In April of 2014 something extraordinary happened to me. I, Jacqueline, became a mom!
Hubby Henry and I got married in Ecuador in May of 2013 and from the very beginning, we knew we wanted to have a baby. So when August rolled around and my period hadn’t arrived yet (I’m hardly ever late), we went to a pharmacy nearby and bought a pregnancy test.
The Test
For some people buying a pregnancy test might not seem like a big deal, but for me, someone who had never bought one in her life, it was a huge deal! I mean, I must’ve read those instructions several times before I locked myself up in the downstairs bathroom and did the deed. I had all these questions like Am I supposed to tilt this wand at an angle? How much pee should I let it absorb? Should I do this first thing in the morning, or is the afternoon fine? Needless to say I was super nervous.
One minute… two minutes…
Positive!
I walked out the bathroom and I asked Hubby Henry, “Ready?”
He braced himself, one hand on the stove railing, and a huge, nervous smile on his face. “Ready!” he said.
I whipped out the results and showed him.
“I’m going to be a dad…” he managed out before dropping to the floor in front of the stove. “Wow!”
At my parent’s house in Quito, Ecuador. Early on in my pregnancy
And that was the moment where everything changed. From that moment on, all we did was dream about our baby. Is he a boy? A girl? What will he/she look like? What should we name him/her? What if they’re twins?!
And I took good care of myself. No more junk food. No strenuous lifting. No tight clothing ‘cuz I was afraid it might hurt my baby. And I took pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. This was my first baby and I was damm sure going to document all of it!
At the start of my pregnancy, we lived in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, since my hubby was painting my dad’s houses. Later on, the majority of my pregnancy would take place in Riobamba, a small city three hours south of Quito.
Nine Week Scare
Four weeks after our pregnancy news, we had a scare. For whatever reason, I still to this day don’t understand what happened or how, but I
September 11, 2013
started bleeding. Nothing hurt. I just bled. So we rushed to the hospital to see what happened to our baby. Everything was in Spanish, not my dominant language, and as much as I tried to understand what was going on, I didn’t. I had a vaginal ultrasound done. Since the baby was so small, a vaginal ultrasound (inserting a tube inside my vajayjay) would give us a clearer picture of whether the baby was ok and what had happened.
The baby was fine.
Phew! Cue tears of joy!
They said a blood vessel had popped. That I understood. But where did it pop? In my uterus? In my placenta? I don’t know. Wherever it popped, it was not near the baby. So I guess that rules out the placenta. So uterus maybe? Uterine walls? Uterine muscles? I don’t know! And I didn’t really care! I was just happy that I hadn’t miscarried.
My little baby at 9 weeks
There’s baby Henry before we even knew he was a “HE”. The sonogram looks a bit grainy ‘cuz in Ecuador, they don’t give you a picture of your sonogram, they give you what looks like an x-ray sheet. I asked around if anyone could print from that, they could not, so I took a picture of my baby’s sonogram film in the light.
Back to Riobamba!
In Riobamba, Ecuador on a warm, sunny day
After the painting project was finished, we went back to Riobamba, where my husband is from. My mother-in-law took me to my monthly check-ups and I took all my
prenatals and iron supplements. I started losing weight instead of gaining, but I read that that was normal since many women experience morning sickness. I, however, was not experiencing that. I just WASN’T HUNGRY. And, I couldn’t eat chicken. I couldn’t even smell chicken. Major aversion! Oh and brushing my teeth? Mandatory obviously but totally grossed me out! Brushing my teeth caused me to gag, every time!
So although I wasn’t throwing up constantly, I was avoiding chicken, gagging when I threw up, and experiencing nausea when we would drive on curvy roads. The curvy roads caused me to throw up twice. Sucua, a town where my mother-in-law is from, was a three-hour drive from Riobamba. About 1.5-2 of those hours are curvy roads. I had to lay down in the car, close my eyes. Pretend I was anywhere but in the car, on a curvy road. Utter TORTURE!
Twelve Week Scare
My second scare and the one that changed me forever happened three weeks after the first. I will try to detail it as best as possible, but I don’t think words could do it justice. THIS was the scariest thing I have ever experienced ’til this day. On the flip side, I learned something about myself which I will reveal towards the end of the story.
In September, my parents went to Ecuador to visit. As customary, they went everywhere around the country. They hadn’t been to the beach in awhile so they decided to take us along with my cousin Emilio. The beach we went to was called Montañita and I had been to this beach the year before with some other relatives, so when the name came up I said hell yeah let’s go there! They have the biggest waves!
My parents enjoying a national beer
My cousin Emilio also enjoying a beer
As you can see from the picture above and the ones below, everything was super.
The day began with food and some beer (none for me). After the grub, came the water! Yes! I love the beach. In Connecticut I would go to the beach all the time. My niece and nephews and I have many fond memories of going to Long Beach in Stratford, CT.
So while my parents and cousin walked the beach and visited other parts of the beach, we found a spot for ourselves near the shore and started playing. I was only 12 weeks at the time and I figured throwing myself into incoming waves wouldn’t hurt my baby. He was still so tiny.
Henry and I had a go at this. It really was a lot of fun. I had brought my Kodak Playsport video recorder so we took pix in the water.
Believe me when I tell you that Montañita really does have the biggest waves. They were huge! Bigger than the year before. In the picture below you can see waves that have already crashed. All that white stuff around me are broken waves. Eventually, we threw the camcorder aside and continued playing with the waves. They basically beat us at every turn. They were fierce. As soon as a wave started forming we would take heed, waiting until it was at its peak and then dive into it as it was breaking. I don’t know how long we were playing for, but slowly, we moved further and further from shore. And not only that, but we had migrated eastward. I remember stopping to look for our umbrella. Whoa! It’s all the way over there! How did that happen? We didn’t swim towards the right.
There were other people playing in the water, many actually. I remember a few people being called back by the lifeguards because they had gone too far away from shore. I remember thinking they were careless. The open water seemed so vast!
Montañita Beach, Ecuador. September 28, 2013
We would swim back to the area where our umbrella was, but then we would get pulled away again. Except, you don’t notice you’re being pulled until you realize you don’t know where your stuff is. We didn’t realize what was actually happening to us until we stopped playing and looked around. No one was in the water anymore. At some point, everyone got out. We were the only ones there. And we were also REALLY far from the shore. The farthest we’d ever been. I couldn’t feel the ground below me.
“Let’s go back,” Henry said.
“Ok,” I replied.
We started swimming.
Except I was in the same place. I swam again. Nothing. I didn’t know what was happening at the time. I reached out for Henry to help me. But then he started moving away from me, closer to the shore. And I realized I couldn’t swim in this water.
“Amor!” I called out to him. It’s what I always call him. He was leaving me there! In the water where we had just played with these enormous waves that basically kicked our butts.
“Amor!!” I screamed. Come back! Why is he leaving me here?! I could feel tears start to form (I’m crying as I write this). I was starting to panic, my breathing getting heavy. I was three months pregnant and stuck in the water. I saw Henry turn towards me and hold up both hands. He was telling me to wait.
Wait? Wait for what? I’m going to drown! My lungs are going to fill up with water. I’m going to choke and suffocate on water. I turned around and I looked out onto the water, searching for the next wave to pull me under. This is my first time being pregnant and I’m never gonna know what it’s like to feel my baby inside. Because I couldn’t feel him yet. I’m never going to know what it’s like to give birth. I just got pregnant and now I’m going to die. Or get eaten by a shark. That thought did cross my mind. A shark could’ve been coming at me I was so far out. I am deathly afraid of sharks.
So either a shark or the wave would kill me.
A Will To Survive
But then something came over me. A calmness. Just as fast as I had started panicking, I stopped panicking. I couldn’t touch the floor but I was staying afloat without much effort. I wasn’t doggie paddling. I was just sort of bicycling with my legs and doing outwards circles with my hands. I was staying up above the water. Furthermore, the water was calm, there were no more waves here. Just movement. An up and down movement by the water and it was taking me WITH IT. You are a survivor, I told myself. You have to stay alive, for you and your baby. You will both be fine! You can’t die because then your baby will die. You need to give him a chance to be in this world.
I looked towards the shore and saw that Henry had called the lifeguards over. They were by my side in seconds with a buoy.
Before the scare
They asked me my name and I told them I was pregnant. I was still breathing heavily so they helped me calm my breathing then they told me I would be fine and that I had been pulled by a current. A current! Of course! I knew about currents. I knew I was supposed to swim perpendicular to them, but I hadn’t realized I was in a current.
You see, my idea of a current was something I could SEE, like a downward stream. But I was wrong. You couldn’t see this. You could only feel like you were stuck. The lifeguards told me to hold onto the buoy and they would pull me behind them. I did as they said.
By then a crowd had gathered at the shore, hubby Henry being front and center. I saw the crowd. I was so embarrassed and felt so dumb. I wanted everyone to carry on. Don’t mind me! Henry hugged me and asked if I was okay.
“Why did you leave me?” I asked him when people walked away.
“You were pulling me in. I had to get help,” he said. “I was so scared!”
Me too.
We found my parents soon after. They didn’t know anything since they didn’t say anything. But my cousin, who had also been on his won somewhere said, “Did you guys hear a woman almost drowned?”
“That was Jackie!” Henry said
“That was me!” I said at the same time that he did.
We told them what happened. I was shaken up the rest of the day. If I would’ve gone under I would be dead by now. Henry was shaken up too. “I almost lost both of you today,” he repeated several times. Sometimes we still go back to that day. I remember how I didn’t cry. The pep talk I gave myself. I knew I had to make it because of my baby. He was worth it. Being a mom has been worth it.
October, November, and December
My niece Victoria turned a year old in October so I decided I would fly to the U.S. to attend her birthday bash. I was a bit nervous about flying while pregnant. I wasn’t
October in Connecticut
October in Quito
sure how my body would react, but it was easy peasy. I slept the duration of the flight and arrived in one piece to Connecticut.
A funny thing happened though. As soon as I arrived it seemed that my belly grew bigger! Hahaha! On the right you can see a picture of me in my old room in Connecticut. Whoah Nelly, that’s a big belly!
And if you’re wondering why I have those marks on my stomach. I’m allergic to dogs. Those marks are hives. Henry’s family have two dogs and the one we bought which is Hank. I’m not allergic to Hank, but I am allergic to the other two dogs. As soon as I step foot into their yard I start itching. How do I know I’m not allergic to Hank? When we stayed a few weeks in Quito, we took Hank with us. My hives disappeared. Back to Riobamba. Hives came back.
After I took the shot on the right I sent it to hubby Henry. His reaction was priceless.
Henry’s reaction to my growing belly
A few days after I arrived to CT, we had my niece’s party at our house. It was a Halloween theme so perusing through Pinterest I decided I wanted to wear something to announce my pregnancy on that day. Officially announce it. A Facebook post wasn’t THAT official. Not all my family members have one.
So what could I make? I wanted to try something new.
My little skeleton ninja stencil
I found a pin by momfinds.com with the cutest skeleton ninja baby in belly shirt ever! I looked up how to make a stencil, bought some freezer paper, drew my rib cage and skeleton ninja baby. Then, using an X-acto knife I cut out the stencil. The instructions said to use fabric paint to paint the stencil, but I didn’t have that or a lot of time so I just used what
Pregnancy reveal!
I had on hand: white acrylic paint. After the paint had dried, I removed the ironed-on freezer paper.
What a cute and funny baby reveal! It came out just as I had hoped! I wore the shirt at Little Miss Vicki’s birthday party and it was a hit! Some people thought it was a joke so I had to clarify! No joke peeps! I’m having a baby!
