Our little monster is 2 months old!

*ahem* only 5 days late on this post...motherhood is humbling my to-do list one item at a time! *ahem*

I will say this one thing to begin--I was told many things while pregnant (you'll never sleep again, natural childbirth is crazy, you won't be able to handle it without drugs, etc, etc) that just weren't very positive, uplifting, or even true. I was, however told, by a couple very smart women, that after the baby was born, as soon as I felt like I knew what I was doing, things would change. THAT, friends and family, was seriously the best and most honest thing I could have been told! And its totally true!

I've been astounded at how much Gianna changed over the past month...even the past week!

Here the Gianna 2 month list

• She's now pretty well adapted to her car seat, thanks be to God, as long as she has eaten and we swing her in it for a few minutes to tone her down. I also loosened to straps to the harness, so I think that helped too. In fact, she has stayed calm while driving up to 2.5 hours to date!

• This past weekend, those 2.5 hrs driving were spent on the way to Anna, TX to help out with a Communities of Prayer confirmation retreat-- her first ex-womb retreat whoop whoop!
• Gianna now absolutely LOVES the baby k'tan carrier!!! I wore her all day during the retreat while giving talks and even in adoration and she was an absolute angel the whole time! A bonus to baby wearing: strangers don't touch the baby or ask if they can hold her. Win win. It turns out, I had watched a janky tutorial on now to strap in a newborn on YouTube that was made Buy Buy Baby . On a whim one night at 3ish am (nursing power hour...or two LOL), I went to the baby k'tan website and it was super helpful. I found 2 hold positions they I could use--Kangaroo and Hug. We now only do the hug position, because she tries to straighten her legs and jump out of kangaroo. Wearing her is basically a guarantee of a sleepy, relaxed baby.

 (Yeah, super blurry, sorry, but that black thing I'm wearing is Gianna lol)

• We also took a trip to Houston to visit family and go to Erin and Wayne's wedding in late February--first wedding!
• She's also started to spit up a loooooot more. She is more wiggly now so it makes sense, but surely not super fun. She's a "happy spitter" so we don't have to worry and she will grow out of it, eventually. Funny spit up story coming soon.
• Babies are smart and G is no exception. On days when her tummy is more unsettled, she will eat super short, super frequent meals, instead of 20-30 minutes every 2ish hours. I've really learned that she knows exactly what she needs, and that on demand feeding is the way to go, because she knows better than I do!
• Gianna is all smiles and giggles and cooing now and it is so stinking fun!!!

• She loves her snuggabunny swing. It has been a lifesaver on days when I need to do something alone for 10 minutes!  

• She loves singing and it looks like she is trying so hard to sing along! I can't wait! She does make noises while I sing which crack me up. She is a huge fan of "Do Re Mi" and "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music and really likes them sung full and loud! I am more than happy to oblige :-)
• Gianna has officially "found" her hands and literally sucks on the whole thing. It is funny to watch and she makes a lot of cute noises in the process.

• Chris's Aunt Cathy bought Gianna these hanging mobile like bug noise makers and G loves to look at them and try to touch them. They keep her calm, so they're a win!!! She also has started playing on her gym mat and kicking the piano keys. I love to play with her and she is eager to connect hand to toy on purpose, rather than on accidental, which is the norm right now!
• We don't do plastic pacifiers and are holding strong!  The plan from the beginning  (of time, not of Gianna lol) was that the baby would be pacified at mommy's breast, not by a plastic substitute. On that same note, we are also and will only ever be exclusively breastfeeding--no bottles, for the same reason. I am lucky to be able to do that, as many women do not have good breastfeeding support, or have to return to work, or just do not know the incredible benefits of breastfeeding for both baby and mom (can anyone say ore-pregnancy weight? This girl can! I call it the "sit-on-the-couch-all-day-and-literally-have-the-life-sucked-out-of-you" diet). Breastfeeding is literally the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, though. Easier now, but those first 6 weeks deserve a blog post one of these days.
• In the past week, G has made huge strides in the sleep department. I swaddle her around 10:30 and nurse her to sleep and put her in him bassinet on our bed. Even if she wakes up a bit, she has been putting herself back to bed! No crying at all. She smiles real big at me, looks around, and within a few minutes, has peacefully fallen asleep. She will sleep for 3-4 hours before waking up to eat, and then goes back down pretty easily again. It has been so nice! I know that could change at any moment though :-) but for right now it makes me so happy! We don't subscribe to the "Cry it out" camp at all (since crying is her only way of communicating with us right now), so this is cool to see. 

