Breastfeeding: Getting Ready to Go Back to Work

Big time gory detail warning here folks.

You’ll have to forgive me, but I have to do another public service post. I have found some great stuff that must be shared in regards to keeping up with breastfeeding when you go back to work. I have talked to my midwife, a lactation consultant and our pediatrician and have gotten a great framework on what to do. I love using this medium to help other moms out there where I can, so here goes.

Ladies, I had three months off for maternity leave, so what I am doing is based on that timetable. I had my son, and had about two months of getting a great start at breastfeeding. We had it down to a science. Now I am doing the following:

The Basis:

When you spend 8-10 hours a day away from your baby, your milk supply will decrease. There is something about the pheromones when you and your baby are around each other that plays into your milk supply. For some lucky moms, this won’t happen. For the vast majority of us, you need to plan on reaching a day when you will not make enough for your baby, and may need to supplement with formula. Knowing this, you can plan ahead and pump well before you go back to work, so when your supply takes a hit, you have reserves in your freezer ready to go so you can keep them on breast milk longer.

Getting Mom Ready:

• A month (or a month in a half if you want a really great start) begin pumping.


• Pump an ounce out of each breast a day at first.


• Gradually build up to pumping a maximum of 4 ounces a day out of each breast. Don’t rush it – give your body time to build up to this.


• Pump right after feeding your baby. (Not after every feeding. Build up to pumping 3 times a day. Again, don’t rush it. Give your body time to adjust to this volume.)


• Try to do it when you have more milk. If you are feeling engorged, feed the baby, then pump.


• Never pump at night.


• There are some great supplements out there to help build your milk supply. There is a company called “Motherlove” that makes some of the best around. My midwife told me to get one of their “More Milk” blends that has “Goat’s Rue” in it. Their “More Milk Special Blend” is the perfect one, but they are all good. Use the Store Locator link to find where you can buy this near you.


• Omega 3 supplements (fish oil, flaxseed oil) are also really great to take to boost your supply. These can be found at your grocery store. Also, be sure to drink plenty of water.


• Important! If you get plugged ducts, fever, chills, mastitis, stop pumping until you heal up and are feeling 100% again. You are doing too much. I had luck with acupuncture to get myself under control again quickly so I could resume this regimen.

Pumping Tips:

• Use the “Letdown” button – Some pumps have a “letdown” button. Check your owner’s manual to see if you have this feature. I have a Medela Freestyle, and the button is located here:
  
  When you pump, if you see your breast begin to stream milk out (as opposed to drops of milk coming out) hit the letdown button. Leave it this way for the rest of your pumping session. This helps the pump to be much more efficient at getting the milk out. It will do longer pulls on your breast, rather than shorter ones.


• If one breast is having a good letdown (milk is streaming out of your breast rather than dripping out) and the other one is just dripping, use this technique to get more milk out of the slower breast. Massage from the very top of your breast down until you find a pocket where when you push on it, milk comes streaming out of the slow breast. Hold it there until it shops spraying out so hard (like, stop massaging - just press in on that spot). It helps you get more milk out in less time. You may need to hold it for a full couple of minutes until you fully drain that cell of milk out.

Getting Baby Ready:

• The very best bottles for breastfed fed babies are the Breastfiow bottles made by First Years


• Start giving baby a bottle a day. A great time to do this is to have dad give a bottle in the middle of the night so you can get a break and catch up on sleep!


• Start with giving baby 1oz, then finish the feeding with breastfeeding. Build up from there. Check with your pediatrician for what’s normal and healthy, but my son takes 4 oz. a feeding usually.


• If he is a natural at taking a bottle, just do a bottle every few days. Save your milk!

When you are back at work:

• Ease back into work if you can. Work half days, do flex time, or go see him at lunch to feed him for as long as you can. They begin taking cereal in their bottles at 4-6 months old. The closest you can get to this age with breastfeeding, the better. Remember, the more time you spend away from your baby, the greater the chance of your milk supply decreasing, so do what you can to spend as much time as possible with your baby!


