April 24, 2013

Yes, baby Cadence Jane is here!  Sorry for my absence, whenever she is sleeping she's usually on me and that makes it hard to type.  I've been working on this post for weeks!

Cady is a happy, healthy, and of course exceedingly adorable baby who will be six weeks old tomorrow.  She's super alert and smiles a ton, and I think she's even starting to try to laugh.  She's a great sleeper at night - we usually get about 4 hours in a row, followed by a couple of two hour stints between feedings.  Sometimes we'll get up to 6 hours straight!  Sadly she's already outgrown all of her newborn clothes, but at least she can fit into some of her super cute 3 month outfits now.

Hubs and I have been doing pretty well all thing considered (ya know, like having our lives completely flipped upside-down).  We get out of the house as often as possible and have people over whenever they request to see the baby, whether the house is clean or not.  Usually it's not.  Breast feeding was a HUGE challenge at first and Cady actually lost quite a bit of weight that first week because we were just not getting it.  I even thought I wasn't producing enough for a while and spent a week supplementing with formula.  After a couple visits with the lactation consultant though, we finally got it figured out, and except for working on getting a good latch more consistently we've pretty much mastered it.  So much for breast feeding being the most natural thing in the world!

So, birth story: 

I went into labor on a Tuesday night, not knowing what hit me. Was it real contractions, more Braxton Hicks, or just the enchiladas I had for dinner? Turned out it was real contractions. We made it to the hospital at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday and powered through a few more hours before my mom joined us. I have to say I had an amazing team between Hubs, mom, my midwife, and the nurses.

Anyway, my labor was fairly long - 23 hours altogether, 20+ of which I made it through without any drugs, fully intending to go the distance... But that was before my midwife came in to check me and inform me that in 6 hours I'd only progressed from 6 cm to 8 cm.  Also my contractions never got closer together than 5 minutes, and they were irregular.  About every other contraction I'd have a nice strong one, followed up a minute later with a weaker one.  It was exhausting.  So after that I couldn't deal with the pain on my own anymore, and the thought of pushing that baby out made me seriously consider asking for a c-section. The midwife was suggesting Pitocin, which completely freaked me out because it makes contractions more intense and I was pretty much maxed out on intensity.  Finally I opted for the pitocin plus an epidural.  GREAT decision, by the way.  I was able to nap for about an hour without any pain until it was time to push, and pushing only took me about 20 minutes.   Four contractions and she was out, screaming her head off and already looking around trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

Stats: 

Weight: Cadence was 8 pounds even when she was born, now she is just over 9 pounds.

Length: 19.5 inches at birth, today she's about 22.5 inches long.

Hair: Yep, lots of brown hair that sticks straight up, just like her dad's!  Nope, I didn't have heartburn when I was pregnant.

Eyes: The usual dark grayish-blue at birth, today they're a little lighter but basically the same color.  (Hubs has blue eyes and mine are hazel, so I'm hoping she gets a cool eye color.)

As for me, recovery hasn't been so bad.  The first couple weeks were brutal, not being able to sit down without pain.  I had 4 stitches... inside... that was interesting!  But otherwise it's been pretty status quo.  I'm up two sizes but I don't think I look that much bigger than before I got pregnant.  I did have some pretty gnarly post partum depression for those first two weeks too. Luckily I'd already started taking my meds again so it was blessedly short lived. 

So there you have it!  I'm on maternity leave for another 4 (maybe 5) weeks.  I can't believe how fast it's going by!  Hopefully I'll be able to post more before I go back to work.  Until then, here's the cutest picture I have of CJ so far: