Second time around

They say it's easier the second time around and I must say I agree on many fronts:

Nursing

I was surprised to find that after 15 months of nursing Tobey that the first suck from Eli still hurt! The 10 month break between Tobey and Eli gave my body a chance to be "tender" again. I think Eli is starting out with some of the same issues that Tobey had: strong suck but small mouth (either by genetics or because he's a newborn) and a tongue that might not quite be doing the right thing so getting a big comfy latch is hard. But this time around, there is promise that it will get comfy with time so I'm not feeling hopeless. Plus, I think as far as pain, we've got it down to the toe-curling first few sucks and the rest is okay -- I think it took a while to get to that point with Tobey (or I've upped my pain tolerance!). I'm also not as apprehensive about the mysterious Lansinoh or the breast torture device (the pump). When it's time to use 'em, I just use 'em. Old hat.

Hospital

Second time at the hospital was way different than the first (and I'm not talking about the false alarm where we went to the hospital twice to deliver Eli!). This time we totally knew what to expect and how to deal. The major thing was the number of interruptions. The first time I was told I get to "rest" at the hospital, but reality is how can you rest when 2 nurses come (always at different times of course) at each shift change and also to check vitals, plus the baby's nurse, plus some random nursery nurse, plus the birth certificate recorder, plus the baby picture people, etc. At least this time, I knew to expect it and even could almost predict when they would come or not come. We also remembered that discharge at 10AM was crazy -- I could barely get breakfast and a shower in especially with the last minute interruptions. So we asked for a late discharge time and things were much more relaxed. I even got a nap in the morning while waiting for the lactation consultant to come.

This time, I also knew who was who so I didn't ask the nursery nurse for a cup of juice or an RN to take the baby to the nursery.

Nursery

Speaking of the nursery, we made good use of it this time. With Tobey we did 24 hour room-in to "bond" with baby. "Bonding" ended up being poor sleep for each of us but we felt too guilty as first-time parents to send Tobey off to the nursery to sleep with the other babies. With Eli? Shoot, it was like sending him off to "school". I got a good night's sleep because the nursery can check his vitals without waking me up. Plus, for whatever reason (maybe they've improved?), I felt a little more confident that they would send him back to my room for nursing, versus giving him a bottle in the middle of the night. So why not send the baby to the nursery for a precious hour or two of sleep?

Cindy said there was no nursery available to her at Good Sam when she had Zachary. She wished she could have carted him off for some good sleep! Hopefully with Good Sam's new maternity ward this August, there will be somewhere she can send off baby #2!

Overnight stay

Just our luck or not, I didn't get a private room this time. Even though I never ended up getting a roommate, Tom wasn't allowed to sleep over. This might have sent me over the edge had it happened with the first birth, but this time it wasn't that big of a deal. I knew Tom would be shuttling back and forth between hospital and home anyway so he could spend some time with Tobey. And since we weren't rooming in with Eli anyway and I could get nursing help from any number of nurses, why not have Tom get a good night's rest at home. It ended up working well and Tom spent the evenings at the hospital but overnight at home. Most of the day he spent at home as well except when he brought Tobey and his parents for visiting. And it happened that the only visitors that were able to come weekdays anyway were my mommy friends which Tom didn't really need to be there to chat with. The only time I missed Tom was discharge morning to which I asked him to come early since we needed two cars to get home anyway. It all worked perfectly.

Recovery

My actual recovery has been really smooth this time but I can't attribute it to it being the 2nd time. Eli happened to be smaller so I didn't tear or need an episiotemy which also means one less thing to deal with as far as recovering. But this time I now understood a little more why nurses and OB's were pressing down on my abdomen so hard regarding post-partum bleeding and why I needed a nurse's help to just go to the bathroom the first few times, including the "squeeze bottle". All that stuff was a whirlwind for me the first time but I understood more this time. Heck, now I know why moms of 3 or more can probably just take care of themselves at the hospital (a joke I remember from watching an episode of The Cosby Show).

My recovery ran into a little hiccup a couple of days ago when, ironically after a slightly heated conversation with my mom about staying in bed more, I decided to take more of a rest on Thursday. I was in bed napping a lot or resting/sitting a lot and by the evening, I was sore my entire lower half of my body. I don't know if it's because I had been standing a lot and even walking a little the day before and all of a sudden I stopped, or maybe it's just the amount of activity I had at all, but my body was achey and crampy all evening and all night. I'm slowly coming out of it and today feel pretty good but it was a sign to slow down. Guess my mom was right.

Anyway, point being that the first time around I was very anxious to get back into the swing of things and almost resented the babying and being treated almost like an invalid by my mom when I was post-partum with Tobey. I don't get that kind of babying with Tom's mom this time but I am learning to baby myself for the sake of recovering and also because I know I won't have help all the time, something I couldn't quite appreciate the first time.

Gear

I thought I enjoyed doing all that baby gear shopping when we were expecting Tobey. Maybe I did when I had the time (although I did go overboard in finding the "perfect" color or version of any number of minor baby items) but without time, boy was it nice to have everything already (including those perfectly shopped for minor baby items). On some things I'm a little less picky now too, especially seeing how short a period of time babies use some items. And it's sure nice to get hand-me-downs still, including "new" hand-me-downs this time from Morgan, Tobey and Eli's cousin who was born in between.

Of note, since I'm fresh from the hospital experience was how much more human I felt when I got to wear my own clothes and underwear at the hospital, something that I wasn't quite as appreciative of the first time around. And nursing wear -- I remember being rather confused about why having a nursing bra was such a big deal but now that I've lived on them for 15 months, having the right nursing wear from the beginning again just cuts down on that mysteriousness of the unknown.

My time

I had some serious baby blues post-partum with Tobey. Not to say that I'm not still hormonal with my moments now, but right now I'm feeling pretty good emotionally. I think it's because with any "free" time that I have (especially with needing to rest anyway), I have a few things I've been wanting to do: blog, start Eli's "First Year" calendar, call my mom friends, and of course play with Tobey however I can. The busyness of having Tom's parents around and having Tom around certainly has helped, as is the general reduced nervousness about everything. I should probably watch myself for "delayed" baby blues as Tom goes back to work next week or as help starts dwindling. And also as winter sets in too, a traditional hormonal time of year for me. I saw Brooke Shields on Oprah in the hospital talking about her post-partum (oh yeah, one other thing that was different from the first time, I ventured to stay connected with the outside world by watching TV at the hospital and sometimes at home now which I think helps with any onset of the blues) -- and I think it's great that there's more talk and awareness about it now. Better to think you might have it and not, than the other way around.