• By law, your employer has to provide you with a place to pump and time to do it. Don’t be afraid to insist that they honor this.


• When you pump have pictures of your baby around, something that smells like him, MP3 recording of his noises or anything else that would help you connect with your baby at a distance. The biggest thing is to relax as much as possible. This may be hard, feeding self conscious being naked at work, the anxiety around taking time from your busy day to pump, etc. Try to look at it as some quiet time to yourself to relax. Bring a good book with you. Put a sign on the door so that you feel comfortable that you won’t be disturbed.


• Whenever you are home with the baby, you feed him through regular breastfeeding. Everyone else gives him bottles when you are not around. When you breastfeed, it will stimulate your supply.


• If you have to start adding in formula, do it gradually. Start with giving an ounce or two a day and build up from there. Watch for gas and dirty diapers for clues that he’s having a hard time with the change and adjust as needed. Never change your baby’s diet all at once.

Good luck!!!

Two Months Old!

I couldn’t believe it when I looked at my calendar for this week and saw that another month has passed! Aaron is doing great, and he is growing like crazy! He is 11 pounds, 13 ounces. He is 25 inches tall which is in the 98th percentile for his age (makes sense! And, for those keeping track, that's 5 inches since he was born!). His head is 15.75 inches in diameter. He has gained about an ounce a week since he was born, which is the top end of what's normal for a breast fed baby! He is really filling out. When I changed his diaper the other day, I was amazed when I felt his thighs! He is close to having rolls on them! I see it in his face too. He is also has eyelashes now, and is making tears when he cries, which are both new things.

Aaron has had a bit of acid reflux this last month. I’ll feed him, and then if I have him anywhere other than up on my shoulder, he starts crying because it hurts. Poor guy! We got some medication from the doctor, but the problem is that acid reflux babies spit up a lot, and sure enough, as soon as we get medicine in him, he spits it up! I think he doesn’t like the way it tastes, so that might have something to do with it too. We also tried this homeopathic stuff called “gripe water.” He LOVES it! It helps a little. I talked to our midwife about it (they are trained in baby care from a medical perspective as well) and she suggested a chiropractor in town. I was nervous about this because I am not a fan of people messing around with the spine. She assured me that the treatment on a baby would be really non-invasive. I took Aaron last week to this guy, and sure enough, he basically did infant massage on him. Aaron liked it! After two visits, he appears to be completely cured! I am keeping an eye on him to see if it comes back. When it bothers him, he does what I call his “lizard tongue” where he is constantly sticking his tongue out (precursor to the inevitable spit up!) and if I see him do it I may take him back to this guy since it was so quick and easy, and Aaron liked the massage.

Aaron is in a real daddy phase right now. Chris walks into the room, and Aaron lights up like a Christmas tree! He just smiles and smiles at Chris. This really melts Chris’s heart. After being at work all day, to come home to this is pretty great. It is hard for guys in the beginning because babies are so attached to their mothers. It is easy to feel left out. But no, Aaron loves his father, and is eager to show it!

Allow me to take a second to gush over my husband. As women, we can’t help but think about what our guys will be like as fathers when we marry them. I knew Chris would be good at it. He has such a gentle, laid back personality. He has a very kind heart, and I just knew he would be a natural at this. He has just blown me away with both our boys in his ability to connect with them right off the bat! Noah was only here for four days, yet he knew who his father was and felt so comfortable with him; just as comfortable as he did with me. Aaron is no different. Part of it is that Chris is so involved! He’s up in the middle of the night with me, changing diapers, and soothing him back to sleep. He will cuddle up with Aaron on the couch for hours. He has helped me give Aaron his acid reflux medicine and does it better than I can do it. He has great instincts on what Aaron needs and how to take care of him. He is such a great partner in caring for Aaron! I loved my husband before, but to see him as a father to our boys makes me love him even more!