• We have also started seeing Gianna experience what we call the "Witching Hour"--a series of 1-2 hours in the evening of extreme, sometimes inconsolable fussiness. We have gotten a lot better at knowing how to calm her and the length of the "Witching" is shorter, but oh my goodness that caught us by surprise! It makes me sad to see her struggle so much to let herself give in to her tiredness.
• We started cloth diapering this week! I know it makes me weird,  but cloth diapers make me feel peaceful. I love not throwing anything away (before baby, Chris and I literally had 1 bag of trash a week), and I love seeing the diapers magically come out pristine clean and good smelling from the washing machine. This sounds gross, but we have a bidet (poo sprayer) that we use to clean the poo off the diapers /liners and its pretty cool. I feel so modern Little House on the Prairie (yes I am assuming there was cloth diapering going on...which is the only thing that makes sense). Cloth diapers are also adorable. Love the cloth on her bum! (FYI, we've got Flips, Kawaii, and Best Bottoms(my fave so far))

• Gianna has officially out grown her newborn cloths. We pulled and stretched until we could pull and stretch no more. Even some of her 0-3 month clothes had to be retired! She is 24 in long, 12 lbs, and has a head circumference of 15.5 in. It is incredible how much she has grown!

 Thems be fightin' hands

(British accent) Why yes, if you're making a spot of tea, I'd like one, too

 I'm not fat, I'm just big boned

We love our little chubby!!!!!

So much has changed, but there is so much still the same. She is still a super wiggle worm, loves to be held, loves bath time,stares very seriously at things and ppl, loves naps on our chests and snuggling, among others. I am amazed each day at each new little caveat of her personality that develops, whether it be a movement or sound or emotion.  I know the next months will only bring more surprises and more change like sitting up and more "talking" and I pray for the grace to soak up each of those moments!

Two Months of Fatherhood-Lessons Learned

Since Rachel will post all the intricate details of the past two months, I thought I would get back into the mix by posting a few lessons I’ve learned since Gianna has been born. Here goes:

Be attentive to your child. The things I’ve gotten to experience playing with or holding Gianna I will keep with me the rest of my life. The smiles, laughs and funny noises are worth a million times more than any distraction you could choose. This does not apply to tired mothers who need a break at the end of the day, you are excused.

Experience more, read less. Ok, full disclosure, I didn’t read a lot of baby books, and Rachel did read a fair amount, so if there truly is a lack of knowledge she usually supplies it. But what I do mean by that statement is that Gianna is not from a textbook. She is a living, breathing person with her own personality. We learn what she wants, needs, and likes by paying attention to her, not by comparing her cries to a page in a book. And reading too much can lead to more confusion and less peace about raising your baby. You might overwhelm yourself by reading about all the things that can go wrong or something like that. In the end 90% of what you read will never actually happen to your baby, and whatever does happen you will use your common sense to solve.

It’s very, very hard not to be selfish. For example, there was a period of a few weeks after Gianna was born where I would sleep in the guest room, to avoid being woken up in the middle of the night. My reasoning was that I needed to get a decent sleep so I could be fresh for work, and there was no purpose in me getting woken up as Rachel was the only one who could feed Gianna. In the end though, it was just a hidden sort of selfishness. Do I need sleep for work? Yes. But is it better to be woken up a few times if it means getting to sleep next to your wife and not leave her alone during the one time of day she doesn’t have to hold the baby? Definitely yes. I learned my lesson and am back in our room again. Not being selfish for stay at home mothers happens more naturally, since they are forced to die to themselves very radically. But for fathers it can be easy to escape. The only remedy is prayer and a concerted effort to be more of a servant to your very tired wife.

Don’t get angry at a baby. It’s funny how the thought of being angry at a baby sounds so foolish and almost cruel objectively, but when they’ve been screaming and you don’t know what to do at that moment and you’re tired, you might succumb to the feeling. Realizing that they only cry because something is wrong (babies don’t know how to manipulate despite what you may hear), will get rid of that feeling.

Hold babies as much as you can. Babies love to be held and it’s very good for them.