So in November it was time for me to go back to my hubby in Ecuador. See, after we got married I filed paperwork and petitioned Henry to the U.S. We had both agreed we didn’t want to continue living in
November in Connecticut
Ecuador and wanted to come to the U.S. together (yay!). The process began in June and by November we were still waiting to take the next
steps after filing the initial paperwork. I started to worry because I had heard that the process usually takes a total of 8 months (years ago), but currently it was taking more like 1 1/2 – 2 years to complete. That was not good for me. My baby would be born in 5 months and I wanted Henry in the U.S. with me! To say that the idea of giving birth alone frightened me is an understatement! It terrified me! I started calling and emailing USCIS to try and get my case expedited so that Henry would here with me faster.
Before I left, I remember waking up one morning and feeling like my whole back was really itchy. I chakled it up to old sheets that hadn’t been changed, but when I went back to Ecuador, I had my OB-GYN look at it and she told me it was a pregnancy rash that sometimes happens. There is no cure for it and it usually goes away after you give birth.
Ugh! It itched so bad!
She recommended a special soap and cream to use on the areas to alleviate the itching. This helped, but as previously stated did not make the itchiness go away.
Butterflies in My Belly? Or is it My Baby??
Pregnancy rash
Also, while I was in the U.S. I started to feel like I had little bubbles in my belly. Since I’d never been pregnant before I didn’t know how to distinguish regular stomach movements from baby movements. But I had read that I would start to feel my baby move around that time. When I realized the movement in my belly was my baby and not from something I had just eaten I started to cry for two reasons.
- I could feel my baby! I created a life and now I could feel that life inside of me!
- I was alone when it happened. Henry was in Ecuador and when I told him I could feel the baby it wasn’t like he could hug me or try to feel the baby himself. I would’ve liked that. But regardless, the realization that I could feel my baby brought me great joy!
December
December in Ecuador came and went. We celebrated Christmas and New Year’s with Henry’s family. I FaceTimed my family. We also moved into our own apartment which was reeeeeaaallllly nice! Wow! I really miss that place. We made the apartment our own and I enjoyed cooking daily for my hubby. I made Christmas decorations myself and in a future post I will tell you about the upcycled plastic bottle glitter wreath I made for our door. It was beautiful!
January
In January we had a 3D sonogram done for our baby. They also informed me we were having a…. BOY! Yay!!!! I was so happy! I had a feeling I was having a boy and always wanted a boy first, but I would be happy with any baby God would give me and above all I just prayed for a healthy baby. My expedite request was also granted in January and we had to anxiously await our interview date at the American embassy in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It seemed as though coming back home with my husband in tow was right around the corner. I was so happy!
3D Sonogram
With my mother-in-law, Laura
My First Baby Shower: in Ecuador
Baby Shower in Ecuador
My mother-in-law threw me a baby shower in February. It was a nice small gathering with close family and friends.
They planned everything and I didn’t do anything! How nice! All I had to do was get dolled up and show up! A total opposite to the baby shower we had here for baby Henry.
Everything was coming along great and by the end of February we had our interview date and were ready to drive the 3-4 hours to Guayaquil so Henry’s visa could be granted and we could go back to the U.S. before my baby decided to make an early entrance!
Visa granted!
Awaiting Henry’s Visa to the U.S.
Henry’s interview was set for February 28th and we both walked in their together. We brought evidence that we both entered our marriage in good faith and were not trying to commit fraud to get Henry to the U.S.
What sealed the deal for us were the baby’s sonograms. The immigration officer barely asked him any questions, barely looked at the paperwork (it could’ve been because they knew it was an expedite request) once they learned that we were having a baby.
Carnaval in March
They called him up after a few minutes, had him swear under oath that everything presented is truth and… visa granted!
My hubby would be a legal resident when he arrived to the U.S. We were so happy! Now we just had to buy our tickets and get ourselves to Connecticut to await our little baby boy whom we had decided would be called Henry Alejandro just like his dad. Well, in truth I wanted to call him Henry Alexander because I thought it sounded better, but then I decided I wanted to give him his dad’s exact name. So little baby Henry would soon be in the U.S.!
It’s so funny for me to look back at us in these pictures, especially my husband! He looks so young in these pictures, and thin! Since coming here he has really filled out, but not in a bad way. I think he looks better now than he has ever looked before!
To the U.S.
Before our flight back to the U.S. on March 7th, we were fortunate enough to enjoy our last Carnaval in Ecuador.
We went to Sucua to celebrate over there and also make a point to thank his family there and say goodbye to them. It was so exciting, but also scary for Henry.
The Struggle is Real!
I tried to imagine what it must be like to leave everything you know and move to a new country where you hardly know anyone and you don’t know the language or customs. I tried to make it an easy transition for him, but it definitely was not easy for him.
He really struggled at first. The U.S. and Ecuador have very few things that are similar! He missed Ecuador so much. He missed his family as well. I understood this, but I also didn’t understand why he was getting sad. He still had me. Wasn’t I enough? We were about to have a baby. Wasn’t he happy about that?
We had about a month to get everything ready for baby Henry’s arrival. My U.S. baby shower was in mid-March and we needed to get his nursery ready and plan for the party. With my parents we went to El Bambi in New Jersey and bought baby Henry’s crib and a bureau. My parents were gifting us that. Lovingly, I began decorating his little room.
Looking at cribs in El Bambi in Union City, NJ
My Second Baby Shower: in the U.S.
For my baby shower I decided to use an airplane theme which coincided with the invitations I had ordered from Vistaprint while in Ecuador. I was 37 weeks when we had the party. I printed out little
stations cards for areas such as “Baggage Claim” (souvenirs), “Jet Fuel” (drinks), “Baggage Drop-Off” (presents), and so on. We decorated our house with balloons and banners. For the souvenirs, we made little suitcases. I searched online for a template and did everything by hand… the night before the party… 50 souvenirs… I literally stayed up until about 4 a.m. making these. The party was that afternoon at 3 p.m. I was so exhausted from making the party favors that I didn’t even want to think about the food. But… I had to. I slept as much as I possible could and then hubby Henry and I went downstairs and began the long, arduous job or cooking! We were expecting about 30 people.
Around 3:30 p.m. people started arriving and we were finishing up getting ready.
All of my family and friends were there and it was such a wonderful party for my little one. I was so thankful for everyone that could attend.
Waiting for Baby to Arrive
We had a maternity shoot one week before I was due. I don’t have those pictures since they are copyrighted. But they really did come out amazing. My due date was April 12th, but come that day, I felt no contractions. On the 13th, we went to the movies and while watching the movie (can’t remember which one), I could feel a tightening around my belly and back. I remember thinking, it’s starting.
At the movies. Tired!
I started my breathing exercises and timing my contractions. When I felt that it was time for us to go, we went to the hospital. We had everything ready for this day. My bags were packed and had been packed for several days just in case he came early. When we left the house I was fine, but excited. By the time we arrived at the hospital (just a 7-minute drive) it was just after midnight on the 14th and I was starting to feel SOMETHING! They brought me up to my suite and checked all my vitals. I was great and baby was great. My numbers and their numbers for my contractions were all off though. I had been counting wrong. I thought they had been two minutes apart, but they were actually more like five. Oh, and I was only three centimeters dilated. At this hospital they don’t give you an epidural whenever you want. You have to be seven centimeters to get one.
Sooooooo…… I had to wait… and walk… I put on my pajamas and my robe and Henry and I walked up and down the hallway of the hospital. The contractions were getting much worse and to be completely honest, I don’t know how the hell I didn’t faint right then and there. Whenever they would come on I would stop, hold onto the railing on my one side and hold onto Henry on my other side. I remember having to hunch over, one foot almost lifted because I just couldn’t support the pain!
Baby Henry come out already!
How did women do this back before epidurals existed? How did my grandmothers have 13 and 15 kids??? I’m not kidding. My maternal grandmother had 13 children and my paternal grandmother had 15! How!! And they were tiny women! Shorter than I am! I always thought I had a high tolerance for pain; I have tattoos and I used to go to a hypertricologist/electrolycist for hair removal. But I was not ready for THIS! THIS was something else! Contractions are the worst pain I have ever experienced to date. On the flipside I would totally do it again because it gave me my beautiful children.
Anyway…
So I had to wait and wait. They had me lay in bed because they thought that might help the pain. It didn’t really. Every time a contraction came on I wriggled in my bed. I tried to sleep, but no luck. Come on 7 centimeters! Open up!!!
After what seemed like forever, they informed me that I was 7 centimeters and could get the epidural. “Give it to me, please!” I begged. PLEASE! NOW! RIGHT NOW! NOT A SECOND LATER! The anesthesiologist came in and did his work. I’m not gonna lie and say it didn’t hurt ‘cuz it did. They are sticking a needle in your spine. You have to be perfectly still and tell them where you feel a tingle. Thankfully everything went according to plan. A contraction came on and then for the next one, I didn’t feel a thing.
And it was like that the rest of the day, because it was already daytime. I don’t remember how many hours had passed by the time they gave me the epidural, but I walked in at 12:05 a.m. and my son was born at 3:08 p.m. I was in labor for 15 hours.
So after the epidural did its magic, a nurse came and inserted a catheter into my urethra since I wouldn’t be able to tell when I had to pee. The idea of a tube being inserted into my pee hole was not a pleasant one and it really creeped me out.
Since I wasn’t at the right dilation we basically just killed time. I slept. Henry slept. My mother came to visit. All because I wasn’t at 10 centimeters. But no one was in a hurry and baby and I were fine so they never gave me anything to speed up delivery. Or maybe they couldn’t because it was a Catholic hospital? I don’t know.
Regardless, we waited and waited until it was time.
HE’S HERE!
Daddy and baby!
When I finally arrived at 10 centimeters (thank you Jesus!) the nurses told me to tell them when I felt like pushing, but I never felt like pushing because I couldn’t feel anything. The machine attached to my belly and reading my contractions told them though, that it was time. I kinda pretended that I could feel something, but it was so minor. I was really guessing. Until I heard the contractions on the machine. I started timing them to my pushes. My doc on rotation, Dr. Servetas, came in.
“Hello, Mama…”
I was SO RELIEVED! I can’t tell you how relieved. When I first arrived back in the U.S. I was 35 weeks along. I made an appointment with the office that delivered at this hospital because this was the hospital I wanted to deliver at. There are two in my city. I didn’t want to deliver at the other one. It is father away and although I was born at this hospital, I wanted to deliver at the one closer to my house. It had nothing to do with it being a catholic hospital, by the way. It was just closer. This office where I made my pre-natal visits had 5 doctors. I met all of them. I liked very few of the doctors. There was one that I really DID NOT like and I hoped and prayed that HE wouldn’t be the one delivering my baby. Thank God it was not him!! Phew! Dr. Servetas was a very nice doctor and I was so happy to have him delivering my baby.
They asked me if I wanted a mirror to see what was going on and I said, “Yes, please!” We got ready to push. I got in position, we started counting, “One… two… push…”
Nothing.
Again.
“One… two… push…”
Nada!
I remember thinking I’m pushing with all my might. How do I get this baby to come out of my vajayjay? I remember panicking and thinking there was just no way and I would have to have a C-section. No way!
I pushed as hard as I could. I was starting to get a bit frustrated. Pushing a baby out is not easy. Then Dr. Servetas said to the nurse, “You know what? I don’t even think she’s trying.”
What? WHAT?!!! NOT TRYING?!??!?! ARE YOU INSANE MAN? DO YOU NOT SEE HOW RED MY FACE IS? I AM DEFINITELY TRYING HERE!!!!
With Daddy
That turned on a switch for me. With the next push my son was crowning. I could see his head! One more push and he was out!
Phew!
As soon as I saw and heard him cry, I started crying. Daddy cut the umbilical cord though he was still dumbfounded by what he had just seen. He just saw a little human come out of my hoo-ha. You don’t want to know what some of his other thoughts were. Haha! Then he saw the placenta come out and some blood. He said it wasn’t too much. I remember seeing the nurse take the catheter out after the baby was born and stream of blood ran down the tube. I remember thinking Oh boy. I’m gonna be in pain later on.
