my baby is thriving, happy, and healthy. 

"Mommy, I look ridiculous"

I am recovering quickly as well.  The nurses at the hospital told me that they knew right away who my OBs were just by looking at my c section incision - they say that my two doctors do the best c sections in the entire hospital.  My incision is paper thin.  I barely notice it.  I stopped taking pain meds at 6 days, only needing them at night because I'm sore from moving all day. I gained a total of 23 pounds in this pregnancy, and the day we were discharged I had already lost 11 pounds.  As of yesterday (day 13), I had lost an additional 4 pounds.  Eight more pounds to go!  And once the swelling subsides completely from the surgery, I should see a bigger difference.  My hips are wider now tough, and I'm still in my beloved yoga pants. Seems like a weird way to end this blog post but Jordan is fussing and mommy needs to pick up her baby :)

Jordan's dramatic, terrifying, no, wonderful, birth story

Written by a sore, bruised, and exhausted mother.  Forgive my horrible story telling and multiple grammatical errors.

Well, I was promised a baby by early afternoon and my doctor delivered (pun intended). I mean, all I had to do was finish what I started. The nurses who saw me and the resident OB explained that "all doctors promise early deliveries" to make moms optimistic. No one expected me to have this baby before dinner. Mmmmhhhhmmmm. They must have not realized who my doctors were. They were always right.

I'll give you the short version of events from 9 am to 12 pm. Picotin - ouch, man. But I remained the girl oblivious to her contractions, weirdly enough until the epidural. My epidural with the boys took like 30 seconds. I didn't feel a thing. I expected similar results this time around. Nope. Nope. Oh my sweet baby Jesus was I wrong. That biotch missed the first time, sending a searing pain down my left leg. Apparently, I have a mild case of scoliosis. Once the epidural worked, my contractions came close together and I really felt them... of course. No epidural, I'm pain free. Epidural, and I'm in pain. The morning was still relatively boring.  We watched a lot of HGTV and made fun of the people who said things like "I only want to spend about 1.2 million on this house."  Screw you.

The nurse checked my progress around noon. She sent this text message to my OB: "complete and plus 3. Get here ASAP." And, no kidding, I swear my doctor made his way into the room about 5 minutes later.  I joked that he must have been down the street at Portillo's getting food. My nurse joked that she had to eat her words.  I was, in fact, having this baby by early afternoon.

Anyway, so I pushed. Labor went quickly. Baby moved quickly. And then her heart rate dropped. No big deal, it happens sometimes. She was still in a healthy range for her heart rate.

We took a break and let the picotin work a little more, since my contractions were getting milder.

Pushed some more. And her heart rate dropped some more. They think that her umbilical cord must have been getting compressed every time I pushed. I couldn't watch, and yet I couldn't look away from the monitors.  80.. 70... 50.... and then it dropped more...

My OB: "I don't like this. You've come too far...."  I knew what that meant. We have come too far to lose this baby now.  Cue the waterworks. Over to the OR we go. I think I started crying as they handed Tim blue scrubs and told him to grab the camera. They wheeled me out in a hurry, telling him that someone would take him there when they were ready for him. I think he kissed my forehead goodbye and told me not to worry. I asked the nurse how fast we could get this baby out.  Fast, she assured me. I was worried I wouldn't see my daughter alive.

Earlier, my nurse told me to stop watching her vitals (this is my baby lady, let me watch her heart rate).  She said to let them worry about it, and if something bad happened then a team of 15 people would come running into the room - and then I would have the right to worry. So when they wheeled me into the OR for the emergency c-section and I saw a team of about 15 people, my heart rate skyrocketed (enough for them to move the monitors out of the way so that I wouldn't watch them). I remember asking them if I would feel anything. My OB assured me all I would feel was pressure.  I had a new, nicer, anesthesiologist. The draped the blue sheet over me so I couldn't see, did a "test" to make sure I didn't feel pain, grabbed Tim from the hallway, and soon we were on our way to meeting our little girl. A few minutes later...