Babies are constant sources of entertainment. They pee all over you as you try to put them in the tub. They fart at the best possible times. They make faces that you just want to copy over and over. They laugh at random things. They stare at bright lights like they were beatific visions. They put themselves in the most strange and impossible looking positions. Tonight, during Gianna’s “witching hour”, Rachel tried to calm her down by sitting Gianna up on her lap and talking to her. Right as Rachel said “Let’s have a conversation, does that sound good?” Gianna projectile vomited right into Rachel’s open mouth. I just about fell on the floor I laughed so loud. I would rather watch Gianna than any movie or TV show.

Fatherhood is awesome! I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It is the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced and I know in my heart it’s what I was meant to do.

Blogging Fail!

I could make 1001 excuses for my lack of posting, but instead, I will settle for 3:

1. Newborns take up a lot of time! Especially ones named Gianna who love to be held all the time!
2. We have been super busy traveling or seeing family 
3. Our laptop battery pooped out and cant be charged, so we just bought a new Nexus and still don't quite know all the ins and outs. 

All that aside, to hold y'all off until I do a huge photo dump and 2 month update, feast your eyes on our cutie!

Gianna's Birth Story: Chris's version

Missed Rachel's long winded version? Check it out: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5


I remember going to sleep the night of the 20th, a Sunday, praying for time to recover from the flu before Gianna was born. I had been sick all week before and trying to recover via the tried and true wait-and-see method, and with some home remedies, but I wasn’t getting better fast enough for my liking as I was getting dangerously close to the due date. I was concerned that I would be useless for the birth of Gianna and for helping out after she was born. I also didn’t want there to be any chance I could get the baby sick, although I was less concerned about that since Rachel had been sick the week prior to birth, meaning Gianna had all her antibodies, and Rachel would be breastfeeding her and Gianna would get tons of immunities from that, too.

I woke up at about 3 AM and looked over to see an empty space next to me in bed. I wasn’t that alarmed because the previous night Rachel had slept in another room since she couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to bother me. Just as a quick aside, please don’t ever tell pregnant women in the last few weeks of their pregnancy to make sure they are getting plenty of sleep. First of all they should already know that, and second, a lot of times it’s hard for them to sleep at the very end. I decided to see what she was up to so I went out to the living room. I expected to see her sitting on our couch, working on the laptop or cleaning up the apartment. To my surprise, she was leaning over our kitchen table with a look on her face that showed she was in a lot of pain.

After finding out that she had been having intense back pain since 9 PM and hadn’t slept at all, we decided to wait a little bit to make sure this really was labor and not some kind of pre-labor pain. We waited about an hour and the pain did not lessen and the contractions were right on top of each other with no breaks (poor Rachel!). At 4 AM I picked up the phone and called Thalia, a midwife and the owner of the birthing center we were going to use. Thalia groggily but nicely and dutifully answered the phone and listened to all of the pains Rachel was experiencing and decided this was the real deal, much to both our surprise. We had heard so many stories about women who, due to their excitement, get overly antsy and analytical and think the smallest contractions mean the baby is coming out ASAP. She said she wasn’t able to come to the birthing center but she would send another midwife, Carmen, to meet us there as soon as she was ready.

At about 5:30 we got the call from Carmen that she was heading to the birth center and would be there soon. We threw a bag together with all the necessaries and headed out the door. Ironically, the night before I told Rachel it would be wise to have a bag packed that night so we would be ready for anything during the week, to which she responded “Nah we’ll be fine.” It was a smooth 10 minute drive to the center and luckily Rachel only had a few contractions. We walked into the birth center and into one of the birth rooms. The inside of the birth center is so comfortable. There is a big comfy bed in the middle with a rocking chair and dresser to make you feel like you’re at home. They keep the temperature warm so that way the mothers and newborns are not cold since they spend a lot of time exposed. After giving Rachel some time to get through some rough contractions, Carmen did an exam on Rachel to find out how far along she was. Rachel had been worried that she was be at the very beginning stages of labor, if at all, and that she was just overreacting. She was 9 centimeters dilated. I asked what that meant and Carmen said “Don’t quote me on this but you’ll probably have a baby in your arms by lunch.”

After being there awhile we figured out that it made Rachel’s labor pains slightly easier to bear if I compressed her hips and lower back, essentially creating reverse pressure while the baby was trying to push all of that outwards. After some really hard labor (let me tell you, it is no joke) Rachel decided to get into the tub, hoping that the warmth would make things a little better. The tub worked wonders. Not that the pain wasn’t still incredibly great, but it did make things more bearable for her. I sat behind her so she could use my knees for support when she needed it and to comfort her and give her drinks.

