I say it every post, but time is really slipping away at a rapid rate of knots. It seems the long to-do list of crafty projects (and blog posts) seems to be getting longer, and I have less time now to try and get things done.
February 27th 2017 at 11.42pm we welcomed our beautiful baby girl, Harper Patricia McMahon, into the world via emergency C section. It was a very long labour, with a lot of things not working in my favour for a natural birth. There are so many things I want to record about that day, but for now, I will keep that to my Project Life album. I will document here that I was text book by hitting the baby blues on day 3, but knowing that a big amount of that was due to lack of sleep and being exhausted from the labour, I was able to work with it and not let it get me down. I made sure that everyone, especially the midwives knew that I was at that point, just making sure they were on the same page as me.
While in hospital I was breastfeeding perfectly. Harper was a good feeder and was certainly getting enough. Upon coming home, everything went South on that front too. It got to the point that I could breastfeed anymore, due to grazing (blood and skin that has taken over 2 weeks to heal). This left me with no alternative but to hire a pump and express. It was something that was in our plan anyway, so we were comfortable with that idea. What we didn't expect was my milk to dry up in those couple of days. After speaking with the midwives, I was put on a 3 hourly pumping schedule, for 50 minutes at a time... Now this was hard and exhausting, especially getting up at all hours of the night and after about 24 hours, I was getting no more than 30ml every session. Far from enough to feed the hungry little bird that is Miss Harper. This experience saw me at my absolute lowest point in a very long time. Many tears were shed over those few days but I was sure to get a photo at the lowest point. I needed to document it, and use it as a reference to move forward from. I can say that I have looked at that photo so many times since that day, and I know that it was something I had to experience. I had to overcome this obstacle that was put in my way, and I had to be fine with it. After 3 days of pumping, we made a decision that our beautiful girl was going to be formula fed going forward, and we gave away the pumping. This gave us the chance to focus on her, and enjoy spending time with her, which dropped the stress levels in our house and made us all happier for it.
So much conversation occurs surrounding birthing, but no one talks about the first 2 weeks at home. The time where there is no on-tap guidance at your finger tips, you are trying to put routines into place yet you have zero control over them, sleeping is shot, feeding times change, learning which cry means what and all while trying to recover from the birth. It can be a really shitty time, especially if you try to control it, rather than letting it control you. Each day blends into the next and you have no idea what time or day it is. The best thing is that it does settle down. Its not all chaos and mayhem forever going forward.
We are now sitting around 3.5 weeks into this journey and wouldn't have it any other way. Its a Netflix and chill day due to lack of sleep last night (on by behalf, not Miss Harper who has decided to start talking in her sleep... all night long). I am loving the baby cuddles, and even though I don't want her to grow up, I know that each stage will be my favourite.
Here is hoping to getting a few more crafty projects done and blog posts back to a more regular basis. If you don't hear from me again for a while, I am busy enjoying time with our gorgeous girl.