"Here comes baby!" Seriously, already?

"Its a girl! That's what they ordered!" Duh.

Then... "She has a ton of hair!" followed by me smiling and screaming, "she does?!" Just what I wanted. Then came her little whine, followed by her strong and steady cry. I bawled my eyes out when I heard her.  She was breathing. I have never head any of my children cry up until that point.

"Is she okay?"

"I think so.... she's pink!" My OB said.

She came to me, perfectly tiny, a miniature version of me and a big bundle of love. She was crying and clearly annoyed by the team of people who pulled her from her home. But then I said hi to her, and she instantly calmed down. She knew my voice. She knew me. They laid her on my chest and she practically army crawled to my breast and started nursing (and I have the pictures to prove it!). Later,  a nurse would tell me that my milk coming in early was a gift from my boys; milk arrives earlier in second and subsequent pregnancies.

We named her Jordan Breanne the minute we saw her.  I still wasn't sure about her name, but this had the most meaning to us.  Tim and I picked out three baby names years and years ago, when we first started dating: Conner, Parker, and Jordan.  Jordan was our name for a girl.  We both said we wanted a unisex name for a girl, and we both said "I like Jordan" at the same time.  So we have had this name on reserve for quite awhile. Breanne has even more meaning to us - it is made up of letters from Benjamin and Conner's names.  She was almost Jordan Cameron, but I couldn't give her two unisex names.  That would be cruel - no one would be able to look at her name and tell whether or not she was a girl or a boy. She was almost Charlotte Jordan - but the popularity of Charlotte made me back away from it.

My OB joked that he was getting a workout stitching me back up - my abdominal muscles were tight and I was in good shape. Great, I thought - because I'm planning on taking my baby to the Caribbean in about 7 months! Apparently, in my heart, I knew she was okay.

After skin to skin, they took her to the nursery with Tim close behind. I'm not even sure if we said goodbye to each other - we were too wrapped up in the fact that there was a team of people around our baby and she was being put into an isolette. I didn't see my baby girl for three hours after that.

February is a slow month for babies and births, we were explained. Except this year the nursery exploded and there were not enough rooms for the mothers. I kinda wonder what happened 9 months ago that everyone was having babies all of a sudden. So I lingered around in post-op until my nurse, after multiple phone calls, yelling at people that they couldn't separate mother and baby, etc., they finally got me a room. But then they didn't clean the room and we had to wait more.  I cried by myself in my hospital bed, waiting for my baby or for any news on her progress. Well, that's after they gave me some drugs to control the violent shaking I was experiencing as a side effect of I totally forgot what drug. Tim finally came to see me, big smile on his face and a camera loaded with pictures.  I missed her first bath.  I missed her being put into a regular bassinet.  I missed her grabbing her daddy's hand, her footprints being placed into her two Bibles, and three hours of her life. He told me she weight 5 pounds, 3 ounces.  I couldn't believe it.  I had so badly wanted her to be at least 5 pounds, and here she was - a tiny bundle, but she had surpassed our expectations. She only needed one supplement in the nursery to help her gain weight, and then they gave us the all clear to solely breastfeed (my heart did a little happy dance at this news). My nurse pulled us a solid and they brought me my Jordan Breanne in post-op until we could be wheeled into our room together.

I can't describe the relief I felt to hold my baby again. She gave us quite a scare, that little one.  My other OB checked on me the next day and he told me that he wasn't surprised - she gave us so many scares, it only made sense to give us one more. I know that I will be scared everyday for the rest of my life for her, and I will do everything I can to protect her.

We spent the next few days in the hospital, snuggling up with our baby girl and memorizing the traits of her face, her hands, her (giant) feet. She is a good baby - she doesn't cry much and is soothed easily (usually). It took miles and mountains to get to where we are now, but we have our baby girl, safe and sound. Our church had a round of applause the day we brought her home. Thank you, God. Thank you, Conner. Thank you, Benjamin.