I got a serious chest workout that morning. Not only had I been vigorously compressing her hips and back before she got in the tub, but now I had to do the same thing bent over with my chest on my thighs with absolutely no leverage. I looked like the symbol of the wrong way to properly lift an object on the OSHA posters. I faithfully did my duty though, which was much easier to do knowing that my job was the easier one and because Rachel was practically a saint during her labor. All the TV show images of women screaming angrily at their bumbling, terrified husbands were non-existent in that room. I was there to support her, and she bore the pain practically without complaint. I think she only got upset at me one time, but that was because I was talking too much while she was in the middle of a contraction, so that’s pretty fair.

Close to 9 AM Rachel announced she felt her body was getting ready to push. Carmen had just stepped out of the bathroom so I called her in, and then a midwife-in-training, Melena, showed up as well to help out with the birth. If I thought I had witnessed something special during the labor, the actual delivery portion was incredible. As Rachel started to allow her body to push, it was like every muscle in her entire body was tightening all at the same time. I could feel them getting so tight it was like they could break the bones in my legs. Rachel’s whole body turned beet red (literally) during every hard push. I was just in complete shock at the amount of effort she was putting out to bring this baby into the world.

Things started moving very quickly. After what seemed like not much pushing at all compared to the labor, I could see Gianna's hair floating in the water. Then I could see her head crowning. This to me was actually the scariest part, because it was the first point where it seemed like Rachel was hitting a wall. Despite how intense the labor pain was for her, she had not said anything self-defeating like “I can’t do this” the entire time. She knew she could do it, and all the more that she had to do it. But this was the point where the pain became different and more of a stinging pain, and I remember her on the verge of tears just saying “No no no no no…” It was pretty difficult to witness but also hopeful because the baby was right on the verge of coming out. The midwives were incredibly reassuring and kept encouraging Rachel through the effort and pain. Then all of a sudden, Gianna's head popped all the way out, to which Rachel exclaimed “Oh my gosh her head is out! That feels so much better!” Just moments after this, she gave one last push and Gianna officially came into the world, and began crying after she was pulled out of the water.

Those were amazing first moments with the baby. There was so much joy to have our new baby, and also Rachel’s joy of having done something so good and heroically difficult. We both got to hold the baby while we waited for the next birth milestone to take place, the passing of the placenta. For those who don’t know much about it, the placenta is the baby’s food source while it is in the womb and each baby gets their own, so once the baby is born it has to come out too. For the purposes of the placenta after birth, you can reference Rachel’s old post concerning encapsulating the placenta.

Unfortunately things did not work out quite how we had hoped. For some reason, Rachel’s placenta would not pass. The midwives tried everything within their abilities and limits medicine wise. Starting with herbs and eventually trying the drug called pitocin, it quickly became a bad situation. The bleeding after birth doesn’t really stop until the placenta passes and the uterus clamps down, so Rachel continued to bleed profusely. When it was confirmed that nothing more could be done, and our only recourse was to have it removed at the hospital, my heart sank into my stomach. We had done everything in our power to stay away from the hospital, and with good reason. Hospitals in general are not places where birth is treated as the wonderful thing that it is. Births are treated like a life or death trauma situation, rather than normal and healthy like it really is in the majority of cases. There’s also the prejudice you have to deal with against anyone who does not fall into their view of what medicine is, such as midwives.

However, we had no choice. Rachel had lost too much blood, so off to the hospital we went. I drove our car and Rachel, Carmen, and the baby all rode in my car. Melena followed in her car. We pulled up to the emergency room entrance of Trinity Mother Frances hospital and Carmen and Melena took Rachel inside, and I had to go find a parking space and then bring the baby to meet them inside. What a difficult and disheartening experience that was. The hospital parking lot was literally full, and I do mean literally. The outside parking, the paid parking…everything. I drove around for what seemed like 30 minutes until I finally gave up. My wife was inside and I had no idea what was going on and had a 2 hour old newborn baby with me in the car as I searched in vain for a parking spot. I went back to the entrance of the hospital, found a security guard and said “Please take my car, whatever you have to do, but I have to get inside right now.” The man must have been an angel, because he looked at me holding baby Gianna and said “I’ll take care of it.” As I walked away I said “Just let me know how to pay”, and the truth was at that moment I didn’t care whether it cost $100 to park that car, I was done with it. To my surprise he said “It’s on me, don’t worry about it.” What a blessing.

