A Stratton Life

Hey y’all! I hope everyone enjoyed my last post. I know there are things I forgot to put in there (I’m kicking myself in the butt for not writing it when it was fresh on my mind). It truly was the best day of my life. The days following seem like a blur. I will write what I do remember.

After everyone left the hospital I don’t think Lucy laid in her bed once for the first several hours. We just couldn’t get enough of her. I can remember calling the nurse every time she showed signs of being hungry because breastfeeding was very new to me and I was scared I was going to somehow mess up. I felt like her and I were both doing well with it. She would latch for about 5 minutes on each side. The nurse assured me we were doing something right. Lucy would do really well latching on during one feeding and then the next feeding she wouldn’t, so, I would have to hand express my colostrum. I would only get a few drops in a spoon (I remember thinking “there is no way I will ever be able to fill up a bottle”) and give it to her that way. She was eating about every 2 hours. The nurse gave her a bath and we got her dressed for the day (in my favorite gown). We started getting visitors, which made it hard to hand express/nurse every time I needed to (don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed seeing everyone). We had lots and lots of visitors (I will post some photos now). Joseph also changed her first poop diaper! (Picture below). I was trying my hardest to get out of the bed and do it but by the time I got up he was already done! (picture posted below)

I thought this was so sweet

Is this not the cutest!?

Daddy talking to his little girl

Daddys first diaper change

I could just eat her up!

I don’t recall getting much sleep on the first day. I do know I would be sitting there and I would doze off and wake myself up. For some reason I felt like I wasn’t supposed to sleep while Lucy was in the room. That night I was having a hard time getting Lucy to stay awake during her feedings. With this being my first baby, I just thought that was normal and went with it. Joseph and I decided we would let Lucy go to the nursery for a few hours so we could rest. Well, this momma couldn’t sleep. 2 hours into it I was calling the nursery wanting her back in my room.

The next day my midwife came and checked on me. She told me I was getting around a lot better than she thought I would be (and that’s one thing I regret a little.. I wish I would have rested more, but I thought I had to be up and do everything for myself). A little later Lucy’s doctor came in and said that had tested Lucy for jaundice (they didn’t tell us, but I guess they don’t have to?) and her levels were really high. They advised us she would have to be under a special kind of light. Well, up until this point my emotions had been fine. When she told me she had jaundice my mind started racing. I told myself it was my fault, that she wasn’t getting what she needed from me. I was able to hold it together for a little bit, and then my mom called (I don’t know if I’m the only one that does this, but if something is bothering me to the point I may cry, hearing my moms voice just brings it all out). She was just calling to see how things were going and she could tell in my voice something was wrong. I started crying before I could even answer her question. Poor Joseph was sitting on the couch holding Lucy, he looked up and I’m so upset that I can’t even talk. He kept saying “Lauren, what happened? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I finally calmed down enough to tell him and my mom both that I thought it was my fault she was “sick”. My mom was telling me it wasn’t, and that a lot of babies get jaundice (which I knew, but it’s a lot scarier when it’s your baby). While my mom was calming me down Joseph grabs a camera and starts taking pictures of me while I was crying, he said he wanted proof that I got a little “crazy” there for a minute (don’t worry, those pictures were deleted!). That day we spent at least 4 hours with the lactation specialist trying to figure out why Lucy wasn’t latching. It turns out she didn’t know how to suck (which kind of assured me that she in fact, wasn’t getting what she needed from me.. which hurt even more), that’s when we decided to start supplementing with formula. Her daddy got to feed her for the first time. The specialist told me I needed to pump every 2 hours for at least 20 minutes to get as much colostrum as I could and to help my milk come in. She also told me to do skin to skin as much as possible. Once again, that’s hard to do when you have so many visitors (like I said earlier, we enjoyed our visitors) so I hardly got to pump while in the hospital. I don’t think it understood how important pumping every 2 hours was to my milk supply. I feel like I’m still struggling with my supply because I didn’t do what I was told. Lucy was only under the light for less than 24 hours. We were able to go home the next day.

My aunt holding Lucy

My friend Jerriann and her daughter Averie

My sister-in-law and my nephews

Milo loving on Lucy

Daddy needed a nap

Joseph feeding Lucy for the first time

This broke my heart, but she still looks so sweet

That’s it for this blog! Hope y’all enjoy it!

Until next time!

Momma S.

Hello there! Oh my goodness, has it been a minute or what!? My entire life has changed since my last post, so I’m just going to jump right in. Let me start off by saying my sweet baby is here! I will share about that a little later on. First let me post some bump updates.

19 weeks

20 weeks. We were headed to my

husbands work Christmas party

22 weeks. Merry Christmas! I LOVED

my Christmas tree!

26 weeks

27 weeks

28 weeks

Unfortunately those are all of the pictures I have of my belly. I got to a point where I just felt so big and very unpretty (I’m sure most women get that way). I don’t remember now how I felt during each one of these weeks, but I know now that I miss being pregnant!

A few things I do remember and want to talk about are ways I tried to make myself go into labor (don’t worry, I was over 38 weeks before I tried any of these).

I tried walking (I walked my butt off for 2 weeks), spicy food, sex, cleaning, bouncing on a labor ball, nipple stimulation (using breast pump), getting a pedi, mowing my yard (I swear I mowed it twice a week)… I was trying everything and nothing worked! The day after my due date (May 1^st) I finally realized no matter what I did, she would come when she was ready. I told myself I wasn’t even going to think about going into labor, I wasn’t going to try and make myself go into labor, I was just going to get it completely out of my mind.

