Category: MLV

Fri., Feb. 27th – I woke up with breasts the size of soccer balls and hard as boulders. Putting Emily on the breast was torture, as I’d fallen asleep with her breastfeeding the night before and she’d fallen asleep too, lost the latch and scraped up my nip. Owie. So no relief there.

As reluctant as he was to do so, John took me to get a breast pump. I was in so much pain I couldn’t even pump correctly. My right breast couldn’t get any relief, no matter how much I pumped. And to top it off, I felt like a failure because these huge things would only make half an ounce to an ounce of milk together after an hour to an hour and a half of pumping. That wasn’t even enough to feed her because she drinks anywhere from 2-3 ounces of milk!

The whole next week and a half is a blur of pumping. I spent most of my days feeding Emily breast milk from bottles and supplementing with formula when I didn’t make enough. I’d just lock myself in the bathroom with New Moon open on my lap and pumped away. I will always associate New Moon with Emily. I read the first half at my doctor’s appointments, a fourth of it while I was in labor at the hospital and the last fourth while pumping :).

Our income tax refund came in that day and I couldn’t even go anywhere to celebrate, heh. I really wanted to go to Chili’s and Mario said let’s go for it, but I still couldn’t walk around very well. We decided to just stay home. I was quickly feeling cabin fever set in.

I was so exhausted and ready for sleep (while the girls weren’t) and in such immense pain in my back, chest and incision that I just broke down and cried while I was changing Emily’s diaper on the sofa. Mario had no idea what was going on. I just told him the truth: I was tired and in pain. I was so glad it was the weekend and that he was home. He helped me so much that night. He stayed up entertaining a restless Alaethia while I slept with Emily. My incision felt like it would rip apart every time I tried to get out of bed and he saw that, so he volunteered to prepare Emily’s bottles when she’d wake up. He’s such a good husband and daddy.

I woke up with chills again that night. It was so weird. I’d felt hot when I’d first fallen asleep and woke up with my teeth chattering and feeling really uncomfortable, just like the night before. I was worried that my incision had gotten infected or maybe the pain in my right breast was Mastitis.

Sat., Feb. 28th – I woke up to Emily gagging and gasping for air. It was the 3rd time it had happened; the first two were at the hospital and when I asked the nurse about it he said it was something newborns did—along with constant sneezing, which she was doing–because their neurological system was still developing. I don’t remember the other three kiddos doing anything like that, which made me even more paranoid while she slept.

My boobs were still really sore and my incision was really starting to bother me. I noticed that it looked pink around the area and the incision looked weird—nothing like it did just the day before. I even made sure to take a picture, just in case it started to get worse. I’ll spare you the gore.

Mario’s Tia Amelia came by around noon to meet Emily. She held her while she shared some wisdom about taking care of myself and what to do for my aching boobs and so on.

I had a coupon for 10cent prints from Walgreens and had every intention of using it. I’d let all the other good coupons pass me by. So whatever chance I had, I uploaded pictures.

AVOID THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU’RE SQUEAMISH!
Emily woke up around 9:30 or so for a feeding so I prepared one and sat with her on the loveseat in the living room. I couldn’t sit anywhere without feeling this horrible tugging pain in my abdomen, but the weirdest thing happened when I sat there talking to Mario: I felt relief. I told him, “Woah, I suddenly feel really good, Babe. My stomach doesn’t feel that painful pull anymore.” And that’s when I felt my shorts completely wet from the front and something dripping down my thigh. The darn incision had popped open and was oozing all over me. That was the relief and wetness I felt. I was surprised by just how much liquid came out of that tiny bubble. I tried not to panic and called my doctor’s answering service. I get a call much quicker than I thought I would and speak to a doctor who’s on-call since Dr. C. is out of town. He asks me to describe the wound and then tells me to wash it with soap and water, put Neosporin if I want and cover it up with some gauze and tape. If the pain was unbearable, the pus turned green, or I got a fever I should go to the hospital. Great.

I always made fun of Mario’s emergency kit (or as I affectionately call it, his End-of-the-World-Kit) but I was so grateful he had it that night. He had every single thing we needed. He sat me on the sofa and told me not to move and prepared everything, keeping everything as sterile as possible. He washed me up and covered the wound as the doctor suggested. I tell you, I love this man.