They gave baby Henry to me so we could start our lifelong bond. He was so beautiful even if he was covered in gunk. Then they took him and checked all his vitals and cleaned him up real nice. Daddy stood by what looked like an open incubator and watched them weigh and measure him. He was 6 lbs. 14 oz. and 20 1/2 inches. Wow! Almost 7 pounds! The doctors had thought he would be an 8-pound baby ‘cuz they said my belly was really big. But in truth, I think it was because I’m so little that a belly looks big on me regardless of what size it is. You know, I only gained 7 pounds in this pregnancy. I was 158 when I got pregnant and then I went down to 145. When I came to the U.S. at 35 weeks I weighed about 155. My last week before I gave birth I gained 10 pounds and weighed 165. So only 7 pounds!
With Mommy
After they weighed and measured him, they gave him back to me so I could bond some more and start breastfeeding him. The nurses thankfully helped me because I didn’t know WHAT I was doing in terms of breastfeeding! Everyone was pretty nice though, with a few exceptions. Then it was time for pictures with the baby and visitors.
My parents came as did my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and some friends. My niece was so happy to see the baby, she really wanted to hug him and
My little peanut
hold him in her lap! The luxury of the epidural was wearing off and boy was I feeling what I had just done! My sister-in-law, Gladys, asked if I wanted to have another baby and I said, “Hell no!” I had to use a donut to sit down! Everything hurt down there! I had torn a tiny bit and had to get one stitch, but the worst part was that I had gotten a small cut around my urethra. And I knew this because I was in so much pain down there that I had asked my nurse to check what kind of damage was done. I just knew I had a cut there. And she confirmed it. It hurt so much to pee not only around my vajayjay, but around my pee hole too. Damn you, catheter! Damn you! Oh and I didn’t know when I had to pee. I had no peeing sensation. My doc said that was normal and that the feeling would come back after a few hours. It did.
He also mentioned there was blood in my urine bag when my catheter was in so he said the catheter might’ve nixed my bladder or something like that. Damn you, catheter! Damn you!
Grandpa with his new grandson
Grandma with her new grandson
Little Miss Vicki with her new cousin!
With his going-home outfit!
Time to Go Home!
Henry was born on a Monday and by Wednesday it was time for us to go HOME! Thankfully!What a relief! I was ready to blow that joint AKA leave that place! The nice Lactation Consultant, Jan, had stopped by and helped me with breastfeeding techniques and I felt I was somewhat ready to tackle being a new mom on my own. I was really excited to bring baby Henry home with us. I was excited about starting my new journey as a mother!
The healing process down there took about a week for the bleeding to stop. I used Dermoplast, Tucks, and mesh underwear and huge pads on a daily basis until it didn’t feel like fire every time I peed. I was honestly afraid to pee. I would start peeing, feel a burn, and then stop. I didn’t know how long this was going to last for. And despite what you may think, mesh underwear is your friend. At the hospital, ask and stock up on all the supplies you can. Get lots of mesh underwear! It makes all the difference when you’re in this kind of pain. Breastfeeding was more of a struggle so I opted to just pump my milk and feed the baby. It was much easier on my back than breastfeeding him, but now I think it might’ve been because of the epidural procedure that my back felt like it was on fire if I held the baby for too long.
That was more than two years ago and baby Henry has changed so much since then.
I’ve enjoyed every moment with him; seeing him grow right before my eyes. I’m so happy and honored to be his momma. I love my dear little boy so much and although it scares me to death, I look forward to what the future has for us as a family. I’ve changed so much and Daddy has changed so much too. I developed this patience I never knew existed. And I learned what unconditional love really means. I will love my son for the rest of my life, no matter what life throws at us. Thank you God for giving me this little angel to call my son 🙂
That’s my little peanut. What was your pregnancy and birthing story like? Please share in the comments below and thank you for visiting my site!
My Pregnancy Journey and Birthing Story: Henry, Jr. is a post that first appeared on the website: Baby Henry Likes on August 7, 2016.
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