It's taken me a while to get around to writing this, because well I've been busy. Newborns are hard work. 4 kids are hard work. Major hormone shifts are hard work.
And major hormone shifts are not something I do very well with. With each and every child I've birthed has come with them a period that lasts around a week where I cry, have anxiety attacks ... it's just generally a rough time. I've been very blessed and fortunate to have my husband stay with me for the weeks following birth, this time, he has been with me since then and longer, since their work is stalled at the moment. Something that would normally make me freak out, is such a blessing. Going from 1 to 2 kids, I've always thought was the hardest thing I have ever done. 2 to 3 kids, a breeze. Going from 3 to 4 is like drowning,... and someone throws you a baby. I know things will get better. Wesley won't need me so much in the weeks and months to come and instead of looking forward to a time where I'm not stuck on the couch nursing all.day.long, I'm trying to look at it like this is the last time I will be able to nurse a newborn all.day.long. He's only going to grow up. He'll only get more independent.
With all that said, Wesley was due to be evicted on January 7th, but he was ready a day early! I woke up Sunday morning with some pretty tough braxton hicks contractions. The kind that wrap around into your back. I knew what that meant, having only gone into labor naturally with one other wildboy (Hayden) that is just not a pain you forget. We had so much to do Sunday. We needed to finish the laundry, I was gonna bake stuff to have here for the boys to eat while I was in the hospital, I needed to buy groceries, was gonna visit with some family before the baby got here..... but the baby got here. I took a hot bath hoping that they would subside and they only got worse. We started calling people to keep the boys. We couldn't get a hold of anyone. We had someone lined up, but it was for the next day, not that day. Going in to labor and needing to stick 3 kids somewhere and having no where to do that is scary. So my lovely sister in law kept them while we rushed to the hospital. We got there and they put me on the monitors and checked my cervix. I was dialated 2 centimeters and was indeed having contractions. They called my MD who was willing to come in and do my section on his day off (wasn't that nice of him?) so I was left to labor until he arrived. Looking back, that felt like an eternity but was probably only a couple of hours.
My mother and my husband and I were in a room about the size of a walk in closet while contraction after contractions struck me. I tried to be graceful but that shit hurts. I had just gotten out of my mouth that I wished my water would break so I wouldn't think they would send me home.... and I felt that warm rush of amniotic fluid... my water had broken. There was no turning back now.
A hundred million years later, the anesthesiologist and my doc graced us with their presence. I was gonna get a spinal! It was gonna be marvelous! I was not afraid of it at all like I had been. When I went for my section with Jude, my blood pressure dropped after they took him out of me, creating the worst headache of my life that lasted all of maybe a minute. But it sucked. Fortunately that didn't happen this time. Wesley came out squawling, the doc thought he was breech, but it turned out it was just his ginormous head. He weighed 8 lbs 9.6 oz, the biggest wildboy (at birth) yet.
Recovery was as good as one might expect. Wesley came in the room with us around 2 hours later, which bothers me still. I just wanted my baby, they shouldn't make you wait so long. His first night was kinda rough. He slept alright, but I had guzzled a diet coke around 9 pm so I never slept a wink. The rest of the hospital stay is mostly blurry in hindsight, but since we have been home we have discovered he has reflux and is probably the gassiest child I have ever met. This has made for a few rough nights but mostly smooth sailing. We are learning how to work him, these things take time. He has to sleep at an incline so that he doesn't get choked on reflux. It's very scary to watch your newborn lose his breath due to reflux and something I hope to not see too many times.
So while the past week was crazy, I know the next several weeks will be crazy too:) I'm starting to feel more like myself again. The original wildboys are adjusting well, they all want to hold Wesley. And only ever seem to ask when I'm nursing him or he's wailing. I know in time we will roll into a rhythm and it will be like he was never not here. In time.
* I can't get a picture uploaded. My apologies.