This reminds me: everywhere I went I was being asked if I had a C-section, probably because of the way I was walking. I would tell them nope: 4 kids delivered vaginally and then I got the tubal. The ladies would make a face and then say, You poor thing! I hear that’s worse than a C-section! or I had 2 C-sections and the pain was nothing compared to the tubal! Had I known this lovely piece of advice I wouldn’t have done it! When I was doing my research while I was pregnant everyone told me it felt like a little pinch and only hurt for a few days, or that it didn’t hurt at all. I would have seriously rather been on birth control the rest of my life and risk getting pregnant for missing a pill than getting the darn tubal had I known it was going to cause me so many problems.

Even after that ordeal I finished uploading my pictures at 11:20pm and, with 10 minutes to spare before the deadline of 11:59pm, I entered the order for 316 pictures for $32. Woo! Pictures always make me feel worlds better.

Mary’d kept Alaethia overnight, so we had a pretty easy night only concentrating on Emily. Mario, bless him, woke up at least twice during the night to help me with Emily. I got up when the alarm went off for Mario to get ready for work and made him some breakfast; eggs over easy and toast…with Emily in my arms the whole time. I still couldn’t walk too well; the darn incision hurt like hell and of course I couldn’t bend so it took, like, 5 whole minutes to slowly reach down and grab the pan handle from the oven drawer while holding Emily in my other arm. Mario ate, then left to work.

I was up since 8am and I didn’t end up eating breakfast till 10:40. All my kids have always cried or gotten hungry when I’m about to eat, and Emily was no different. That’s how they kept Mama skinny LOL. I had to pop her on my boob so she could breastfeed in order for me to eat breakfast. Mary had stayed home and had Alaethia with her (the boys were at school).

John took me to my appointment around 1pm. It was the first time he’s ever driven my Equinox. He was being kind of evil, relishing in the fact that I was in pain and couldn’t really hurt him from the back seat since it hurt to move. He kept threatening to go really fast over the bumps and dips and I threatened him right back, letting him know he’d be really sorry when I could run after him. As always, my dear brother can’t do anything for me out of the kindness of his heart, so I had to bribe him with tacos from El Pato. I got myself some lunch from there, too. I felt guilty and texted Mario–because we have perfectly good food I could cook at home—but he said no one would let me cook anyway and I deserved to treat myself. Aww :).

It was only the first full day at home and I was already starting to feel desperate; I couldn’t even wash dishes or anything without someone scolding me and shooing me back to the living room. I had to admit that I love my family. I don’t know what I would have done without Mom, Mary and Sonia (who picks the boys up from school for me every day till I can drive again).

I was really worried that I wasn’t making enough milk. Emily would feed for 1-2 hours straight and her tummy was still grumbling. I tried manually expressing to no avail. Thank goodness I still had some of those bottles they send you off with at the hospital. She was fine after she drank one. Mary, Yazmin and I went to H-E-B that night to get some formula and a few groceries we needed. They made me use one of those little electric carts LOL. I felt funny, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk through the store.

Jorge, Maggie, their boys, Adan, Aide and Belle came to visit that night. I couldn’t really move all that much and had to keep asking Mom to please heat up my Rice Sock for the pain in my abdomen and back and my chest was beginning to feel really full, but I enjoyed the company. Alaethia and Belle entertained each other with the toys in Alaethia’s room and Emily was just a gem, snuggled up on my chest for a while and then slept peacefully in her bassinet.

When it was finally night time and Alaethia, who still refuses to sleep in her room in her daybed, was with us, it was a challenge. She was up and about, ready to play at 12am. Then, when Emily woke up around 4am, Alaethia was awake and quite loud too. At least Emily was sleeping in her bassinet. She was asleep most of the day and slept till around 1am. I breastfed her from 11:40-1am, and she was still desperate for more food. I felt awful, and kind of useless really. You’d think these big ol’ things would make the total of an 8oz. bottle.

Then she woke up around 3am and was up till 5 or so. I had figured I was going to have to start learning the shows that are on at that time, like I did when Eenan was a newborn, but I turned the TV off after a while. I didn’t want her thinking it was ok to be up. Even though she had that weird gap of awakeness, she still let me sleep for 2-3 hours between feedings. Not that I could sleep very much anyway. I couldn’t sleep; I felt paranoid that she’d stop breathing or something scary like that. And then the pain! The pain made it so damn hard to get on the bed, and even harder to get comfortable to sleep.

I was woken up all night by nurses checking my temperature and blood pressure. Mario tried sleeping through the night but he wasn’t very comfortable. I woke him up at 8am so he could get ready for work. I felt a little afraid that he wouldn’t be there, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want him to leave for work worrying about me or Emily. I was hoping I’d woke him up with enough time so I could take a shower, but he was putting all our luggage away and we ran out of time. Mary had stopped by just in case he wanted her to take the Equinox but he said no, he’d take it and Adan would just drive his truck home.