I walked inside with Gianna and got a Visitor Pass, and headed up to Labor and Delivery where I found out Rachel was. I took the elevator up and called to gain access to the delivery wing. After finding out what room she was in, I went inside. There was Rachel, surrounded by the nurses and midwives, bleeding onto the bed. After getting her registered and signed in, the midwives were forced to leave the room despite our wishes and the doctor made his first appearance. He was a very blunt man, probably in his early 50’s. We immediately started off on the wrong foot as he verbally expressed his displeasure with the fact that we used “lay midwives”, as he kept calling them. The irony was that they are certified midwives with tons of experience. He was not an overly positive person and immediately started saying all the things he would try but also what might go wrong. His first plan was to try to get the placenta out manually, there on the table. He asked another doctor to do this and then he left the room. This other doctor was a woman, who was very calm and sweet.

The woman doctor tried as best she could to remove the placenta by slightly tugging on the umbilical cord, but to no avail. The doctor returned, frustrated that the procedure had not worked, but he seemed genuinely interested in Rachel’s well being so I was less offended by him. He tried similar tactics but it didn’t work. Rachel just kept losing more and more blood without any success, and she was getting very pale and I was reaching my limit of what I could watch her go through. To her credit, she never uttered a single complain as she was poked, prodded, and had her insides literally pulled on. The doctor frustratingly pulled his gloves off and announced that he needed to perform a D&C, which is a minor operation that required Rachel being taken to the OR, without me. There he would try to get deeper inside and pull the placenta out, and if that didn’t work he would have to use instruments to cut it out. I could say nothing. We gave our consent and Rachel got wheeled away, half asleep from the stress of what she had undergone and the blood loss. The midwives had left prior to this point since they were exiled out of the room and were forced to leave the wing altogether. They offered to stay and wait with me but I declined since they did not need to suffer needlessly. I apologized for the treatment they received but they were not phased by it. They knew it would be like this beforehand, since it always is. They dread when clients go to the hospital because they almost always are treated like voodoo doctors.

I forgot to mention that while Rachel was first being registered with the nurses her Mom, Marcela, showed up and was with us while all this had been happening. Marcela and I went out to the waiting area with Gianna and sat there for about an hour and a half without any news of what had happened with Rachel. I ate during this time and Marcela and I took turns holding the baby. Gianna opened her eyes for the first time as I was holding her there in the waiting room, so I was the first thing she ever saw and she stared at me intently before going back to sleep. She was a perfect angel and didn’t cry at all, which is great because I’m not sure I would have been able to bear it, as I had nothing to give her to calm her down.

Finally the doctor came out and gave me amazing news. He was able to get the placenta out without any instruments and Rachel was fine and hadn’t needed a transfusion (she was borderline in need of one). He said we would be able to see her after she recovered in about an hour. I sat there thanking God that he answered my prayers and that we would all be together again soon. After Rachel recovered, we all got taken back to the original room and got some time together to relax. We were moved shortly into an overnight mother/baby room, where we spent the night. During the afternoon and evening, Rachel had her vitals checked every 2 hours by a nurse. She slept some, and we ordered food to the room and ate. Rachel tried to breastfeed Gianna but she just wasn’t interested, and we started to get worried that she had gone so long without eating. We were calmed though by the fact that babies are fine for 12-24 hours after birth without food.

The night was a very trying night, I think I slept for 10 minutes total. Marcela went back to our apartment to get some rest. For some reason the hospital did not think it necessary to give comfortable sleeping arrangements for guests. I sat in a terribly uncomfortable chair all night and checked on Gianna every 15 minutes to make sure she was doing ok and breathing, she was just so quiet. When she cried I bounced her so Rachel could rest. The hours dragged on and on, 1 AM, 2 AM, 2:30 AM. I felt like a zombie since I had been awake for 24 hours straight already. The night shift nurse kept checking in on us to see how we were.

After what seemed like forever, it was 7 AM, and the sun came up. We finally got to see the nurses from the day before, and found out that we could leave that morning around lunch. We ate and then we got to visit with a lactation consultant, who worked with Rachel to teach Gianna to latch and breastfeed properly. We were allowed to leave around 11 AM, but we decided to stay until 12:30 so we could meet a second time with the lactation consultant. Finally, we were discharged and hopped in the car to head home.

Being back in the apartment made me feel like a human being again. It was so good to be home! We had a healthy mom and baby, and our little treasure was safe and sound. It was a trying but amazing day and I thank God for the experience and getting us through it. Praise the Lord!