Another of Aaron’s latest things is that he is getting to be more impatient and insistent when he wants things. Namely, he is getting to the place where he will completely fall apart crying! It sounds almost like he is hurt or something, even though I know he is just fine. Every time he does this, it feels like I am getting kicked in the gut. There must be some residual chemical connection between us from being attached through pregnancy or something because of how I feel when this happens. For example, it is as simple as he’s hungry, he wants food NOW and I can’t seem to get it to him quick enough, even though we are sitting down, and I am getting ready to feed him. I understand that this is a phase that will pass, and lord I hope it happens soon. It is really tough.

Maybe what I am noticing is the development of a broader spectrum of emotions in him overall perhaps. Because, on the flip side, he is also smiling so much more, and even has a version of a baby laugh that he does when he is really excited! It is the cutest thing ever. He LOVES his toys, and is just so over the top happy to be down there playing with them on his play mat. I caught the best video of him doing his smiles and laughs the other day. He was lying in his crib for a moment while I went to do something. When I came back to check on him, he had clearly just discovered his mobile and thought it was the funniest thing he’d seen in a while:


Our sleep really hasn’t changed much in the last month. Aaron is still up every 2-3 hours to eat. It is pretty exhausting, but we are getting used to it. I am trying to adjust to his schedule. He starts his night about 8:00pm. If I go to bed when he does, over the course of the night I will get about 7 hours of sleep. The problem is, who wants to go to bed at 8:00? Chris gets home from work in the evenings, and I cook dinner. By the time that’s done, there’s not much time to do anything else other than go to bed. It’s hard because I always end up getting sidetracked on trying to get something done, and before I know it, it’s 11:00!

He is cute when he wakes up. Last night for example, I heard him grunting and shifting around. I got up and went to his bassinet to check on him. His eyes were open, and when he saw me, he gave me the biggest smile! It was so cute, and I love that he is so happy to see me. It almost made me forget that it was 3:00 in the morning! Everyone tells me to hang in there, and that at some point in the not too distant future, this will change. He is growing and developing so fast, I am sure they are right.

We are beginning to think about me going back to work (sigh!). It’s going to be hard, but I have to do it. The lady we were hoping to leave him with during the day has decided that she is too old to take babies anymore, so we are back to square one on child care. We have a couple of contenders that we have found. We hope to have that worked out soon (as in next week or so I think). I am off work until mid-January so I have another month left to go, which is nice.

Monday is our postpartum doula’s last day. I am scared! With her help, the last two months have been much easier than they would have been. Every day I get regular meals and showers. I also get some precious extra couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep. I also haven’t done laundry since Aaron was born, or had to do much to clean up my house. All that is going to go away, or will be harder to come by I should say. I know that I need to figure it out on my own. I can’t keep her forever! With her help, I have regained my confidence in my ability to be a mother of a baby, which is exactly what I needed her help with. Think good thoughts for me!

We are really looking forward to our first Christmas with Aaron. We had a blast shopping for him. I know he is too little to get what it is really about, but we don’t care! Last year, it was a hard holiday, after we had been looking forward to having it be about Noah, but then of course he wasn’t there. This year, we are really going to do it up just how we had dreamed and enjoy it. I hope to write about that in next month’s post. In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday from the Wilkerson’s! We are grateful for each and every one of you, and thanks for following along in this journey with us!

Aaron's Smile! - 5 Weeks Old

I have been trying so hard to get a picture or video of Aaron's smile. It never fails that when I get the camera out, he suddenly stops doing it! Tonight I FINALLY caught him on video! Take a look...

One Month Old!

