20160826
so emily is here and she's already 20 days old! it's crazy how quickly it goes by.
thought i should document some stuff here before i forget...
labour
so the original plan was for me to have prostin on friday night (5/8/16). we checked into waverley private at 5pm and got hooked up to the CTG machine. apparently it was hospital policy that a doctor had to insert the prostin (and not a midwife), so we had to wait till ckc arrived. given that she usually consults on friday evenings, we didn't expect to see her till nearly midnight (not even exaggerating). but she arrived at about 7ish i think. i was kept on the CTG the entire time. -.-
anyway, she examined me again and said that my cervix had gone from being closed yesterday (thursday) to admitting one finger! so she did a stretch and sweep and didn't give me prostin. then we were transferred to the postnatal ward for the night. all the double rooms were taken so we were put in a single room just for the night. j went out to maccas for the quick prayer meeting he'd organised for us, and then he had to come back and sleep in a recliner.
the next morning we got up at 6am because ckc said she'd be around at 7am and we figured i would need a normal CTG prior to the induction. but we waited around till nearly 7am before a midwife came to get us. had a normal trace again, and then ckc arrived. she did an ARM at 7.30am, clear liquor, and said my cervix was 1cm dilated, 1cm long. she put in a 16g cannula in my left hand in less than 5 seconds, j said. the midwives let me have breakfast first before starting the syntocinon infusion at around 8am.
they used a different protocol from what we use at work, so it started at 30ml/hr and increased by 30ml/hr every 30 mins or so. i started using the tens machine initially, then by the time we got up to 90ml/hr, i started using the gas as well. the gas made me feel really out of it and also made me slur my speech. not pleasant. plus i guess the tens and gas were both sort of distractions from the pain, so i figured the gas wouldn't do much for me since i was already using the tens. but being me, i had to go up the ladder instead of jumping straight to an epidural.
but things escalated pretty quickly after that. asked for pethidine, so they did an examination at 1.30pm, and i was 4-5cm dilated, fully effaced. the peth just made me really sleepy, but didn't help the pain. it was an interesting experience seeing it do that to my patients, and then experiencing it myself. asked for an epidural shortly after, so they did another examination and said i was still 5cm dilated. the anaesthetist arrived and inserted the epidural at around 2.15pm, thank God.
it worked really well and i had quite a dense block with the infusion running at 10ml/hr, so after a while they (we) decided to turn it down to 8ml/hr. the synt was still running at 90ml/hr and the CTG was reassuring. i could interpret it again once i was pain free, ha. after we turned the epidural down i started to feel the contractions again, to the point of being painful, but only at 2-3/10. decided to keep it at 8ml/hr so i had some sensation and would be able to push better.
the midwife looking after me (dianne) noticed a show when she turned me, so she did another examination at 3.30pm. i was fully dilated! guess the epidural helped me to relax so the contractions could be more effective. the midwife called ckc and she said to wait for passive descent. so we just rested.
ckc arrived at 5+pm and said emily was at +2, and i started pushing! we always tell our patients to push as if they are doing a massive poop, so that's what i tried to do haha. all the while hoping that i wouldn't actually poop. turns out i actually managed to push quite well. wasn't sure how well i was doing initially because no one really told me, until they held a mirror for me to see haha. head on view! kept going... eventually needed an episiotomy, but managed to push her out without needing an instrumental delivery. :)
emily kang en xi
6th august 2016
1759 hrs
weight 2890g
length 47cm
head circumference 34cm
breastfeeding
this is the real difficult part, and it just goes on and on. emily wasn't latching on properly and it was really painful, and my milk hadn't come in yet. i was also really upset because when we first got admitted, we passed the midwife my small stash of frozen colostrum (painstakingly hand expressed antenatally), but she put them in the FRIDGE instead of the freezer. and then when it was about 72 hours from when we came in (ie. when the colostrum had expired), another midwife came in to ask if it was ours. -.- i still cannot for the life of me understand why they put it in the fridge when i came in to be induced, knowing that it can only last for 3 days in the fridge... the worst thing was that there was no explanation or apology from the staff at all. i still feel like i need to complain.
anyway. emily lost more than 10% of her birth weight and we were told to do 3 hourly feeds and pump for 10 mins after, then hand express, and then feed her the expressed breastmilk. so each feed took about an hour and we slept for about 2 hours before doing it all again. exhausting, and also extremely painful because of her incorrect latch. and we got every single midwife who looked after me to help with the attachment but she just couldn't do it right, i think it's because her mouth is just too small.
so in the end we decided to take a break from latching and just give ebm and formula top ups. emily gained some weight, yay! and she was jaundiced, but it was under the phototherapy range. on discharge she weighed 2630g. the paediatrician came to see her (because of the weight loss and jaundice) and said she had a clicky left hip and a whole bunch of stork marks. it made me wonder why i hadn't checked her hips myself before that.
since coming home
initially emily was really sleepy and we had to wake her up for feeds. now she wakes us up like an alarm clock, ha. she's also gained lots of weight - she weighed 3070g yesterday at the mchn visit. at the beginning i was pumping and either j or my mother was bottle feeding emily, but she didn't need any formula top ups once we were home. felt like my new full time job was to be a cow.
was really thankful for my breastpump and the uv steriliser those early days. then came the problem of oversupply and engorgement. i was pumping 100-140ml every 4 hours and emily was only drinking 75ml. went to the lactation clinic at waverley private and got a plan from the lc to help settle the engorgement. cold packs were my best friend for at least a week. it's settled down a lot now, thankfully. except that now i have asymmetrical boobs. -.- apparently quite common in breastfeeding mums, but quite annoying aesthetically, ha.
now emily is a completely dl baby, and i just collect some milk that leaks while she is latching on. my medela pump has been abandoned in the back of the change table shelf. i've got a stash of frozen bm in the freezer, probably about 1.5L worth now, and we're quickly running out of space. her weight gain in the last week was 37g/day. the average is 20-30g/day, so she must be getting enough milk!
we brought emily out to dandenong market when she was 6 days old. she went to church for the first time when she was 8 days old, and then to lg at 12 days old. she started having some proper tummy time today.
some days are more difficult than others, but i guess that's just how it is. in actual fact, she's been a pretty easy baby to look after. but it's still quite amazing to think that i haven't had more than 3 hours of sleep in a row for 3 weeks now and am still somewhat functioning. it's not too bad when i can just stay at home and not do much other than look after her. thankful for my mother who is here and has been doing all the cooking and washing up. and for j, who has been amazing with emily and a really great support for me as well in my emotional moments.
can't believe our baby is nearly 3 weeks old! learning to enjoy the little moments with her.
11:24 pm