The First Born

The first born is so scary.  You have no idea what to expect, what's normal, what's next, nothing.  Then you have people asking you, "how is it going?", "how are you feeling?".  You really don't have any idea how it is going and you only know that you feel uncomfortable in many ways, but is that normal?  Who knows?  

Then delivery time - no one can prepare you for that!

And have you ever figured out why it is when you are pregnant that everyone you know and every stranger has one of those dreaded delivery stories that they feel they must share with you?  You know, my sister was in labor for 100 hours type of stories.

For my first child my water started leaking, yes a slow annoying leak.  I called the doctor, because I really didn't have a clue what was going on other than I thought I had to go to the bathroom, continuously - isn't that strange.  He said to meet him at the hospital at 8 a.m., it was now 10 p.m., what do I do - spend the night sitting on the toilet?  Well, I did get tired of getting up every 30 minutes to go to the bathroom, so I made myself a little bed in the bath tub and just let the water leak all night - it was easier than cleaning the sheets.  I got up at about 6:30 a.m., took a shower, got dressed, the leaking had basically stopped at that point.  Then we went to the hospital.

The nurse asked me if I was in labor - I said I had no idea, just that my water leaked all night and the doctor told me to met him at the hospital that morning.  The doctor came by on his lunch break and delivered Josh and our world changed, for the better.

But the fear of the new doesn't end there.  How do I nurse, how often do I feed him,  do we use diapers or disposables, just too many unknowns.  Then there are those in the old school mentality, my husbands grandmother was concerned because our baby wasn't having a bowel movement every day and wanted to go buy us some suppositories, what do you say to a woman who had raised four children and has several grandchildren - things have changed since then? Too much pressure and what if I make the wrong decision?  Or what if they are right and I am wrong?

For me, I finally had to find a mentor for nursing, a friend of mine had nursed her two children and was a nurse - perfect connection, she was a great help to me in the beginning.  Then I think the other important person to have on your side is a pediatrician that understand that you are a new mother, but that also has a very understanding person answering the phone.  I had to go shopping for this person because the first two doctors that we had were just not understanding.  It's not a bad thing to change doctors to find one who will really be helpful to you that first year especially and then beyond.

Many of our other firsts after that included additional children in the story, so that changes everything on the first mentality.  Back with you on those.