That day my husband and I decided we wanted to do some yard work. We went to lowes to buy some flowers and mulch, went home and started working in the yard. We were out there most of the day. By the end of the night my poor legs, feet and ankles were so swollen it hurt to move. I got in the shower, washed my hair (thankfully) and went to bed around 11pm. I woke up at 5am to go use the bathroom and once I got back in the bed, I started having contractions. They were about 15 minutes apart and bearable, so I went back to sleep. At 7am the contractions were strong enough to wake me up. They were about 9 minutes apart at this time. I woke Joseph up and told him what was going on and that if they get stronger and closer together we may need to go to the hospital. I told him to go back to sleep and if I needed him I would wake him up. I didn’t think this was it, I figured this was another false alarm and I had already told myself I wasn’t going back to the hospital unless I was coming home with a baby.

Something told me to go ahead and start curling my hair just in case (my plan was to look halfway pretty during labor, however that didn’t happen lol). My contractions were 5-6 minutes apart by this time. I called my mom to tell her what was going on and to see what she thought I should do. She told me I needed to go be checked just in case. By the time I was done with my hair the contractions were about 4 minutes apart and they were extremely painful, there was no way I was putting any makeup on. I woke Joseph up and asked him to get ready because I thought we needed to go. He jumped right up and was ready in record time. I gave coco a hug and a kiss and we left for the hospital. I, at this time, was still thinking it was a false alarm but went ahead and called & text friends and family to just let them know just in case it was the real deal. The ride over was awful.. AWFUL… my contractions were 2 minutes apart and I believe we got behind every single tractor on the way there (any other time I would be perfectly fine with tractors, not so much this day) and I started getting scared then. I really thought I was about to have her in the car! It was just my luck that every single road (okay, maybe not EVERY road, but it sure felt like it) in Owensboro was being worked on. The contractions were so so painful.

We finally made it to the hospital. I waddled my big ole pregnant butt in those doors and from there everything went so fast. The doctor checked me and I was 4cm, he called my midwife (who I thought was on vacation, but she had JUST got back), she told him to admit me. I remember looking at Joseph and saying “this is it, its really happening. Are you ready?”. They started my IV & got my into my labor room. I was trying to hold off on getting an epidural so they gave me some pain meds via IV. About 5 minutes later the pain medication was doing absolutely nothing for me and I asked for an epidural. It was amazing!

I had lots of visitors; every one was so excited to meet sweet Lucy. I was checked many times throughout the day. My midwife broke my water (I had a room full of people, at that time, I didn’t care! Haha). I remember being 4cm, 5cm, 6cm, 8cm (I was stuck at 8cm for several hours, they ended up giving me pitocin around 7pm to help the process move along). At about 8:30 my brother and my sister-in-law was in the room and my midwife came to check me. They stepped out in the hall, my midwife said I was 10cm and it was time to start pushing. The nurses got everything ready and by 8:50 I was pushing. I was giving it my all, doing the best that I could. I remember thinking each time I stopped that I was going to be sick. Joseph ended up holding a cold towel on my head to try and help. I pushed for 20 minutes and my midwife said she hadn’t moved any, and she knew I was pushing hard. Lucy had turned sideways at some point during the day and there was no way I would have been able to push her out. My midwife told me I could push for 2 more hours and end up having a c-section anyway or I could just go ahead and do it. I chose to go ahead and do it. My IV got to hurting so I had my nurse check it, and just as I thought, my vein blew (I have AWFUL veins). It took them 45 minutes to get another IV started (they ended up having to use some kind of ultrasound machine to find one, it felt like it took forever. That stupid IV was the only thing stopping me from seeing my baby). Once the IV was started they wheeled me into the OR, strapped me down and it was game on. I kept telling the anesthesiologist that I felt like I was going to be sick. I was so scared, sick, shaking and so cold. I freaked out a little and kept telling Joseph I was scared, I was going to be sick, and I didn’t want to do it anymore. He held my hand the whole time and kept assuring me I was okay, and it was almost over. I heard the doctor say “stand up dad, it’s about to get interesting”. I’m assuming Joseph stood up, I don’t know because I was keeping my eyes closed (I thought if I kept them closed I wouldn’t be sick). At 10:17pm I heard the sweetest sound I have ever heard. Lucy’s first cry. I opened my eyes and Joseph was saying “look honey, it’s our baby, she’s here” I turned to look at her, she was (and still is) so perfect. I smiled, started crying, and then I got sick. I guess once I seen that she was okay I couldn’t fight it anymore. As I was getting sick the anesthesiologist said “well, I guess she is sick” I was SO mad when I heard him say that, but whatever he put in my IV knocked me out before I could say anything lol. I woke up in the recovery room and got to do skin to skin for over 2 hours. She tried to nurse a few times, I’m not sure if I was producing anything at that time or not. Probably not. They let some of the family come back to the recovery room to see her since it was so late. I was in labor for 17 ½ hours. Now that I look back on it, I feel like it flew by and I wish I could relive that day. It was the best day of my life. I have never felt more love and joy then I do now. That sweet little girl has changed my life so much and I’m so thankful God blessed me with being her mother.

I had the best doctor and nurses. We didn’t have one that we didn’t like. In my next post I will talk about the days following her birth, our hospital stay, breastfeeding up & downs, pumping, jaundice, sleep (or lack there of) and a few tips! In closing, here are some pictures of that amazing day!