Introducing Jenna Marie

Our little angel was born Friday, April 21 at 6:24 am.

She is healthy and perfect and I love her so much already! Now I know what everyone's been talking about all this time. She weighed 7 lbs, 13 ozs at birth, but has lost 8 ozs since then. Let's just say I now know that people aren't messing around when they say how frustrating this breastfeeding thing is. I won't go into detail, but it's so upsetting to think that I'm not able to feed my baby. It goes well sometimes, and horribly other times, but I know it takes patience and time to get it right.

This kid has got a set of lungs on her! She doesn't hesitate to let us know when she's upset, but when she does, it's either because she has a dirty diaper, wants to be swaddled, or is hungry. And if she's crying because she's hungry, it's too late and she will be too upset to eat. I always thought the crying would bother me, but it doesn't--it just breaks my heart and makes me want to make her all better. Fortunately, Jay is the same way and has been the wonderful dad I knew he would be. We have so much to learn and she's only 3 days old, so I'm sure my attitude about everything will change in time. :)

I am not actually due until April 26, but anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows that I was very anxious to get this kid out of me! Well, I guess she was anxious too. A brief overview of the birth story--Thursday night, about 2 hours after we left the doctor's office for my uneventful appointment, actually, we went to the grocery store. As we were getting into the car to come home, my water broke! It was such a small amount, that at first I wasn't sure if that's what happened. I got online to read more about it, but it didn't help much. So I called the doctor, and of course the on-call doctor said I'd need to come in to be checked. So we grabbed our hospital stuff "just in case," and headed to the hospital around 9:30 that night. It was not the exciting drive the hospital I'd hoped for, since we weren't sure whether we'd be sent home. When I was walking up to the entrance, a big gush let me know that we would most likely NOT be sent home. Since so few women actually have their water break before going into labor, that was not how I pictured it starting. Well, they said since I was having contractions but they weren't causing any progress, they'd have to start me on pitocin. I was not happy about this at all, because I have been saying I don't want an epidural, but I knew that pitocin caused much stronger, harder contractions. So I had already thought in my head I'd probably end up getting one. Around 11:30, they started me on the pitocin, and almost immediately I started having stronger contractions. After about 2-3 hours and vomiting twice (from the pain?), I said I'm ready for the epidural. So I got it and was much happier. A couple of hours later, I could still feel the contractions pretty strong. At 4 am, the nurse checked and said I'm at 9 cm and almost ready to push. Wow--I hadn't expected it to go that fast! There was only one doctor on call, and there was another lady at exactly the same stage as me. So when it came time to push, she was delivering the other baby but told the nurse to have me start pushing anyway. After 15-20 minutes of pushing, the nurse said it's going too fast and I need to stop to wait for the doctor. So an HOUR and a lot of pain later (I would have DIED without that epidural), the doctor finally came in, prepped me again and I started pushing. It was less than 15 minutes later that Jenna arrived. The weirdest, most surreal moment of my life.

This hospital requres a 2-night stay after the birth, so we were in the hospital until this afternoon. I was so excited to finally be discharged, but grateful for the time to recover and have nurses and food available at the touch of a button. That first day was so exhausting. We didn't sleep a wink the night before, so combined with the exhaustion of childbirth, I don't think I've ever been so tired in my life. But by the time I actually had some time to nap, I had gotten a second wind and didn't want to sleep. Fortunately we were able to sleep some that night. Since this is our first night at home with the baby, we will really learn what sleep deprivation is all about. :) One thing I was NOT prepared for was how incapacitated I'd be after delivery. That's another reason I was grateful for all the rest at the hospital. The recovery is definitely worse than the labor & delivery (of course, I wouldn't say that without the epidural), but on this third day, I already feel a lot better than yesterday, and definitely the day before.

So I guess that wasn't as brief as I had intended, but I'm leaving out the details. I will post more pics later, and how she does at night. But right now she's been with her daddy for a while and it's about time to attempt another feeding. Uggghhh. All I want to do is keep her healthy and happy though, so I'm convinced that something will snap into place and it will all be fine.