@VeryKatie I fully agree with you that this is a huge piece of missing information! I was really horny 2-3 weeks post-partum but absolutely not physically ready to get back at it. At 8 months PP, it is just now at a point where it isn't painful most of the time. My libido right now is very much tied to my energy level; I have to be very well rested to have any interest and the second I get tired it's hands off.

Here is a rambling, not well edited birth story. The first two weeks have been hard, very hard. I've been to the ER twice, for severe constipation (thanks Percocet!) and then my blood pressure skyrocketing to 175/110 (Ibuprofen was the culprit). We've had a couple extra weight checks for Andrena as she's not yet gaining--which has me super frustrated. Really hoping we get a gain on Tuesday after some good eating all weekend or I'm going to be a emotional wreck. I've already had a few breakdowns stressing about why she isn't gaining, what I'm doing wrong, etc. She's a very clingy baby, so it's been even harder in that especially at night it's nearly impossible to get her down to sleep--we seem to fight it from 10-3am before I give up and let her sleep on my chest in the recliner just so we all get a couple hours of rest.

So, here is what I can recall/remember from labor:

I had my last OB visit on Friday, May 12th. I was 4cm and 80% effaced—progressing about 1cm/week. The doctor made a comment that she would be surprised if I made it to Mother’s Day. I pretty well brushed off the comment to avoid getting my hopes up but at the same time decided I better head back to work for the evening to get finish cleaning up the office and doing a few last minute projects. At this point I still hadn’t even felt any Braxton-Hicks or contractions. I worked from 5pm-8pm in the office and looking back I guess my only spurt of “nesting” I did was cleaning my office and not my house!

I had significant bleeding after my cervical check at the appointment but by evening it tailed off and turned into brown spotting. The next morning I had what I’m guessing was blood and my mucous plug breaking up. There was quite a bit of bloody mucous all morning. By 7am or so I was finally thinking maybe I was feeling contractions and started timing them. I sat about 60 seconds long and 5 minutes apart for an hour before calling the hospital, after speaking to them and not feeling they were super intense yet, I stayed home for another 2 hours—they slowed down for a while before becoming consistent again. I finally checked into the hospital at 10:45 am, meanwhile my mom’s airplane landed at 11:00 am and Marlin’s cousin was thankfully able to pick her up and bring her to the hospital.
Upon checking in I was 6cm and things seemed to be going very well. I labored a couple more hours without any pain medication as the intensity picked up. I was a bit frustrated as they decided to want continuous monitoring on baby’s heartrate and the external monitors were not staying put to allow me move at all, despite wireless set-up. My doctor gave me the option of breaking my water to put the electrode monitor into her scalp, which would give us better monitoring ability and mobility. But, I opted to wait it out as I didn’t want to artificially break my water quite yet—but not 5 minutes after the doctor left the room, they broke on their own. So, to gain a bit more mobility I had they attach the scalp monitor to baby. They nurse tried to attach it and was unsuccessful, eventually the doctor had to come and do it. Once we saw all her hair after she was born, it made sense as to why it was hard to get it attached!

After my water broke the intensity of labor picked up and I requested Nitrous Oxide. It was a bit awkward to get used to but once I got the hang of it I was ready to marry that darn gas mask! I alternated between laboring on my feet, leaning over the raised bed and then eventually in a rocking chair once I was exhausted from standing and rocking. I completely zoned out—I could hear my mom and such chatting away on the other side of the room but was in my own world as contractions moved 2-3 minutes apart. They were wanting to check my blood sugar every two hours along the way and sometime in the last hour or so before we moved back to the bed for a cervical check a poor nurse asked me if I could stop rocking so she could check it, I said no…I think she eventually got it despite the motion—I didn’t really care at that point. As the labor got more intense I noticed myself not taking breaks from the gas as often and the breaks I took were shorter. I kind of knew I needed more breaks but kept doing what was working—until they got concerned about baby’s heartrate shooting up. I’d been in pretty intense labor for 3-4 hours at that point and they took away the Nitrous Oxide and had me transfer back to the bed to my left side with the oxygen mask trying to get baby back to safe spot. She responded to the oxygen but both the physical and mental toll of losing my pain management tool took me out of a strong spot mentally FAST. I could not focus and struggled, cursed and fought through the very intense contractions. The nurses, thinking I had to be super close to pushing kind of pushed off my epidural requests and delayed them until the doctor finally came by to check progress. In all the 6 hours or so since my last check I’d only progressed to 7-8cm—I was very frustrated and disappointed and insisted on the epidural at that point. I was exhausted and spent, very much ready for relief in hopes that if I wasn’t fighting my body any more I would relax and finish progressing to 10cm while resting a bit.

I think I got the epidural around 8pm. My husband left to go do chores at the farm real quick while I tried to sleep. At 11 or so the doctor checked again and I was still at 8cm and baby’s heartrate was shooting up again and positioning and oxygen was not bringing her back down. Her heartrate was staying up over 200. That’s when they started talking about the c-section would be the best route—which was what I wanted to 100% avoid. I am not sure how long it took me to come around to their persuasion, I know it was many tears and lots of headshaking no. But, I think I also knew at that point things just weren’t happening on their own and making the decision sooner rather than later made it less of an emergency.

Things moved quickly but not as quick as I expected once I agreed, which I appreciated as it wasn’t stressful and didn’t feel dire. They came back and increased the epidural for the c-section, I signed all the paperwork, my hubby got scrubs on and we made our way to the OR around midnight.

They did a great job on the epidural, I hardly felt any of the tugging and pushing on me as the delivered baby. I also have had no backache or headaches associated with it after the fact either. She came out screaming and fighting, I remember hearing the doctors saying she was pretty big, but then were surprised that she was 8lbs 6.5oz and not bigger. Her flailing around pissed off must have made her seem bigger than she was! Within moments and after a quick check they had her swaddled and on my chest. They allowed Marlin to take photos of her ASAP and so he was able to have photos texted to my mom was downstairs waiting within 2 minutes of her birth---then the nurses also snapped photos with Marlin’s cell phone of the 3 of us as they were sewing me up and I was holding baby the best I could on my chest.

Since she was so healthy we were headed back to my room in Labor and Delivery within 45 minutes to recover, get skin-to-skin time in and breastfeed. It was 4am before she’d finished eating so all said and done I was running about 24 hours without sleep. Between adrenaline, nurses, blood pressure cuff etc I never did get to sleep that night/morning. By the afternoon the next day I let my mom take baby to the nursery, Marlin went home to get a nap and I finally got 2 hours of sleep. If I could have went home then I would have—I was over it. I hate the hospital and it was worse than expected since I was tied to the bed with a catheter and IVs for 24 hours. I was miserable, sweating like crazy and just plain over it all.

I am maybe feeling a bit more human, for today at least. We are headed back for another weight check tomorrow. At our appointment on Friday she'd gained 2 oz in 3 days but they still wanted to do a blood draw to make sure nothing else was going on and sent me to a lactation consultant on Sunday. The blood draw came back fine and she'd gained another ounce on Sunday. So she was 7lbs 11oz then, so I'm really hoping she'll be about 8 pounds tomorrow.

Our meeting with lactation consultant was fine--about the only issue was that she was a smidge short of the amount they hoped she'd transfer. So I've been trying to pump a couple times a day for extra stimulation and started taking Fenugreek. It seems it's starting to increase my supply. Hopefully they'll keep letting us work at it as long as we're making progress--if we're not making progress still I'll be pretty deflated.

I've already decided if they want us to do more intensive pumping, feeding, ect I will just supplement with formula and give up the fight as I can't enjoy any of it if we add in that much more stress.

Today has been ridiculous. I hope it's just a growth spurt and not a reflection of me not meeting her needs, but she nursed 9:30am-5:30pm pretty well constantly. The most break I could get was 15 minutes if she dozed off or if I handed her to Marlin to hold while I used to bathroom---and she would scream the whole time. Finally she slept 6-8pm before an 8-10pm session...I just gave her the 1oz from the only pumping I could do today and she's still screaming. At this point I would take any sleep I can get, my body aches from sitting all day and I'm crying as much as she is as from the exhaustion and frustration. Despite trying to exclusively breastfeed I'm pretty sure I'm gaining weight from eating what ever is fastest before she starts screaming again and not being able to move from the couch all day. I'm losing my mind.

