Is breast best?

Every doctor and midwife you see along the journey asks the big question “are you going to breastfeed your baby?” The amount of pressure put on an expected mother about breastfeeding in my opinion ridiculous. I knew I wanted to attempt breastfeeding but I wasn’t going to allow someone to make me feel guilty about thinking about bottle-feeding either.

After Baby Daddy and I discussed feeding we decided to try breast-feeding, Darcy took to the breast really quickly; this may have something to do with her being a heffalump, it was very reassuring. A few weeks before Darcy was born I started to leak so I knew that Darcy was getting something when she was feeding. The first couple of days were going really well Darcy was feeding every 3-4 hours for 20-30 minutes, I was exhausted for these few days as I was only sleeping for about 2.5 hours before she wanted more. 

 

On our day 3 check with the midwife she noticed that Darcy was slightly, shall we say? “sun kissed”. Darcy had jaundice which isn’t worrying unless she gets to day 10 and still is showing signs, the midwife did explain it is very common and larger babies find it slightly harder to break it down. There are a few things that can help breakdown jaundice one of these being vitamin D, otherwise known as sunlight but seeing as Darcy arrived in the cold, cloudy months of December there was a lack of sunlight. The other way to help breakdown jaundice is passing urine as this gets rid of all the stuff your body doesn’t want, to make a baby pass urine they have to feed, so the midwife suggested that we definitely feed Darcy every 3 hours instead of letting her get to 4. This caused quite a lot of stress for me as I felt a lot of pressure to make sure Darcy fed every 3 hours, this meant sometimes I had to wake her up which she did not appreciate and most of the time she was falling asleep on the breast. To help make sure Darcy was getting enough milk the midwife lent us a breast pump at first I was slightly nervous about using it but once you do it for the first time you realise it feels just like the baby. They gave us a tiny cup to use to feed Darcy, as they do not suggest using a bottle, this felt very unnatural and was actually really difficult to use and more of the milk was running down her chin than going in her mouth.

 

I was managing to pump 3 ounces in 20 minutes per breast which by the midwifes opinion was impressive, it was very reassuring as it meant that I knew Darcy was getting roughly the same amount when feeding. When Darcy was a week old she started to latch on and off the breast this caused very sore nipples. Midwifes and Doctors saying breast-feeding doesn’t hurt in my opinion once the baby is latched on it doesn’t hurt, what does hurt is the actual nipple itself. Due to Darcy latching on and off my nipple they started to crack and bleed and I know I have just gone through labour but sore cracked nipples takes 2^nd place on the pain scale. Because my nipples kept leaking it meant that they never had time to dry and heal so they were constantly sore and bloody. Every time Darcy was feeding I would flinch due to the pain, which caused her to get tense, this was the first step into considering bottle-feeding. 

 

By day 10 my nipples could not handle it anymore they were so sore! I decided to keep using the pump as my nipples could handle it and feed Darcy my breast milk direct from a bottle. Thankfully again Darcy took to the bottle really well and by using the bottle we knew she was definitely drinking 3-4 ounces instead of guessing when she was feeding from the breast. They say the more you pump the more milk you produce for me this was the opposite the more I pumped the less milk I produced, this became tricky as Darcy was needing minimum 3 ounces every 3-4 hours and I just wasn’t producing enough plus my nipples still were not healing. After a long discussion we decided to move Darcy to formula milk, I couldn’t keep up with her needs and my nipples were crying for me to stop. Due to Darcy enjoying her food just like her father she unsurprisingly took to formula milk very well. Now at 7 weeks Darcy drinks 6-7 ounces every 5 hours and is in a very regular routine.

Positives:

1. Protects your baby from diseases 

2. You build a bond with your baby

3. Its free!

4. No prepping needed you just need to shall we say whip it out

Negatives:

1. You don't know how much your baby is drinking

2. Daddy doesn't get as much intimate time

3. Sore nipples!

4. Due to the position Darcy and I breastfed (lying down) it was hard to be out of the house for the first few weeks.

 

The 3rd Trimester

By the 3^rd trimester I was the size of a beached whale and definitely felt like one. I could barely move, couldn’t sleep and just wanted Baby H to arrive.

Throughout the pregnancy Baby H was measuring on the 95^th centile, which means that only 5 babies out of 100 would be measuring larger than her, which isn’t a lot. This also meant that she was a rather large baby, which explained the giant bump. Baby Daddy when born weighed a hefty 10lbs you can imagine how terrified I was at the thought of pushing a 10lb baby out of not so large hole. Every time we had a scan, which was 4 times (another post will explain) they kept mentioning how large the baby’s tummy was duh duh duhhhhh… I was terrified. On our last scan which was at 34 weeks they said Baby H was roughly 7lbs and on average a baby would gain 1/2lb a week, this meant if we had got to 40 weeks Baby H would be weighing roughly 10lbs (terrified face).   

  
29+5 weeks 

By the 3^rd trimester I didn’t have any real cravings but I did enjoy a chocolate milk every now and then…I lied, a pint a day…I lied again sometimes even 2, promise that was it. I also no longer felt sick or nauseas, big thumbs up but the bottom of my back ached and my groin was swollen and it took me a couple of minutes to get up and down, big thumbs down.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I was fed up with being pregnant and I am not ashamed of saying that. I know that some people love being pregnant and have a glow blah blah blah, but the only glow I felt was that I no longer looked as crap as I did in the 1^st trimester. I was so uncomfortable by the end I couldn’t sleep in my bed as I couldn’t get up out of it, Baby Daddy made me too hot and my bump didn’t allow me to get comfortable so I had to sleep on the sofa. Every day I hoped that Baby H would make her appearance because honestly I forgot what it felt like to not be pregnant and really wanted my body back. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who has felt that way and I do not think we should be ashamed to admit it.

The 3^rd trimester was the hardest, I felt like I had no control of my body it was being controlled by a small-handed person on the inside and she was having a whale of a time with my bladder. The 2^nd trimester was the best as I no longer had the nausea or morning sickness and had a lot more energy than I did in the 1^st. The 1^st trimester was the messiest as you can imagine.

I would love to hear about your pregnancy and the ups and downs you felt because one thing I have learnt through out this process is that everyone has a different process.  

Baby Mumma xx   

Welcome to the world

Firstly if anyone is good at maths you will be able to work out that I am over 40 weeks pregnant.

So…

I would like to proudly introduce Darcy Ray Hurley born on the 5^th December at 8:17am weighing 8lbs 15oz

Words or dance moves cannot express how much I love this baby girl! 

Shall we talk labour…

It all started on the 4^th December and as far as we were concerned we were having a normal Friday. Baby Daddy and I went and bought the Christmas tree, we tested out the baby carrier using a Minnie Mouse cuddly toy, Baby Daddy went to work and I had a nap. During my last bit of sleep for the next 72 hours (if I had known I would of taken full advantage of the napping time) the phone rang which angrily woke me up, after taking a good couple of minutes to get off the sofa as I was the size of a whale I managed to get to the phone for it only to stop ringing. You wouldn’t believe the anger I felt, 38.5 weeks pregnant the size of a whale and finding it very hard to sleep to be woken up by the phone and not get it in time grrrrr! At that point I felt my underwear get heavy with liquid as you can imagine the first thought that went through my mind was “OMG I have wet myself!” I felt my underwear but the liquid could only be described as water.

You watch the big movie blockbusters and expect your waters breaking to be a scene from the movies; the water gushing out of your body, you screaming in pain and obviously being in the most public and inappropriate place possible. Where in fact mine was the opposite; I was home on my own, felt no pain at all and lost barely any water this is why I was no to sure on what had happened. The first thing I did was ring Baby Daddy and explain that I thought my waters had broken he on the other hand thought I had wet myself but was still heading home. I then rung the midwife and again explained that I thought my waters had broke she was also unsure but asked us to come in at 7pm for check-up, considering it was 4pm I was concerned what I would do for 3 hours.   

