Birth story

So here's more baby stuff. And some random things that I would find interesting if I was reading this.

Firstly, I wanted to point out the differences with having my two babies. My last post was put up when I was going on about 6 hours of sleep for the last 3 days. I didn't provide a whole lot of information. If this isn't interesting, you can skip it.

So with Ellie, I had to be induced early because Ellie didn't have enough fluid around her. I was admitted on a Monday evening and didn't have Ellie until Wednesday morning. It took so long because I was seriously starting from nothing. My body had no plans to go into labor any time soon. I hadn't even felt a single contraction at that point. During those 36-ish hours I wasn't allowed to eat anything and I didn't get any sleep. I honestly don't remember a whole lot about any of it. I remember having horrible heartburn and throwing up a lot. My epidural only worked on one side of my body. They gave me an extra dose that I could give myself when I needed it by pressing a button. But it didn't work. The button only released the medicine once every 30 minutes, but I kept pressing it. The epidural finally ran out completely right before I was supposed to start pushing. I pushed for hours. They kept telling me that I just needed one more push. I stopped believing them. I told them I quit. I fell asleep between pushes. And finally Ellie was born and all I could think about was that my arms were really, really heavy. I have pictures of me holding Ellie and I don't remember them being taken. The doctor didn't believe that my epidural didn't work, until I informed me of the number of stitches he had given me. And after they took me to my recovery room, I slept and slept and slept.

With Malcolm it was a very, very different story. Once again I was induced, but I was already halfway there and had been having contractions for weeks. At 6:30 they started the medicine that would make my contractions stronger. After a couple hours I got an epidural. I informed the guy that the last one hadn't worked. He said that happens sometimes. Unfortunately it happened again. My left side was numb, but my right side felt everything. Actually my left leg was totally and completely numb, which we chalked up to the fact that I happen to have a redundant set of veins in that leg. They gave me another button. It didn't work again. They finally gave me another shot of something that mostly made it go away. For about an hour. Then I informed them that it hurt really bad and that I felt like I needed to push. So they couldn't redo it. Anyway, I pushed for like 15 minutes. Actually it seems like I spent of good part of that NOT pushing because the doctor wasn't there. He didn't make it there until the last couple of pushes. The nurse kept saying, "wow, you're pushing like you don't even have an epidural!" I would have rolled my eyes if I wasn't in a ridiculous amount of pain. 

6 hour labor, as opposed to a 36 hour labor. They say the second one is easier, but holy crap it was so different. And Malcolm weighed 1 1/2 pounds more than Ellie did.

Horrible picture, but it shows all of the tubes I had put in me. Well, not all of them, but most of them. I had to lay on my right side to see if that would help the epidural hit that side. Also, my face looks puffy, but I had Jolly Ranchers in my mouth. Seriously.

As soon as they pulled him out, he pooped EVERYWHERE. I was just glad to know that it wasn't me, because apparently that happens sometimes during labor.

When Ellie was born, we were required to stay in the hospital for 3 days. With Malcolm we were only required to stay for 24 hours. That was awesome, because it gets really annoying to be stuck in the hospital. Especially since Ellie couldn't come visit, and I really missed her.

Ellie was a super gassy baby and cried and cried and cried. The nights in the hospital were horrible. Malcolm did much better, although I didn't get a whole lot of sleep between feeding him, the nurses coming in randomly during the night, the buzzing light fixture in the bathroom and the fact that my bed moved all on its own randomly and made it difficult to sleep, and that Will snores.

Changing a nasty diaper. New babies have really sticky, nasty, black poop the first few times. I was so out of it with Ellie that I never had got to change one. I made sure I did with Malcolm.

Aunt Lindsay and Grandma

Grandpa

I can't get over all his dark hair!

He actually looks a lot like Ellie did when she was born. 

Ellie

Malcolm

Obviously he's got a lot more fat on him. I especially like the fat roll around his neck.

One more quick note:
I have never judged a woman for not breastfeeding her kid. If you can, great. If not, no worries. But I was secretly proud of the fact that Ellie never even tasted formula. It took a lot of time and tears and pain, but I pushed through it. And I was proud of myself.

After Malcolm was born, his blood sugar levels were low, probably because he'd been freaked out by being born and then by being covered in his own poop. So when they took him away to clean him up, they gave him some formula. After they told me, I was secretly annoyed because now I could not say the same thing about him. Obviously I needed a bit of humbling, because even though he got the hang of nursing right away, circumstances mostly beyond my control have led us to having him almost exclusively on a formula diet for now. I'm hoping that I will be able to nurse him again sometime in the near future, but currently formula is really our only option. There were moments when I felt like a failure because I couldn't nurse him. This is just not true. After everything I have gone through to bring this child into the world, giving him formula instead of breastmilk is not going to hurt either one of us.

I just wanted to acknowledge that.

Anyway, that is the story of the birth of Malcolm. I have tons more pictures, so I'll have to do more posts soon.