Special Delivery! Jordan's Dating Profile

Name: Jordan Breanne (story behind the name for another day)

Nicknames: Nugs (short for nugget... as in chicken nugget. And not just any chicken nugget... the MCnugget), eggroll, peanut, munchkin (I see a food name trend....)

Height: 18.5 inches

Weight: 5 pounds, 3 ounces

Eye color: deep deep bluish grey (for now)

Hair color: dark brown with blonde highlights. That's right boys, blonde and brunette (daddy is demanding I take that last part out, but I will not).

Likes: chewing on shirt sleeves (her own), being a baby eggroll (Asian version of baby burrito), bathtime, and being read to

Dislikes: diaper changes, a room full of people, hat adjustments, being naked (she is so modest)

Accomplishments: apgar 9 and breastfeeding champ (practically army crawled to the boob right after birth). Also, rolling over from side to side (which mommy missed)

Favorite traits in men: strong arms to burp her

Favorite places: laying on the warm beaches of mommy's boobs and hanging out on daddy's shoulder. Definitely not alone in the bassinet.

Short term plans: passing the car seat challenge (later today!), differentiate between night and day, gain some weight, and eventually explore solid food choices

Long term plans: going mobile and choosing own headbands (she is not so sure what else there could be in life)

Meet Jordan Breanne

Born at 1:52, screaming with a full head of hair. 5 pounds, 3 ounces and 18.5 inches.  Baby girl is doing well :)

You're about to be big brothers...

x2, little girl :)

Dear Conner and Benjamin,

We are just days away from delivering your little sister.  I can't quite wrap my head around it.  In many ways, I feel like a new mother but I know that I am far from it.  I will now have the challenge of being a mother to two children in heaven and one on earth. How can this be?  How did this happen to our family?  The other night, your dad was putting some finishing touches on the nursery. He was playing "Godspeed, Sweet Dreams" - our song for you. I walked in to him crying, and I didn't have any words for him.  All I could do was hug him. You both make our family complete, but at the same time it feels so broken without you here on earth.

Last night, I tried looking for "I'm a big brother" book to read to you.  I couldn't get myself to purchase any of them.  They were all about how big brothers could help feed and play with the baby. You can't do any of those things.  Your sister will never get the privilege of having her big brothers help her with her homework, show her how to play with legos, or even endure the constant teasing I'm sure she would get because she was the only girl. She has two older brothers, but in many ways she will be an only child.  I fear how people will react when they ask if she has any brothers or sisters.  I also fear how she will answer the question. I hope that she embraces you as part of the family just as your father and I do.  I truly believe that she will.

I have to remind myself that although she doesn't have her big brothers here to look after her, chase away her boyfriends, and be uncles to her future children, she does have two guardian angels.  I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for your little sister.  So many things have been thrown our way in this pregnancy, and each time I have asked you to look after your sister, you have always made sure she was safe. She has something that other children do not - two blessings from heaven, two angels watching over her, two brothers guiding her through life.

Your little sister may take up a lot of our time, especially in the coming weeks.  I promise to still read to you at night, and maybe when she is old enough, she will start to read to you, too. You will always be my first borns. You will always be my sons, my babies. You are never replaced, never forgotten. We will forever be grateful for you.  We are a family of five, not of three.

Well, six, if you count Miranda.

Love,
Mom

Happy birthday, blog! And Baby C's induction date!

via Google

Today, sitting at my doctor's office strapped to the monitors, I was thinking that my blog has been around about a year.  I checked my blog, and it has been EXACTLY one year since I started writing.

