Raising Mommy

FIRST, SURVIVE

I was in survival mode for the first few weeks after giving birth to my baby girl. During that time my only goal was to keep myself, my baby, and my two dogs alive. As a single mom with no family nearby, I was on my own and I had to figure out how to manage it all by myself. I delivered my baby via cesarean section and returned home after four days and realized I hadn’t quite thought this all through. My midsection was cut in half to deliver my child, which left daily activities such as going up and down the stairs, walking the dogs, carrying groceries, DRIVING, and simply sitting and standing, excruciating, if not impossible.

DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE DANG DOGS!

My next door neighbors, Rachel and Nancy, stopped by and explained that they didn’t know how I was going to walk the dogs with the newborn, so they went to home depot and purchased a temporary fence, and installed it in my back yard so that I could let the dogs out in the yard until I could walk them on my own. WHAT?!? It has been 9 years since that happened and I still tear up just thinking about their kindness. That they went to the time and expense to put up a fence in my yard in the four days that I was in the hospital is one of the most generous things that anyone has ever done for me. Rachel and Nancy, I will never forget your kindness.

STAIRS AND STITCHES

Okay, so the dogs are taken care of, now onto my next problem. How to get up and down the stairs, while holding my baby without ripping open the stitches holding my abdomen together? Our bedrooms were on the 2nd floor. I set up a basinet on the first floor and I slept on the couch for the first 2 nights, but the couch was terribly uncomfortable, and my baby wouldn’t go to sleep in the basinet. I had to figure out how to get up and down those stairs. I held my baby in my lap and sat on the bottom stair and shimmied my way (backwards) up the stairs, one by one. Going down was just as challenging, if not more so. I did so very, very, slowly. But I did it, just six days after major surgery. Onto the next hurdle.

I skipped trash day for a couple of weeks. I just couldn’t drag the trash bins out to the front of the house. Thank goodness it was winter, the cold kept the trash from stinking or attracting raccoons.

SOUNDS I’LL NEVER FORGET

I soon discovered that my baby wasn’t keeping anything down. What I learned later, but didn’t know then, was that she had reflux. At first I just thought it was normal for her to spit up, but this wasn’t normal spit up. This was true projectile vomiting, like shooting across the room kind of vomiting. In fact I can still hear that splatter because it happened so often. In fact, our dogs soon learned the sound of the splatter, which was followed by a bonus treat on the floor for them, so the splatter sound was soon accompanied by the scratching sound of paws racing across the room to get to the puddle of sour milk first. Because the reflux was so painful for my baby, she was in a constant state of wailing from the pain. This was not a fun time for us. Because she wasn’t keeping her milk down, I had to take her to the pediatrician every other day to determine whether she should be hospitalized and fed via tube because her weight was dangerously low. This posed the next problem. I still couldn’t drive due to the surgery, so I had to find someone to take us to the doctor. Jenn Schraut offered to drive me and my baby to the pediatrician many of those days - Jenn, I am so thankful for your generosity, I’m not sure what I would have done without you during that time.

A few weeks later when my friend Michelle Lopilato asked to come over, I fought through the anxiety of the potential disruption to the hap hazard routine that we had created at home: feed baby / baby wail / fall asleep sitting up with baby on chest / wake to feed baby / baby wail / sit sleep / wake to let dogs out to pee and feed baby / baby wail / sit sleep / wake to…oh f*ck I can’t do this anymore. Michelle came over and she witnessed the projectile vomiting and the wailing and told me that my baby has reflux and we need to get her on medicine right away, that it will stop the pain and the crying. But our pediatrician has seen my daughter dozens of times and hasn’t mentioned a thing, wouldn’t her pediatrician have picked up on this? Michelle told me that I must insist that they screen my daughter for reflux. Fast forward two days later, and sure enough, my baby had reflux. I am so thankful for Michelle’s visit that day and her persistence in getting my daughter properly diagnosed. I am so thankful that Dr. Merkrebs listened to me. While I was in with the pediatrician, Dr. Merkrebs mentioned that I looked very sick. I explained what we have been going through and mentioned the pain while breastfeeding, and she discovered that I was suffering from Mastitis. A very painful condition caused by an infection in the breast tissue, which in my case, was due to a blocked duct. Anyway, my case was so severe that my daughters pediatrician examined me and immediately called my primary care physician and said to accept her diagnosis rather than force me to prolong this further by driving to his office across town to see him to get diagnosed by him. She explained that I need to get on antibiotics NOW. HE called in the prescription for ME, SHE called in a prescription of baby Zantac for my baby, and within 24 hours, everything changed. My baby was drinking her milk without any issues, she was sleeping! I was sleeping! Life was beautiful again!

FRIENDS THAT WON’T STAY AWAY ARE THE VERY BEST OF FRIENDS

Next came my village. While I was in the hospital, my friends signed up for food deliveries at our home for the first few weeks. This was amazing to me. However what I discovered was that sleep was critical for both me and my baby girl as she struggled with the lack of sleep and issues with keeping down her milk. Laying down on her back seemed to cause her great pain, and sleeping on her tummy was not recommended due to the risk of SIDS. The only way that she could fall asleep was when she was laying up against my chest as I sat upright. Naturally it was impossible for me to fully fall asleep this way because it was not comfortable, but mainly because I was terrified that if I fell asleep, I would lose my grip and my baby would slip and fall onto the floor. So sleep was ever precious around this time. Finally, and without warning, my baby would collapse out of sheer physical exhaustion from all of the crying and lack of sleep. It was at that time that I would sneak in a quick nap. Just as we would both drift off to sleep, there would be a knock on the door, it was one of my beautiful friends coming to deliver home cooked meals and to visit with my new born baby. Which was so wonderful, but when they knocked on the door, the dogs would erupt and bark their lights out, mainly from excitement that someone new was coming to visit, and naturally, my baby would awaken and resume her screaming. I had to ask my friends not to come over because I couldn’t time when my baby was going to sleep and I couldn’t risk the dogs waking her up when company arrived, so I just needed to get through this on my own. So we were now trapped. In the house. With little food. With little sleep. And two dogs going stir crazy for exercise. About a week into our confinement, I received a text from my friend Lisa Miles that read: “I know you don’t want company, but you don’t have a choice, I’ll be there at 11:00”. I knew there was nothing that I could have done to stop her, so I braced myself for the chaos that would ensue the moment she arrived. Lisa arrived with arms full of tupperware containing the most delicious home cooked meals I’ve ever eaten, to date. I can still taste the beef stroganoff over noodles, which was out of this world delicious, and I ate for 3 days straight - breakfast, lunch and dinner. She picked up my baby girl and told me to take some time to myself, she would take care of my baby The first thing that I did was take a long, hot shower. Then I took the dogs to a field where they could run around. And I just sat down under a tree, watching my pups chase each other through the fields, and I cried. They were tears of exhaustion, tears of joy that I finally had the baby that I dreamed about for years, but mostly tears of gratitude for my friend Lisa and her stubborn determination to help a friend in need. That is when I learned the importance of accepting help when it is offered.

And then there was another knock on the door…(to be continued…)