Amsterdamgood blog: 2014

Well I'm 3 weeks and 2 days post giving birth to sweet little Abraham Grant Tensmeyer. We sure love our little guy. Dave and I are always pulling each other into Abe's room to look at how sweet his little face is or to see his adorable chub rolls. He's our baby!!

Well a quick overview of the birthing process.....
March 1st 2014 at 11:57 pm we were both in bed. Dave had just drifted off and I had just turned out my lamp when I felt a gush. I said those oh-so-typical words to Dave..."Dave, my water broke". I felt like I was in Father of the Bride II or something for saying it...but it was true! I hurried to the bathroom and sat on the toilet where more gushed out so I put on a maxi overnight pad. We started getting things ready, I called my mom telling her my water broke and called the doctor. We were told to head over to the hospital. I went and changed my pad again. We got to the hospital around 1 am and it wasn't a frantic drive like it's always pictured. We were both very calm but excited! And there was no traffic since it was the middle of the night. By the time we got to the hospital and were walking in my 'water' was still gushing. As we walked through it was just pouring down my legs and I felt so disgusting. There was nothing I could do! I had no idea how much would come out of me! Poor people that had to clean that floor after me.... Whoops.

We got checked in and in the room. I hadn't really noticed having any contractions but apparently I was, just really minor ones. I had gotten a stomach ache earlier that night (I thought it was from eating one a Clif bar but in retrospect I think it was Abe coming!). I was still only dilated to about a 1. Yippie! They decided fairly quickly to put me on Pitocin because apparently if you water breaks you have 24 hours to get that baby out due to infection. Well the Pitocin got those contractions going! I tried sitting on a yoga ball and moving around but it's just a pain in the but because I was hooked up to the IV and I had monitors on my belly. It was a pain in the butt to try to get/stay comfortable because once I moved I knocked the monitors out of place and screwed it up. Well around 7 am I got my epidural because I was just exhausted from not sleeping and well I was in a crap load of pain! The epidural hurt to be put in more than I expected and the thought of being paralyzed crossed my mind but the nurse that was there helped me a lot and tried to distract me. Once the epidural kicked in I was doing great! I was able to sleep! I still wasn't really dilate more than a 4 at that point and Abe's head was at an angle so they moved me from side to side every few hours.

Around 3-ish the Dr came and checked me again and I hadn't dilated more than a 7 so she said that they would keep an eye on me but that there was a slight chance of me getting a C-Section if I wasn't dilated more soon. She and the nurse also mentioned to pay attention if I started feeling like I needed to go poop associated with the contractions because that would be the baby pushing down. As soon as they left I started watching the monitor and paid attention and I absolutely was feeling what they said. After half an hour of that I called the nurse to come see how I was doing. She looked and said "Oh ya, there he is!" So she got the Dr. and soon I began pushing. I only ended up pushing for like 15-20 minutes which is kinda a joke. I tried to push with all my might but I was just so numb that I couldn't really tell if I was doing anything at all! Apparently I was because out came our sweet little Abe! What an overwhelming feeling of becoming a mother! For the rest of my life, this little guy is my responsibility. I love him so!

Well a little summary of my post-labor.....
PUPPS. Pray you never get it. It is a rash that generally occurs in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy but I got them after I had Abe. I was SO itchy first around my belly button, then all over my butt, and it spread to my legs and for the past few days it's only bugged my occasionally on my hand and feet. If you want to see pictures of it, feel free to look it up, but I warn you, it's a mean looking rash! And I swear it gave me twice as many stretch marks than I had before. I mean I had some, but they compounded terribly. Darn you PUPPS!!

I didn't expect to have pain from the epidural afterwards. There was like a horizontal line radiating out of the spot where the epidural was that just hurt a lot of the time, like throbbed.

My hair is less greasy! I can go a day without washing my hair! This is epic for Abby.

I've really enjoyed going on walks with Abe. I can't go on very far walks because I start to feel sore 'down there' for some reason. I usually go about 1.5 miles but I think I'm building up to farther distances!! Yippie, one day I'll run again. I didn't expect to be sore/tired this long (I don't know why I didn't expect that)

We do SO much laundry these days. He just poops or spits up on everything.

Breastfeeding has gone AMAZING! I thought we would have difficulties (just because I've heard other people did) but Abe latched well from day 1. My nipples haven't even gotten terribly sore....except....
Two nights ago Abe slept 5 hours (SICK!!) and my boob got SOOO engorged. It felt like I had been punched in the boob. And the feeling didn't go away. I got mastitis. Not something I wish upon anyone. I'm on an antibiotic now so things are getting better.

Days are up and down. Yesterday I felt like I had regressed to day 1 pain wise. Abe was just crying a LOT and I had a frustrating night with the mastitis b/c it prevented me from sleeping. I started working from home and was just overwhelmed. Overall I was just a mess. Today was a great day! I've felt good and happy and ....

Abe had his first legitimate smile today!!! It was so sweet, I almost cried with joy when he smiled at me.
Well this was GINORMOUS. Hope you made through some of it...Here are some pictures to reward you :)

I couldn't get the pics to attach so the dropbox link below has basically a gazillion pictures!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/smwpkozydpnmosl/cFZ_HDb3UW