Through my blog posts in the coming year, you will see a theme in these pictures of Aaron. I saw a sorority sister of mine did this with her baby and I absolutely LOVED the idea! So, Melanie, I am copying you and I hope you don’t mind! The numbers on Aaron’s shirt are stickers that correspond to however many months old he is. Over time, we will be able to see a fun progression of his first year as he grows. This picture shows him with a “1” indicating that he is one month old (and a “0” from when he was just born!). Next month, you’ll see him with a “2” sticker on him and so on. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

People have always talked about how time flies with your children. You blink and they are all grown up. I have no idea where the last month of my life has gone. We have been living in baby survival mode, with seeing to a newborn’s constant needs around the clock. It has been fun. I cry over just how glad I am that he is here. It is also so exhausting! We have successfully gotten into the full swing of breast feeding. I wasn’t sure that it would be something I would be able to do. After losing a child to a metabolic disorder, my heart needed to see my child have a full stomach, no matter how it got that way. I took my cues from Aaron, and after we got past the first few days of waiting for his MCADD test to come back (where formula was mandatory), Aaron was pretty clear in letting me know that he preferred breast milk to formula. He was a natural at it, and it has gone beautifully. Wow is it a lot of work though! I am the only one that can feed him. I really don’t get much consistent sleep as a result! He is up every three hours or so (sometimes sooner) ready to eat. He’s an aggressive eater and is quite efficient at it, but still, it is exhausting work. I plan to keep up with it though. It is the best after all, and if he’s game for it, we owe it to each other to keep going.

He is awake for a good long stretch in the morning, and again in the evenings. Chris and I try to talk to him, and interact with him as much as we can. He is so close to smiling, and it is wonderful encouragement to keep it up. He is a pretty easy going spirit, but one that sends pretty clear signals of what he needs. It is the perfect balance I think. I love how he communicates, with grunts and sniffs. He can be a bit melodramatic with his sounds sometimes. We love it! We just laugh and try to comply with what he wants.

He is also so strong! He fights to hold his head up. If you put him on his tummy, he will kick and squirm so hard to try to roll over. He isn’t close to being able to do that yet, but his determination is impressive! He has really strong kicks as well (as I remember well from when he was in me!). He also grabbed my hand the other day as I was changing his diaper and hung on for dear life! I am wondering how he will use his strength as he grows. It is definitely a gift he was born with!

My favorite time with him is in the afternoons. After the doula leaves, and I get some lunch, I’ll feed him one last time before his afternoon nap. Then we curl up on the couch together, and he just melts into me. If I don’t hold him close enough, he will curl his spine to get his head tucked up in the crook of my neck so my cheek rests against the top of his head. He settles in and sleeps deeply for a few hours. I’ll channel surf on the TV and snuggle on him. I feel like a human barcalounger the way he lays on me. It is really cute. He is just so sweet.

Aaron loves Curious George! A neighbor gave us a collection of Curious George stories as a baby gift. One afternoon when he was awake and feeling mellow, I grabbed the book and tried reading it to him. He loved hearing the sound of my voice, combined with focusing on the simple images in the book (not that he was really absorbing the story by any means. He just liked the elements of it!). He hung out and enjoyed the whole thing. He only had the attention span to make it through one story. Then he gets a little over stimulated. We have continued to read to him, and he does pretty well. Maybe he will be a good reader when he’s older?

Maggie is doing pretty well with him. She LOVES him and just wants to cover him in kisses. It is hard because we have to cut her off. She will kiss on him for forever if we’d let her! She is feeling a bit protective over him too. She is not a dog that barks. Now, when people come to our door and ring the doorbell, she’ll jump up and bark while taking note of where everyone is. We are glad that it’s all working well with her. She was great with Noah, so we aren’t all that surprised!

I am doing better with having visitors and have made a few tentative steps out in public with Aaron. It was really hard at first. I couldn’t handle being in any environment that took my constant attention away from him. I kind of had to just give in and be reclusive until I could learn Aaron’s signals better. Because he has some great long periods of being awake during the day, it has helped. If someone else is holding him and he is awake, I worry less. I can easily see that he’s ok. When he sleeps deeply and I have things going on around me is when I can get to be a bit of a basket case. Aaron overall is continually teaching us to trust again. It is a slow process, but every day we are building a new experience. It is so healing to have him here. Thanks for your patience. I know some are jealous that others have met Aaron, while they have yet to receive an invitation to come over. I am slowly working through our list of loved ones. I am busy a lot of the time with the basic tasks of caring for a new baby, as well as trying to get to you all. Some days it feels overwhelming and I am just not in a good mood for it. Some days Aaron is the one that isn’t up for it. We just do what we can.