Baby Daddy got home and we both just sat there wondering what was going on. We finally decided to put on a Christmas movie and decorate the Christmas tree. I had already rung my parents to give them a heads up that they might be going for a late night drive. After what felt like forever and still feeling no pain we took a slow walk to the midwife unit that thankfully was only a 25-minute walk for a pregnant person and 15 minutes for everyone else. After the check-up with the midwife she said that she was 90% sure my waters had broken and booked me in for an induction the following evening if I hadn’t gone into natural labor.

We were walking home when I got my first contraction at 8:10am, it was a tight feeling in my lower abdomen very bearable. By now my parents were on there way and my contractions were an hour apart. At around about midnight my parents arrived and my contractions were 20 minutes apart and still very bearable they were still just period pain like. We all decided to try and get some sleep but trying to sleep when you are in early stages of labor is practically impossible, for the one going through it Baby Daddy managed to fall asleep quite quickly, I just sat there. Within an hour my contractions went from 20 minutes to 5 minutes to 3 minutes apart but still very bearable pain. I rung the hospital and asked if I needed to make my way in, as we are an hour away (the countryside has its disadvantages) they told us to make our way in. I am very thankful that we left when we did because as soon as we got in the car my contractions went to 2 minutes apart and became a lot more painful. I can’t remember most of that journey as my eyes were shut breathing through the pain but I do remember that it was incredibly windy and we had to make an emergency stop, as there was a large branch in the road.         

This is the point where my memory gets a bit hazy as I do go onto inhale a lot of gas and air. When I got to the hospital the lovely midwife Amanda checked me out and said that I was 4cm, which means established labor Yay! Now the following is what Baby Daddy has told me as gas and air is a bit like being drunk, it numbs pain but also strips you of your memory. We got moved into the labor room and I got strapped to a monitor that would check Baby H’s heartbeat and one that was marking my contractions.

I couldn’t of gone through labor without Baby Daddy and my mum by my side, on the left Baby Daddy was holding my hand and supplying me with water as the gas and air and screaming was really making my throat dry and on the right my mum was helping with my breathing and had her hand on my head which I found really soothing. Without all these elements I wouldn’t have got through labor with just gas and air and in 5.5 hours. I can tell you that it hurt like nothing has ever hurt before in my life but I couldn’t quite tell you how much because I honestly cannot remember how much, which is strange I know. The part that hurt most was when she was coming out because as you can imagine certain parts were being stretched like they have never been stretched before.

I remember the midwife told me it was time to push and I really did feel the urge to push, after 35 minutes of pushing she was out yet the next 3 minutes were the hardest 3 minutes in my life.

Darcy had the cord wrapped around her neck she had also pooped and because of these she was in shock. The midwife had pushed the emergency button and quicker than I could say go the room was filled with at least 10 nurses, there were three surrounding Darcy I had new midwifes looking after me, it just seemed everyone had a job to do. Like I said I can’t really remember any of this, thankfully, all I do remember is wondering where my baby was but also being exhausted. My mum and Baby Daddy said it was the worst 3 minutes of their life as all they saw was Baby H come out blue in the body and white in the face. There is a test that midwifes do on newborn babies, which has a score out of 10, anything above 7 is good and Darcy scored 0 in her first minute of life. After 3 minutes she was scoring 9, which is great. Even though Darcy had a very hard start to life she was only in immediate danger and thankfully had no long-term effects. I cannot thank those midwifes and nurses enough for helping my baby girl in those crucial moments. During this time "supposedly" the midwifes removed my placenta and gave me 2 injections, none of this i remember.

They finally called Baby Daddy over to look at her in the crib so we all knew that she was out of danger. Eventually they put her in my arms and that was it I exploded with love for her and I knew at that moment that I would never let her be in danger ever again. Here are a few photos of those first few hours.

Baby Mumma xx