In the past year, this blog has had 50,743 page views (and that's even with months of this blog being private!). Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone following my journey.  You remember my boys with me, and that gives my heart great joy.  I started writing so that I would never forget the time I had with my sons and all the ways we tried to do good in their names. While writing, I have been blessed to reach out to other baby loss mothers.  People have commented on my blog and I have received many private emails from women sharing their stories.  Please know that every single one of your stories and every single one of your babies has touched my heart.  Everyone who has given their support to me, my family, my boys, and my daughter through this blog has my deepest gratitude.

Baby C's induction date is Thursday, February 12th.  She will be 37 weeks exactly - full term :)  I cannot wait to introduce my little nugget to all of you.

36 weeks!!! Maternity pictures included :)

Yes, I am still pregnant!  Sorry I have been so horrible at posting updates.  I have been going crazy getting ready for Baby C.  Going into labor was a huge sign that well, maybe I should get that nursery done and get my hospital bags packed (note: bags are packed, nursery not done as of 2/5/15).  Plus, two nights ago our basement flooded (thank you, snowstorm of 2015).  Our flooring is torn up, a wall is knocked down, and all the stuff down there is now relocated to our main floor. So all my obsessive cleaning and nesting has gone to shit.

What else have I been up to?  Conner and Ben's story was posted on Faces of Loss.  You can check it out here. I hope their story, my story, can help other mothers know that they are not alone.

I applied for Summer 2015 graduation from grad school.  I am currently in the middle of writing my thesis that is focused on the bereavement patterns of mothers who have lost their babies.

Also, we got our maternity pictures back!  These were taken just two days before I went into labor.

And, of course, Baby C 's weekly update:

How far along? 36 weeks!!!  I can't believe we are here.  Everytime I go to the OB, the nurses all laugh in disbelief that I am there.  My OB took one look at me, shook his head and laughed, and said he was "floored" that I was still pregnant and he had no explanation for my labor stopping when it did.  I do, though - that's Conner and Ben looking out for their sister, and that is the immense support group we have had through our family, friends, The Bump, and of course you ladies praying like crazy!  No medical explanation, but I think this is even better.
What's happening with  baby? She seems to be totally oblivious to the fact that she almost made her appearance last week. She's getting bigger, stronger, and prepping for the "real world."  We did have her growth scan the day after I was discharged.  Not surprisingly, her growth has slowed again - drastically.  I am really hoping we get her out before something goes wrong with her placenta or umbilical cord.
Total weight gain: Well, the "clears" diet in the hospital made me lose weight, but I have gained it back.  But that pretty much means that I'm status quo in my weight gain - I think I'm only up about 22 or 23 pounds. It's all in my belly and I feel like I am going to tip over.
Maternity clothes?  Hell yes. And at this point, my maternity underwear is tight.  My husband suggests not wearing any.
Stretch marks? NOPE!!!!  I thought I did for awhile but turns out they were just scratch marks.  I'm looking forward to working out and putting my non-pregnant body into a bikini this summer.
Sleep: Barenaked Ladies "Who Needs Sleep" just played in my head. Haha, remember them?!
Miss Anything?  Being able to get out of bed without assistance, rolling, grunting, and excessive breathing.
Difficulties this week: Being terrified of my water breaking at home.  It usually breaks at the end of the 1st stage of labor - which is exactly when my labor ended at the hospital.  So my doctors have warned me of that.  Luckily, the FD has said that they will send the ambulance for me if I need it (and they'll even take me to MY hospital, which they never drive to). Gotta love those guys.
Movement: It's getting crowded in my uterus!  Baby girl is moving for sure, but more rolling and adjusting herself than kicks and punches.
Food cravings/aversions:  Aversions, ha. Feed me. Last night we went for a 10 pm Taco Bell run.  We almost didn't, but then remembered that in a week we won't be able to just spontaneously go to Taco Bell at night so we better take advantage while we can!
Symptoms: The swelling in my face - ugh. Chubby cheeks.
Looking forward to: I think everyone knows the answer to this question :) Tomorrow, we get our induction date!  My OB believes that we will induce next Friday the 13th.  To quote Michael from The Office: