Mommy Glasses

Motherhood, specifically being a mommy to a newborn (since that is what my experience is limited to) means trading in heels for socks, and skirts for sweatpants.  It often means settling for a brush instead of a shower and cold cream of wheat for breakfast.  It means working for a boss who will be the most demanding of your entire life.  He/She will screech at you whenever they experience any discomfort.  You will find yourself relishing bathroom breaks as personal time.  Though don't be surprised if your new taskmaster is lurking somewhere nearby during even this most private of times.  Just yesterday I realized how much my life had changed as a bathroom break involved first dragging the swing into the bathroom and then executing my business with a bright eyed infant and curious dog looking on the whole time.

Being a new mom means you will perform your duties while overcoming one of the greatest physical feats your body has ever accomplished.  Forget about resting, there is no time for rest! You will find yourself bending, lifting and squatting all day, despite the physical discomfort of doing so.  Speaking of your body, it will become absolutely unrecognizable to you. 

There are several things I've learned about the postpartum body; First, nature makes up for Aunt Flo's nine month absence in a big way.  Second, bellies do not instantly disappear just because the baby has been birthed.  Last and probably worst of all, hormones rage causing strange and inexplicable fits of crying. For instance crying can be induced when husband cracks a sarcastic joke.  Causing him to stare at you with wide eyes while awkwardly trying to comfort you by patting your shoulder and saying something like, "Aww.... it ok!  Don't be cry!" And wait til you see what breastfeeding has in store for your boobs.

Motherhood has to be one of the least glamorous jobs on earth. In the last month, I have spent every day all day being puked on, pooped on, and screamed at, all on little more than 3 hours of sleep at a time. 

The human race perpetuates itself because for as long as mankind has existed men and women have embarked on this crazy ride called parenthood, often more than once!  After reading the job description one could rightly wonder, how can this be so?  

The answer is, mommy glasses. What are mommy glasses?  Mommy glasses are similar to rose colored glasses only instead of tinting EVERYTHING in the world a shade of rosy bliss they exclusively effect all things related to your infant.  All of the aforementioned terrible sounding job duties of motherhood are suddenly exciting and wonderful. 

A side effect of mommy glasses is a new dizzying capacity to love. If I had to try and describe this feeling I would say, that it feels like someone gathered up everything warm, fuzzy and loving in the entire world smashed them all into a ball and then stuffed all of it into my heart.  Then there are moments like this....

After one of these gummy little smiles it feels like all the love that was stuffed inside my heart has exploded into little pieces of confetti which rush around and fill up every empty space in my entire body.  Sometimes the little pieces of love fill me up so much that they come flowing out, most of the time in a giant smile but sometimes the overflow is a little more.......watery. 

(classic "mommy glasses" induced overreaction to a cute baby smile)

Mommy glasses cause everything you do for your baby to be an act of love.   Every middle of the night feeding, every diaper change, every load of laundry you do out of love.  Normal people are disgusted by baby's various bodily functions but mommy glasses cause you to cheer your baby when after hours of grunting she finally manages a toot.

Without mommy glasses the human race would cease to exist.  Without them there would be no payoff for parenthood.  I have found that my own pair of mommy glasses have made every single one of Kylea's accomplishments absolutely the most exciting thing in the world.

Like when Kylea discovered she has hands.  Promptly after this discovery she discovered they make an excellent pacifier.

look I have hands!  And they're delicious!!!  

Or the day she discovered the mobile in her swing and then enjoyed 30 min of playtime in her baby gym.

The list goes on including things like the satisfaction I get when she looks into my face with a look of recognition, snugly nap time, singing her songs to get her sleepy, listening to her happy squeals and little giggles.  To me, she is absolutely the most perfect little baby there has ever been.  And I think that's just the way God intended it to be.

this is Kylea getting burped....no wobbly newborn head here!

p.s.
Daddy's have their own form of mommy glasses too.

Coombs Positive

When the doctor said our baby was Coombs Positive I had no idea what that meant.  She delivered the news with such a solemn expression that my heart leapt into my throat as I imagined all the terrible things this could mean for our family.  

As I held my 12 hr old infant in the hospital bed the pediatrician explained that it is a type of jaundice.  I could feel my anxiety level drop as I thought, "Oh jaundice?!  What's with the solemn expression?  Davey had that, we'll just stick her on a blanket in the sunshine a couple times a day."  As the doctor continued her explanation I began to understand her expression.  Apparently there are several types of jaundice and that Kylea has a somewhat rarer and more serious kind caused by a blood type incompatibility. 

Blood cells have multiple kinds of proteins about them, which make them unique there are two types of proteins which most people are familiar with the RH factor (which makes your blood positive or negative) and the ABO type.  Kevin has positive blood and mine is negative so I was given a Rogam shot during pregnancy and after delivery to protect both Kylea and a future baby from an immune response that attacks foreign bodies (leading to miscarriage) so the RH factor wasn’t the issue.  The problem was that Kylea’s blood is type A and mine is type O and apparently type O blood doesn’t mix well with type A or B. 