These pictures were taken when Aaron was 2 weeks old from my favorite photographer Christie of Blue Columbine Photography. Aren’t they amazing? It was a fun afternoon. I met Christie in prenatal yoga when I was pregnant with Noah. She’s been such a kind and understanding friend through all of the craziness of the last year and a half of my life. It was so great to come full circle and celebrate this milestone with her and with her incredible pictures!










I also am trying to keep my trusty flip camera on me so you can see the living, breathing, and very active Aaron in action! Here’s a video of him playing yesterday on his play mat:

Chris also has all of our Aaron pictures up on Flickr if you need a bigger Aaron fix than what I have posted here! You can print your favorites if you want as well. Here's the link: Aaron Pics on Flickr

Aaron - 12 Days Old

The world’s best dad is getting some quality time in with Aaron so I can write!

Somehow the better part of two weeks has passed since Aaron came into the world. As is the case with most families adjusting to life with a new baby, it has been a whirlwind! It has been joyful, hard, tiring, amazing, and many other things all wrapped up into one. All in all, I am just so glad he is here! He is filling a part of our hearts and home that has felt so empty for far too long. We are so absolutely in love with him, and are just amazed at how strong he is. It has been bizarre to compare our experience with Noah to this; sick baby versus healthy one. With Noah we had no frame of reference as to what is normal or not. Now that we have Aaron here, it has helped us accept the idiosyncrasies of our whole situation with Noah. Hard to do, but wow, of course he was sick. We get that now.

Let me start from the beginning. Last I left off, I had just told the story of Aaron’s birth. He spent the majority of that first night in our room with us. Early that next morning, a nurse came in and told us that they needed to move Aaron to the NICU nursery. They ran blood work right after he was born. Everyone had had a chance to review it and his blood sugar was a bit low for comfort. It was in the healthy range, but on the low end of what was still considered ok. This is the big thing we were watching for MCADD. MCADD is life threatening hypoglycemia. Until his newborn test came back with a final answer on whether or not he had it, we had to watch his blood sugars very closely.

Because of all the testing that had been done on him to date, everyone felt pretty certain that he didn’t have MCADD. The more likely suspect for the low blood sugar was his size when he was born. He was well above average for his gestational age. I didn’t realize it, but big babies tend to have blood sugar issues. It made me feel so glad that I let the acupuncturist put me into labor rather than waiting longer. He would have only grown more, and maybe made this more of an issue.

We always knew that Aaron could very well have to spend time in the NICU nursery because of his risk factors. I had mixed feelings about it going in. After losing Noah, I knew I would likely have separation anxiety around anyone taking Aaron away from me. Or, would I find it comforting to know that he was being watched that closely? Turns out the latter was true. I can’t say that I slept much after having Aaron when we were in our room together because I was so paranoid about every little grunt, noise, movement, or lack thereof for any brief period of time. It was a relief when the nurse wheeled him off and hooked him up to all those monitors.



The culture in the NICU nursery was not at all what I expected. Maybe some of you that have been through it can clue me in on this. Aaron was there for four days, and I hardly saw another parent there with their babies. For me, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else! The nurses almost seemed annoyed by how much we were there, but I really didn’t care. I can see why when they have free reign over all the babies without anyone asking for an active role in the care of their charges. Regardless, we were there as much as they’d let us, mostly around his rigorous feeding schedule. He had to eat at least every three hours, unless he wanted it sooner. Aaron came out being a really great eater (THANK GOD!) so we were there a lot.