Welp, baby decided to come early. 7-7-18 at 7lbs 4 oz. I'll post more when I'm not so worn out. Recovery is gonna take a bit, and not much sleep is happening. we're still getting used to each other. ha.

Congrats @Alioth! Can't wait to here more!

@Alioth congrats!!! Can’t wait to hear more. Take care of yourself and I hope you recover very quickly!

Ok, so here's how things went down. Friday I felt very tired and grumpy and wanted to sleep all day. I went to my regular midwife appointment and learned my intense "Braxton Hicks" contractions were actually the real deal because of the back pain they were giving me. And hopefully, I was dilating a bit. But that still could be 2 weeks before labor actually started, because they were very intermittent.

I went home, took a nap, got up and my water broke in the restroom. Then I started having mild period cramps. I didn't think anything of it, and wasn't sure if my water had really broken or not. Josh and I went out to the Mexican restaurant and met friends there. At the restaurant I realized I was spotting, and the cramps became serious. I contacted my mom and the midwife who asked me to come in. Josh packed the car. We stopped at the grocery store and by the time we drove up to the birth center, it was about 11 pm. I was in denial about the whole thing and kept apologizing for being there. This was despite the fact that contractions were less than ten minutes apart--sometimes only 5, and I was in agony from the back pain.

The midwife cheerfully informed me that I was 4 cm dilated, 80% effaced, and contractions were rolling pretty good and about 5-3 minutes long, 5 minutes apart or less. She also explained that I was having back labor because baby was trying to turn from ROT position to LOT most likely. I was really disoriented and bawling like a baby at that point. As the pain ratcheted up, I started barfing everywhere. I continued barfing all through labor, and the care team and Josh had to keep a bucket brigade going, actually. Haha. None of us want to see Mexican food for a very, very long time.

They got me on an IV for antibiotic since I was GBS positive. After that, they started pumping fluids into me so I wouldn't get dehydrated. I was desperately thirsty, but couldn't keep water down. I couldn't sit or lay but just hung on to my husband's shoulders swaying upright and bawled and tried not to yank the IV out until the hydrotherapy tub was all filled up. They checked me again, and I was 7 cm by 12:30 am.

The birth center does no medical pain relief there. So some peppermint candy, massage, aroma therapy, and the birthing tub was it for pain relief. Which I really regretted. Like a million and one times. The tub was pretty great though once I got in it. The doula and Josh took turns pouring hot water on my back during contractions, which was amazing. And could kneel and be on all fours in the tub without collapsing from weakness which helped. So did squeezing the handles because I had a very strong instinct to grab onto something hard.

I hit transition around 1 am, and started pushing at 1:30 am. Baby's head got stuck halfway. Apparently, he came down at a wonky angle and couldn't turn in the pelvis the way he wanted. They were really worried about his heart rate due to how strong contractions were. But it stayed steady the whole time. When I finally did get him out, he came out fighting and thrashing and kicked me hard in the crotch on his way out. Lol. He was all silver when they slapped him on my chest and we were both staring at each other like, "Wtf, who are you?" His poor head had a perfect ring around it and a tall bubble on top from where he had been stuck. Also, he had a black eye. Labor took 8 hrs altogether from water breaking until he was born at 4:07 am. They told me that was pretty fast for a FTM.

The whole thing felt like an unreal dream from start to finish. I passed out on the floor on the way to the table to get stitched up, because I thought I could walk there. So they made me lie on the floor and drink juice boxes. I have a 2nd degree tear, but apparently that's normal for a FTM. Because I passed out, they kept me for 12 hours instead of 8 after the birth, to be sure my blood pressure had normalized and I could walk before going home.

Since then, baby Bruce Alexander has been doing pretty well at home. He has a light case of jaundice, so we're spending a lot of time on the back porch sunning. The midwife says the giant bruise on his head probably caused that. Also, he has a slight intermittent click or heart murmur that may be a valve not closing properly. Midwife says that is common for babies born early, and should resolve on its own in a couple weeks, but the pediatrician will have to check it out. Nursing has been a struggle. He has a tendency to get mad and fight me off. Sometimes I have to pump and trick him into eating with a bottle. But last night and today is a lot better, and he's eating at more regular intervals (AKA no sleep for me!).