During delivery there was some cross over between baby's and my blood.  Since our blood types are incompatible all of my blood cells died in her body and became waste that her tiny body is now responsible to get rid of. As an added bonus the fact that our blood cells are incompatible causes some of Kylea’s own blood cells to also die and add to the waste that she must get rid of.  This waste backs up in the liver and when the liver is backed up bilirubin levels rise.  This rise can happen very quickly in Coombs positive babies and so immediate action is taken.

So my brand new chubby little angel was taken away to spend the majority of her day under lights specially designed to break down bilirubin. 

There is no doubt that I was much more emotional after delivering Kylea (a fact which my midwife had warned me of) so being separated from my first born and seeing her with her eyes covered all alone in the nursery whimpering was more than I could handle.  I broke down into teary sobs right in the middle of the nursery.  The nurses looked at me like I was high on drugs (rightly so) and said, "you know this isn't life threatening."  Of course I knew that, but everything is much more tragic when you're hopped up on post pregnancy hormones.

After a lot of coaxing the pediatrician prescribed us some billi lights so we could take our little bug home and continue treatment on our own.  We were ecstatic! To make sure that Kylea was getting the best home treatment possible we were sent home with the "billi suitcase" which looks like this

And the wallaby, which fit into the bottom of the suit case so that she could get lights on her back as well.  The wallaby looks like this.

All put together the set up looks like this.  

I don't know about you but watching your tiny baby from across the room for the first 2.5 weeks of her life is not exactly the way I envisioned bringing home my first baby.  Probably the most difficult part of the whole deal was that we were instructed to leave her in there all day except for when she was eating and to NEVER go to sleep or leave her unattended (in case the eye wear came of....which it did more than once) this meant sleeping in shifts and since I am breastfeeding it more fittingly meant no sleep.... ever.

We did get to take her out of the lights for a once daily excursion to the hospital for a heel poke so they could check her bilirubin levels.

putting on heel warmer so she bleeds well when they poke her

Daddy is just as sad about the heel poke as baby is.

The heel pokes got harder and harder for us to do to her as her tiny feet were filled with the scabs and scars of previous pokes.  

So, after a couple weeks of lights (initially they had said one week max), 48 hours on formula (which was enough of an adventure to deserve it's own blog post) and a heel poke a day for the first month of her life we are now FINALLY on the road to recovery.  We are back to breast feeding, off the lights and don't have to get another heel poke until next friday (jumps for joy!)  if the levels are continuing downward at that check then we are officially done with heel pokes!

It's really ironic that I had just been talking about how things don't ever go the way that we plan them but they're good anyway.  The first few weeks have been hard but I think that it's made me all the more grateful for the chance I get to snuggle and hold my little baby now.  It's also given me a greater compassion for people who giv birth to babies who are life threateningly ill, that must be SO hard.  So I'm full of gratitude and love.....that is until I opened the first medical bill, YIKES.

                                           

The Miracle of Life

“Just a few more pushes and you’ll be parents” I felt the sting of tears as the immensity of the moment hit me, I looked up into Kevin’s face, my rock of support during the 15.5 hour long labor and repeated the words with wonder, “we’re going to be parents!”  I will never forget the tears in his eyes as he smiled back and squeezed my hand. 

“Ok, daddy are you ready to receive your daughter?” asked the doctor.  Kevin’s face changed to all business as he gloved up and with one last immense effort from me our daughter was born into her daddy’s arms and placed up on my tummy under a warm receiving blanket. 

Nothing I can think of will ever compare to this moment.

Or this one.

Or this one.

Though the birth didn’t go as I had planned (after 10.5 hours of active labor I asked for an epidural) it was still one of the single greatest experiences of my life.  I will say that the next baby we have will most likely not be born in a hospital environment as it’s not suitable for medicine free birth.  I was managing labor extraordinarily well until I was forced to follow hospital protocols and procedures which meant no food, no mobility and constant paperwork and distractions.  Keeping myself in a deep state of relaxation proved impossible. I kept being forgotten about since the nurses were short staffed that evening and were dealing with several emergencies that night. They would say things like, we need you to hold still for 20 min. while we get this reading and then they wouldn't return to check on me for 3 more hours.  I knew similar situations would continue occurring and on no sleep (my water broke at 12 am) and no food (hospitals only allow ice chips) I didn’t feel in the right state of mind to calmly handle them unmedicated. 

After overcoming my initial grief at not following through with my plans I look back on the birth of my first with nothing but fondness.  Though I was medicated for the last 5 hours, the birth environment was still exactly what I had dreamed, unhurried with only the midwife, one nurse and Kevin present. Following her birth we were allowed to soak in every beautiful moment with our precious little baby.  It was nothing short of one of the most spiritual experiences of my life.  I felt an instant bond with the baby and a new reckless abandon kind of love for my husband.  We’re a family now!

Maureen Hawkins sums my emotions exactly when she says,

“Before you were conceived, I wanted you.

Before you were born, I loved you.

Before you were here an hour, I would die for you.

This is the miracle of love.”

We're blissfully sleep deprived and loving every minute of our new role as parents.  Babies allow us to view the world with a whole new kind of wonder.  The miracle of life, what an honor to be a part of it!