Finally, the MCADD test came back. As we had expected, Aaron is free and clear of MCADD. He is not a carrier, so he’ll never have to worry about it with his own children. We were so excited! The news came in while we were in the NICU nursery feeding him. To look down at this beautiful boy and realize that this one is here to stay was a very emotional moment. The staff at the hospital all knew our story and what we have lived through. They were crying and hugging us too. It made them all feel really good about sending us off, knowing that we had really overcome some major hurdles to get here! The extra time in the hospital had given Aaron enough time to get his blood sugar levels stabilized enough that we could finally go home. There was nothing left to worry about. His pediatrician told us to “go home and enjoy him.”

Going home was a pretty nervous feeling for both Chris and I. This was when things had gone downhill last time. Even though we have confirmation that Aaron does not have the same issue Noah did, the physical memory of it all was hard to escape. It was also day four of Aaron’s life. Noah only lived four days so Aaron was soon to outlive his brother. I cried the whole way home. I worried about everything. I arranged with our post-partum doula to meet us at the house to help us get settled in. It was pretty crazy, getting in, getting all our stuff in, getting settled, changing a dirty diaper and feeding Aaron in the middle of it. As crazy as it all was, Aaron really didn’t seem to care. He adjusted to the change beautifully.

We’ve since been settling into a new normal around the house. Chris and I are getting to be a little stir crazy. We ordinarily lead pretty busy lives, so to sit around and watch TV and hang out all day is really not us! It is just what life needs to be right now as we jump to care for all of Aaron’s needs. Now that he is free of all the monitors and craziness of the NICU nursery, we have much more freedom to hang out and see what he can do. He is pretty amazing! He already shows signs of smiling! He’s done it quickly a few times, both in his dreams, and awake as well. I imagine it will be a while before he’ll do it long enough to get a picture. We’ll keep watching. He can also turn over onto his side if you leave his arms free when he lies down. He is really fighting to hold his head up on his own too. He also has really great long periods of being awake. It is so much fun to interact with him. He looks deeply into your eyes. Chris thinks he’s a deep thinker by some of the expressions he makes when you talk to him. He continues to eat really well. He just hit a growth spurt I think. His feeding times have grown from being 15 minutes to being closer to an hour. I will be honest and say that it has me pretty pooped since the burden is all on me with breast feeding! Chris has been a great help and is eager to jump in with diaper changes, or soothing him back to sleep once we’re done. He is such a great father to both boys in how he is just so willing and eager to do anything for them. I love how both kids seem to have such a strong understanding of who their father is. Aaron will hear Chris’s voice and will turn to look for him. I absolutely love it.

Healing from this child birth seems to be a bit slower for me than it was last time (that I can remember anyways!). The hormonal changes those first few days were pretty rotten. I also had mild mastitis for a few days last week. Wow, I can’t imagine the full blown version of that, since the mild version of it was pretty unpleasant! Thanks to my amazing midwife, she got me healed up using herbs and supplements so I didn’t have to take antibiotics. Life is finally starting to feel more like normal. We have been able to get out and go for short walks around the neighborhood the last couple of days, which has been wonderful! Fall has hit Colorado, and I just want to be out in it with Aaron.

Our post-partum doula is working out well. She shows up at 7:30 every morning. It is right about that time after a night full of waking up to change diapers, feed Aaron, and get him settled back down to sleep that we are feeling overwhelmed. She takes the baby. I go back to bed and sleep for a couple more hours. Chris gets up to walk the dog, and have breakfast. I wake up, and she hands the baby to me to feed him. She then goes off to make me breakfast. Then we trade off. She takes the baby and I eat and take a shower. In between, she does laundry, makes the bed, cleans up dishes, feeds the pets, restocks the changing table with fresh diapers, burp rags, wipes, etc. When she leaves at noon, we are in great shape and ready to face the day. I love her.