Emily’s new nurse brought her back to the room just as they brought me my breakfast. Mary held her while I began to eat, but Emily was screaming her little lungs out. I asked for her and I felt so good; she’d stopped crying as soon as Mary set her in my arms, aww.

Mario had some quick breakfast (that wasn’t very good) and left. I needed to pee, but I also needed to eat, so, as painful as it was, I slid out of bed and put Emily in her bassinet so I could eat. She’d fallen asleep so she was fine. I think I was in more pain that day than I was the day before. I wanted to kick myself. I would have felt marvelous had I not gotten the tubal done. But oh well.

All the new moms were having a meeting at 10am. Now they have these meetings so everyone gets their discharge instructions at the same time. Emily’s nurse came and took her; he said she was getting the PKU done and would keep her at the nursery during the meeting. I grabbed all my things as fast as I could (which wasn’t fast at all) and took a shower. It was a challenge, since every little movement brought on a shock of pain, and it hurt to stand too long but I desperately needed a shower.

The meeting was at least 2 hours long. I was in so much pain the C-section girls were walking around better than I was. I was only half-listening most of the time since the cramping was so overwhelming. Once the speaker was done talking about breastfeeding and giving us our instructions we were escorted back to the nursery to pick up our babies.

Dr. C. came to check on Emily as I was going to bathroom again a while later. He said she was great; the tests came back just fine and my incision looked good so we could go home that day. Yes!!

They brought me my lunch, but I fed Emily first. The Social Security girl came by next and I signed the documents. The girl who takes the pictures for that Our365 picture company came by next. It took forever because Emily needed a diaper change and needed to be changed into a proper onesie since Mario had barely brought the diaper bag that morning and I hadn’t had a chance to change her. I was really disappointed with the whole thing. She used my pink polka-dot robe as the background and the prices for the tiny packages were insane. I got the smallest package and it came out to $41! She said she’d get them printed for me there at the hospital. I asked what the difference was if they mailed them to me like before; was the quality better? She said no, it was the same. I almost didn’t want to get them at all, but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t get Emily’s when I got all the other kids’. Sure enough, when she brought them to me I wasn’t happy. I could have done a better job posing her myself and I could have gotten much better quality at Walgreens or Winkflash!

I finally got to eat lunch after all that, and it wasn’t very appetizing to begin with. I was glad they were generous with the bread, butter and fruit, or else I probably would have starved.

I started getting all my junk together while Emily slept in her bassinet, checking twice that I wasn’t forgetting anything. I read for a bit and got the okay to be discharged. Emily’s nurse came by a bit later and let me know she’d gotten the okay, too, so he was going to discharge her and bring me some gifts. I called Mario to let him know we’d be leaving soon. It was 2. He got there and started taking all our junk to the truck. A nice elderly volunteer gave Emily and me a ride in the wheelchair to the emergency room exit where Mario was waiting with the truck. He said, “Well it seems like this is your first baby.” I smiled up at him and said, “She’s actually our fourth!” He laughed and gave me a high-five :).

The ride home was…an uncomfortable one. I’d never been in that much pain on the ride home with a new baby with any of the other kids. Every turn, bump, dip, movement caused my back and belly to hurt. Mario was trying to drive as carefully as possible.

We got home before the kids were home from school. It was like walking into someone else’s house—Aide did an amazing job cleaning up!

Jaylen was most excited to see us. Eenan was happy to have us all home. Alaethia kept wanting to play with the baby. I really do think she thinks she’s another one of her baby dolls.

I set up camp in the living room, because the couches are super comfy and the bathroom’s right there. I fell asleep with Emily in my arms. It was the best sleep ever, however short-lived it was. Jorge, Elda and Brandon came by to see Emily. I was still sort of slipping in an out of consciousness, but was glad to see everyone.

Our bed is really high and there was no way I’d be able to get on it without ripping my incision open. Mario went straight to the bedroom and removed the box spring of the bed so that I could actually climb on it. It was sort of lopsided, so we decided he’d put the box spring back the next day.

My back and abdomen were still in a lot of pain. It was hell waddling back and forth from the bedroom to the bathroom and back. I almost didn’t want to go pee just to avoid having to move.

Emily woke up around 9pm and was just looking around with her little wondrous eyes till around 1am. I breastfed her for what seemed like years—I started wondering if maybe she was using my boob as a pacifier O_o. I watched TV till she fell asleep. She slept in her bassinet and woke up every 2 hours to eat. She’s such a happy baby! And a happy baby makes a happy mommy ;).