Gianna's (after) Birth Story: 9:55 am-4 pm

Missed the rest? Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.   

However…….there was one small issue of my placenta. It still hadn’t come out. Normally, you feel contractions after the baby is delivered to help push the placenta out. Well. That didn’t happen to me. No contractions. NOTHING. 

Oh goodness. That damned placenta!!!!!      

                                               

I guess technically at this point, the “birth story” is over, but there is definitely more to the story. You see. My placenta wouldn’t come out. I tried squatting again, pushing even though I didn’t feel any contractions, so they gave me a tincture of Angelica under the tongue (GROSS TASTING) which can cause miscarriages (which would really just cause the placenta to come out because I already had a baby). Nothing. I was hemorrhaging too because you have to expel the placenta so that the uterus can clamp down and stop the bleeding, so they gave me anti-bleed tincture. Still hemorrhaging. Still no placenta. I won’t go into detail about how much blood because that’s really icky and blood clots are freaky looking. I decided I just wouldn’t look lol. 

All the while, keep in mind that Chris and I are laying on the bed together holding Gianna and everything is pretty much happy. I’m a little ticked that my placenta won’t cooperate and I can’t just be done with the whole thing (pushing out a baby had a point…waiting on a placenta….seemed annoying and pointless by that time…I just wanted to enjoy my baby and go home and have wine and cheesecake!!!)

My bladder was super super full (nice and hydrated from all that labor-aid Chris made me drink!) and sometimes that keeps the placenta from moving on its merry way. Well. We fixed that issue and still nothing. I continued to lose blood, so they then gave me 20 units of pitocen on my right thigh to hopefully speed things along and encourage uterine contractions. Naaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. 

At this point, Carmen estimated that I had lost about 500-600 mL of blood from birth until right then, which is not atypical, but not super normal either. She made the decision that what was going on with me and my placenta was beyond their scope of care and that I would need to go to the hospital and most likely have a D&C to scrape that sucker out. Carmen started an IV/fluids in my right hand and Melena, baby, Chris, and I rode in our car, and Carmen drove Melena’s car to Trinity Mother Francis Hospital just ½ mile down the road. 

Carmen had called to let the Labor and Delivery area that we would be coming. Chris was really upset about the whole thing, because we of course did not want to go to the hospital, but I was feeling really calm. I had birth exactly the way I wanted to and it went splendidly. I literally could not have asked for a better first birth and more memorable, happy experience. Unfortunately, one-now-rendered-useless (except for encapsulation ;-)  ) body part wouldn’t cooperate with the plan. Going to the hospital to have them scrape my placenta out was definitely not part of the plan, but hey, I had a baby! That was basically my thought process. 

Once we got to the hospital, everything sloooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeddddddd down. So SLOW. It was like 11 am. Some nurses (really really kind nurses) attended to me and got me situated in the room. The doctor was a pretty nasty guy, but whatever, I didn’t really have a choice. He said he would only allow one person in the room with me. My mom had arrived at this point, so of course she didn’t listen (hehehe) and came in anyways. 

The next few hours are kind of a daze. Another, younger, nicer female doctor (or maybe resident), came in to try to manually detach the placenta from my uterus by a combination of gently pulling on the umbilical cord and trying to scoop it out (but she couldn’t even find the top of it). Yeah. Soooooo fun. But seriously…it wasn’t hard work like giving birth again so I just kind of layed there. I’ve always been a very good patient. I figured, just let them do what they need to do, shut up, and you’ll get out sooner rather than later and get to lay in your nice comfy bed with a nice squishy baby. 

When that doctor couldn’t get to the placenta, the mean male doctor came back in like…30 min-1 hr later and did the same thing, but much more ummm forcefully, let’s say. I think I began to win him over at this point. He was incredulous that I was able to tolerate so much prodding and digging around up there after giving birth. I think I told him that he was just doing his job or something. (I think he also realized that my retained placenta was like no joke super attached and he couldn’t figure out why so was maybe a little humbled? Maybe my imagination…I had lost a lot of blood…) He started to soften up a bit and then said that he couldn’t put me through much more of this without anesthesia and wanted to take me to the operating room. He thought he still might be able to manually remove my placenta, but also said he may have to do a D&C and use tools to scrape it out (which is scary because the tools can puncture the uterus or other nasty, nasty things). 