It’s getting to be time for Aaron to need me again, so I’m going to sign off. Thanks for your patience with us! We have both gotten a lot of calls, emails, and other notes from you guys. We owe you all so many responses back, but life has been more than a little nutty! Please know that all has been received and appreciated! Here’s some more pics of our boy:

Patience Please!

Chris and I are fortunate to be connected to a really loving group of people who have been cheering for us all along on this journey. We appreciate it more than we can say. I understand that you guys are all so anxious to meet the final product of everything we’ve been through. We want Aaron to grow up knowing you all and understanding how loved and appreciated his life is. I am feeling guilty because I have gotten lots of calls, emails, Facebook messages and such saying “when can we come over?” I wish I could say “Today! Right now!” but I can’t.

Chris and I both feel a strong sense of hyper-vigilance around Aaron because of our past history as parents. Noah died right under our noses at four days of age. The scars from that experience run deep. It isn’t that we are afraid that anyone would do anything to Aaron by any means. More that the distraction of having company would pull our constant attention away from Aaron and our need to continually see that he is ok. Some of the visits we have had so far have triggered this panicky feeling in us already, and has unhinged us for quite a while after the visit ended. Therefore, I hope you can appreciate our need to hold off on visits for a little while until we begin to build some days under our belts where we look at Aaron, feel anxious, and nothing happens. Aaron is one big strong boy, and every day he is teaching us to trust a little bit more, but the process is just going to take some time.

Thanks for hanging with us in the mean time. I plan to try to keep up on blogging so you all have a sense of how we are doing (as Mr. Aaron allows of course!). Love to you all, and I promise we will resurface again soon.

Aaron's Birth Story

Hanging out on the birth ball during contractions.

Our boy is here!

I think have successfully fed Aaron enough to put him into a serious turkey coma (ala Thanksgiving) enough to be able to catch up on some blogging. I owe so many of you phone calls, emails, thank you notes and the like. Please forgive me as life has been a little crazy of late! I know many have asked for our stories of how he was born, and what life has been like since, so I am turning to my trusty blog to fill you all in! Please forgive spelling mistakes and weird sentences. Time is tight! Now to type as fast as I can…

Wow, has my life changed within the short span of just a few days!!! We are just absolutely in love with this little guy, and can hardly keep our hands off of him. He is so amazing in how strong he is, and how well he has adapted to life outside of me.

Aaron made a dramatic entrance into the world on October 14th. The day before I had one of my weekly visits to the acupuncturist. She has been helping me keep the PUPPPS away as well as toning down a number of other pregnancy discomforts. She saw me on this Wednesday, took one look at the exhausted expression on my face from lack of sleep, my extremely swollen ankles and feet, and looked at the itchy skin beginning to spread across my belly as we were starting to lose the battle of keeping the PUPPPS at bay, and said to me “you’re miserable, aren’t you?” I just about cried, I was just so glad to hear someone validate that for me. She asked if I was ready to get things started, and before she had the question out of her mouth, I was saying “YES!” She did some points to help encourage labor, and sent me home. That night at my 2am pee break (one of many), the pressure of my full bladder along with the incredible weight of the baby my water broke. I was pretty wired the rest of the night, waiting to see if contractions would begin. Chris was sleeping downstairs in the guest bedroom because of my constant restlessness and snoring, being that big. I let him sleep and didn’t wake him since I knew Aaron would need him as soon as he was out for whatever care was in store.

In the morning at a more decent hour, nothing had happened yet. I called my midwife, and she told me that I should make it my business to try to go into labor now that my water had broken. If I go to the hospital, they will give me drugs, which I don’t want. So, it’s time to pull out all the stops on the natural ways of inducing labor. She suggested a few things, but strongly encouraged that I go back to the acupuncturist for another treatment. I got an appointment for 4:00 that afternoon with my doctor’s backup (she was off that day), and did what I could with walking, herbs, essential oils and the like in the mean time. None of it worked. My 4:00 appointment came, and the acupuncturist pulled out all the stops with her treatment. She did two points on the back of my second toe that really kicked off. I had five contractions in ten minutes! I had my mom drive me to my appointment, and I am glad I did because I continued to have contractions the whole way home.

