Surprises
A lot of people over the last few days have asked me how I am feeling, how I like being a mommy, how was the birth, is Willow like I thought she would be, etc.
So here is a little post about some of the things that have surprised me about my first few days with Willow.
Labor and the aftermath
I expected labor to be painful and difficult, and it was. But it was manageable, which I also expected. I knew that if millions of other women had birthed babies under far worse circumstances, I could surely do it too.
I had planned to have a natural birth if at all possible for several reasons. I knew with drugs I would have to stay in bed and I just couldn't stand the thought of that. I like to move around. I also expected that I would probably change my mind once the going got rough and ask for an epidural. Mark and I talked about this ahead of time and decided that when I felt like I needed drugs, we would just try to wait for another half hour. This played out about how I thought it would. We waited "just another half hour" about a million times and eventually we made it to the end. I didn't expect that we would have to use the "just another half hour" plan so many times.
Which leads to the length of labor point. I hoped for a much shorter labor. My mom had pretty short labors, so I thought maybe I would luck out and have a short labor as well. No such luck. If I count the start of labor as when I got to the hospital- contractions 3 minutes apart and already very difficult- it was about 13.5 hours. And felt much longer to both Mark and I because by the time Willow was born, we had both been awake for more than 24 hours.
I expected to be sore from delivery, which I am. However, I had no clue that my ankles and calves and shoulders and ribs would be sore! I still feel like I ran a triathalon or did the Tour de France or something. I can be up off the couch puttering around for about 10-15 minutes and then I start feeling shaky and lightheaded. I guess this is nature's way of making sure I don't do too much too soon. I won't be raking the leaves this week, for sure! My big exercise for the last two days has been walking to the mailbox and back. Woo hoo!
Sleep
Not too many surprises here. I knew that Willow would sleep a lot- she does. I knew I would barely sleep at all- I don't. But I am getting some sleep. If anything, I am less tired than I thought I would be. I think those years of working nights may have helped prepare me a little bit.
Eating
This little girl eats a LOT! I expected this. People told me she would need to eat every few hours, which she does. I just had never really thought about what that would mean in terms of hours and minutes. Thanks to our fun Willow Tracker program, I now know that yesterday Willow ate for 268 minutes. That's like 4.5 hours. And doesn't include burping time, or getting her latched on time, or finding a comfortable chair to sit in time. So if she continues to eat this much, that will mean 31.5 hours a week of nursing. Kind of a shocker to me.
And then there are my eating habits. I am hungry. So very hungry. All the time. I knew this ahead of time, but I kind of expected to just eat more at mealtimes, I guess. No, I have to eat all the time. This is serious business. Don't get between me and the trail mix. Bad things might happen. God bless all the wonderful people who have brought us food.
The Baby
I fully expected to love this little munchkin more than anything else in the world, which I do. She is just incredible and she is only 4 days old. I don't think I expected her to be so very very entertaining this early though. All the faces and noises are just so much fun to watch. She is like my own personal little comedian. Even when she is sleeping she wiggles around and does funny things- this is kind of like an unexpected bonus prize to me.
All in all these first four days have been much better and easier than I thought they would be. I know there will be a lot more surprises in the next few weeks and I am looking forward to them.