So all the while, Chris (with the flu) and my mom are in the room taking turns holding the baby. They’re both seriously freaking out, but in different ways. Chris was really thrown into fatherhood in a brutal kind of way, but I swear for the first week after that, Gianna preferred Chris over me, so that’s kind of cool. (Obviously now, I’m the one with food/human pacifier so I win over everyone LOL).

They took me to the operating room and gave me a spinal (btw…I HATE being numb. That was the worst part of the whole thing!). I was STARVING at this point and had lost a ton of blood, so I passed out. Nappy time for Rachel. Really though, that was fine, because I was pretty much exhausted and done with the poked and prodded business. 

When I woke up, the doctor said he was able to detach my placenta manually, no tools needed! Woo hoo! I was done! 

BUT STILL COULDN’T EAT.

I finally made it into a “recovery room” around 4 pm and after like an hour they said I could start with liquids, so I had 2 enormous things of cranberry juice. The kind that claims to be 100% juice, but it’s all from concentrate and is really predominantly apple and grape juice with a hint of cranberry? Yeah that kind. Super sugary and glorious, with that lovely hospital ice (like Sonic but a little softer). 

The doctor said that I would have to stay in the hospital overnight so they could check my blood/hemoglobin/iron levels in the morning and make sure I didn’t hemorrhage anymore. Obviously the story goes a little longer, but I can sum it up. Overnight in a hospital=no fun. No more bleeding. Finally took my stupid IV out. Levels were fine. Discharged in the morning. OH PS. I didn’t get to keep my placenta (boo) because they needed to do some “testing” on it in pathology. My poor little lab-rat placenta!

So yeah, after the “I gave birth” high, that first day/night was pretty rough. Trying to hold and nurse a baby with an IV in my right hand, being checked on every 2 hours…those were exactly the reasons I didn’t want to give birth in a hospital. However, I obviously concede that while I didn’t need to give birth in a hospital, I definitely needed the medical establishment to finish what my own body wouldn’t. 

Speaking of my own body, we learned something at the hospital. My retained placenta wasn’t like a random freak thing. Turns out, I have what’s called a bicornuate uterus (heart shaped). Basically, my uterus isn’t normal. Gianna’s butt was stuck in the right lobe of the heart (which was lucky, because heart shapes have much higher incidence of breech positioning and there’s really no way to reposition because they’re literally stuck up there) and my placenta was in the left lobe. So, rather than push the placenta out with uterine contractions, my uterus kind of wrapped around it, and it couldn’t contact properly (at all). 

A Bicornuate uterus is pretty uncommon, only .1-.5% of the population have it. My mom has one, too, but she didn’t even find out until Breana was born…12 years after I was. So I DO feel VERY lucky to have found out with my first birth. Knowledge is power, for sure. 

Now, after reading about bicornuate uteruses, I realize how truly blessed I was during this pregnancy. It was pretty much a breeze, perfect delivery, with just that placenta nastiness at the end. It turns out that having a bicornuate uterus means a HUGE increased chance of 1^st trimester miscarriage (I’ve read between 30-60% of pregnancies, depending on the source), increase in premature delivery (15-25%), great difficulty achieving pregnancy, 20% higher risk of breech positioning, high risk of cervical incompetence, fetal growth retardation, and last but not least, retained placenta, which I of course DID experience. 

I now know that in future pregnancies, I will need to insist that the sonographer find out where the placenta is located. If it’s in a different location, like the side, back or front of the uterus, everything should go normally after the birth. If it’s in the same spot (one of the lobes), it’s very possible that the same thing will happen again. In that case, I will plan to continue using a midwife for delivery at the birth center or at home, but have an OB-GYN that I see towards the end of my pregnancy to have on back up, should I need to be transferred to the hospital again for a D&C or manual extraction of the placenta, and so I don’t end up with Dr. GrumpyPants again. 

Pretty crazy stuff, huh? So, I have a freak uterus and who knows if I’ll be blessed with uncomplicated pregnancies like I was this time. Who knows if I’ll miscarry, or deliver early, or have a breech presentation that needs a C-section. I’m not special in that way though. No one knows, whether they have a silly heart uterus or not. Now and in the future, I know God will guide us in the timing and size of our family and outcome of each pregnancy.

In these past 2 months since Gianna was born, even though my mind does wander to what will happen in the future with those annoying statistics looming over my head, I am completely and utterly joyful and thankful for my perfect little family. 

Up next? Chris's version of the birth story!