Chris got off work, and he hung out at home to wait for me to arrive back from my appointment. We called my dad to get us some dinner. I needed to load up on carbs for the marathon I had ahead of me, so he got me some pasta. I sat on the birth ball in my living room, watched movies, and hung out as things progressed. Chris would talk me through each contraction while he rubbed my shoulders, back and arms, and occasionally do a hip squeeze movement we learned from my doula that felt fantastic! My parents timed my contractions so he could focus on me. All of it was very tolerable, and exciting because I knew Aaron was coming!

I started to feel sleepy. I had hardly slept the night before after my water broke because I was so amped up. I had meant to take a nap that afternoon, but had gotten busy with the natural labor induction activities and hadn’t slept then either. I decided to lie down and close my eyes for a bit. I slept for about half an hour, occasionally waking up during a contraction. When I woke up for good, I was trembling pretty hard, and the contractions were very strong. We decided that we really needed to get to the hospital sooner rather than later. In between contractions, I made a run for the car before another one came on. My mom drove, and Chris rode in the back with me. Shortly after we took off from the house, I felt the urge to push! I was so desperate to follow what my body was telling me to do, yet, we live a long way off from the hospital and quite a drive left to go. My mom floored it, and she and Chris did their best to coach me through shallower breathing to try to slow things down. This boy had plans of his own, and as we were getting to the hospital, I could feel his head right down where it should be to come out. They insisted on putting me in a wheelchair(!!!) to get me up to labor and delivery. I sat in it crooked to save room for him. We had gone in through the emergency room entrance, and I vaguely remember people looking at me and saying in horrified tones “oh my God…”

They took me to triage where they do the initial check to see where you are. I was +3 station (meaning the baby’s head was right there and ready to come out). They didn’t even bother to tell how many centimeters dilated I was or put me into a hospital gown, and ran me on a gurney down the hall to a delivery room. The nurses were frantically telling me not to push, and holding my legs together. I really didn’t care at this point. I am strong, and I had held him in long enough. Fortunately, the doctor was right there quickly, and I went to town, and had him out in very short order. I had been at the hospital for ten minutes, if that. I delivered him right there, haphazardly thrown into a room on a bed in my street clothes. Nothing mattered. I was overcome with joy at this beautiful little boy that they had placed next to me on the bed. He was gorgeous, and so very alert and pink. He cried and cried, which was just music to my ears. I just looked at him in wonder, and was so incredibly excited and relieved that he was out. We had made it. I had had yet another amazing natural childbirth, and he looked so healthy and active. My mom and Chris were with me through the whole thing. Our poor doula had gotten there a few minutes later. It was just one of those things, though. Aaron had plans of his own, and he was ready to be born regardless of anything else going on in the world!

He was 8 pounds, 9 ounces, and 20 inches long. His head was 14.5 centimeters in diameter. A big boy! They let me hold him and bond with him for quite a while, and then it was time for him to be whisked off to the nursery to begin the rigorous checkup process that had been outlined for him by the Children’s Hospital. They patched me up, and got me moved to a postpartum room. We didn’t have time to bring up any of our things prior to his birth, so everyone brought my stuff up to our room. Our doula remembered that I wanted to go to the nursery to be with Aaron, and asked the nurses if I could do that. They said that would be no problem, and wheeled me in a wheelchair over to him and Chris in the nursery. Chris and I just sat there and looked at Aaron, played with his hands and feet, felt his soft skin, watched his chest rise and fall with each breath, and felt completely elated at this amazing baby we had created! I couldn’t help but cry a little with complete joy at his life, and the miracle of it after all that we have been through. I knew that I loved him deeply, but at that moment, the feeling intensified a million-fold. It had been a wild ride of a night, but here we were at the end with this wonderful spirit to spend our lives with, watching him grow.