Thanks for reading my super-long post.

@Alioth he's adorable! He certainly made quite the entrance. Hope things continue on the up swing. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks, everyone! And omg. I am learning now what everyone keeps talking about when they say "cluster feeding." Wow, just wow. I hope I can survive.

Thanks everybody! He's just getting cuter by the day.

@VeryKatie Well, they tried hip and spine squeezes, but they hurt way worse, so I stopped them. I just couldn't stand anyone touching me except for holding my hand. Nor could I stand being still long enough for anyone to massage me, and anytime someone got close to my face I wanted to punch them. Haha.

Geeze, 2 months? OMG. Well, my milk finally came in so now Bruce is able to get a full feed in at 8-12 minutes a side. So the cluster feeding has stopped for now. I'm trying to feed every two hours, but it's more like 1.5-4 hours right now. haha. I'm also finally able to pump a tiny bit extra ever so often, so that if he hits a hangry inconsolable rage after 1 hour, Josh can give him a snack. The hard part is moderating the milk flow from the bottle so he doesn't spew it all over himself ten minutes later. I got two slow flow bottles of different brands. But even then, it has to be just a few sips at a time. I haven't tried out the Playtex slow flow bottle yet. I might give it a go if it keeps happening. Aaag! Breastfeeding is hard and complicated. Hats off to you ladies that have managed it! Baby has gained his lost weight back...we think. He keeps hitting the zero button on the bathroom scale when we try to weigh him. lol.

He also has newborn acne and a sticky eye now. And he likes to go into a crazy fussy rage most nights between 9 pm and 2 am. or 10-3. I can practically set a clock to it. Any advice is welcome.

@Alioth I'm insanely jealous of 8-12 min a side for feedings! We are still 30+ minutes a side and then she'll still act hungry. We also had a clogged tear duct that just finally is starting to clear up, she occasionally gets a little goopy in the corner of her eye but it's not every day and always crusty like it was for the 1st 2 months. Thank goodness.

The only nipple we've got Andrena to take so far is the teal slow flow ones that come with the enfamil ready made bottles. I finally bought a box of 12 of them to go with the ones the hospital gave us. We tried several other bottles/nipples but she likes just the plain bottles that came with my pump and those "disposable" nipples--that we wash and re-use just fine.

I've been back to work for 2 1/2 weeks--the amount of formula she's taking per day seems to be increasing. Our typical schedule is:

5:45 - 7:00am Nurse
7:30 am Pump (1.5 oz +/-) and save for next day.
10:00 am @ Work I pump (2.5oz +/-), She has bottle- usually 4 oz BM and 2-4 oz Formula (shes a pig)
2:00 pm @ Work I pump (2oz +/-), She has a bottle-usually 2 oz BM and 3-4 oz Formula
5:15-6:30 I get home and she's more than ready to nurse-- often needs 2 oz formula to fill her up enough to get her in the carrier and outside or do anything else except have her fuss for more food.
8:00-9:00 nurse
9:45-10:15 nurse + 4 oz formula after I hand her off to Marlin so I can go to bed
Then she usually is good until 5am give or take.

With the exception of trying to scarf down dinner and a quick shower I feel like all I do when I'm home in the evenings is be stuck on the couch nursing.

I am trying some lactation cookies and more supplements this week. I lose my pumping spot on 7/30 and am not sure what I'll do after that. HR wants me to use her office, but having to kick someone out of their office to pump seems like a worse plan than standing at the bathroom counter burning up AA batteries to get it done.

I pretty much feel like a failure. I drink a ton and eat a ton--in fact I've gained 14 pounds from the low weight I hit 2 weeks postpartum and I'm afraid to cut calories for fear of further decreasing my supply. I also haven't been willing to start birth control yet either, again worried about any dip in my supply--but I need to take care of both of those items. I'm kind of putting them off to 12 weeks so at least she gets as much as I can possibly give her for that long. It kind of coincides with losing my pumping location as well.

All in all, I'm pretty stressed and down about the whole breastfeeding situation and my lack of success. Pretty well nothing has gone as hoped.