Postpartum: Life With Two

Well we are closing in on one month of life with two little beauties and while my Instagram feed may show a picture perfect life with two, I assure you, life is pretty much chaotic 24/7.  I'm surviving on cup after cup of coffee and I regularly have tearful breakdowns amid crying fits from both kids or while trying to rock/bounce/jiggle a babe to sleep at 3AM.  If I've been making the impression that life is just grand, well, then I've done a great job at masking the all to frequent dark and anxiety ridden moments that have surfaced postpartum.  Let me put it to you clearly, life is HARD with two kids and I'm definitely struggling in my own respect.

I think life with a newborn is kind of like going through labor and delivery, you basically have to have amnesia in order to do it again.  And for those of you, like my Mom, who have done it 4, 5, 6 times, all I have to say is GOD BLESS YOU.    And don't worry, I know, "it gets easier," "this phase doesn't last forever," "I will sleep again,"  "Rory will stop crying eventually,"  "I'll love watching them grow up together," and about 67 other things that you can tell me, but right now, it's a challenge to make it through each day, let alone think about the coming months and years.  This is not my first kid, my heart knows all these things, but my foggy head has trouble remembering sometimes.

On our way to church, on time!

Ryan is adjusting super well, way better than me. She loves Rory and regularly asks to hold her and be near her.  She loves to read her stories and bring her toys and doesn't seem overly agitated or concerned by her crying or the attention that she requires from me.  Occasionally, she is frustrated because we can't stay outside longer or because Rory has to eat or because I can't sit on the couch and read to her because Rory is requiring me to stand and move around.  But overall, she has been the perfect big sister and so at the very least, I can rest easily knowing she is fine.

What I don't want is for you to pity me.  I KNOW that I have a beautiful family, with healthy little girls, a supportive, hardworking, and loving husband/father, and enough money and things to get by in this life and perhaps that's why when I feel like I'm trapped and want to run away, all I do is then feel more guilty about my feelings.  There are so many women out there who would likely love to be in my shoes.  So I try to highlight the bright spots in our days, the moments of pure sweetness and perfection, through my pictures.  I feel it's important, especially when I'm feeling down to find the good. I used to scrapbook A LOT before I had children and before I blogged regularly.  My Mom once told me that people who scrapbook tend to be happier because the scrapbooks highlight the good times and help you forget there were ever bad moments/days/or even years.  I want to look back at these weeks and months and remember the good moments.

But I also want to be real and candid and let you know that I'm not perfect, my kids aren't perfect, my family isn't perfect.  I struggle, just like some of you do with trying to do it all and do it all perfectly and sometimes that just doesn't work out like I want it to.   Newborns have a way of making that abundantly clear to us Moms.  Amidst the chaos of motherhood there IS beauty, but there are also storms, sometimes huge ones and my journey through motherhood is definitely not free of them.

Welcome to the World Rory Louise!

Rory Louise Scurlock

Monday, August 31, 2015

7:09AM

9lbs 2oz

21" Long

**Disclaimer:  This will be lengthy/wordy but it is more for my own records and memories than anything else. :)

Miss Rory Louise was welcomed into the world, five days late, on August 31st 2015.  Her appearance, despite only taking half of the time as her sisters, was still about a 30 hour process.  However, we couldn't be more thrilled to have added this sweet girl into our family.  Maybe it's just me, but it seems like when you add a second child, creating a foursome instead of a threesome, your family begins to feel more like a tribe of "your people."

The Scurlock Tribe 2015

Regular contractions began Saturday, August 29th around 10:00pm.  I had had some the night before as well as off and on throughout the day but nothing super consistent or uncomfortable.  Josh was off on vacation starting that day and so we got to spend the late afternoon as a family of three, taking Ryan to the park and getting a nice bbq meal at a local spot for dinner.  In hindsight, it was the perfect last night as a family of three.

When contractions began late that evening, rather than coming on slowly, they began by being pretty uncomfortable and within a few hours, they were coming every 4-5 minutes.  I had been warned by my doctor not to waste too much time once they picked up because second labors can go rather quickly sometimes and since we had to get in touch with our babysitter to watch Ryan, we decided to call sooner rather than later.  She arrived at our house by 1:30am and we headed into the hospital.  Though contractions were already pretty intense at this point, I was somewhat excited thinking that this labor was going to go quickly.  In triage, I was checked and I was only 2cm dilated and 75% effaced, which is basically what I had been sitting at for at least 4 weeks prior.  Despite having regular contractions averaging 1-3 minutes apart, they decided to have me labor for 2 hours and recheck to see if any changes were occurring before admitting me.  Two hours later, I was the same and they decided to send me home.  I was SO discouraged.  The contractions were intense and close together and yet my body just wasn't progressing quickly and the whole situation began to feel eerily similar to my labor with Ryan.  I left the hospital in tears, not knowing how I was supposed to know when to come back since my contractions were already close together.

Josh and I arrived back at the house around 5:30am and sent the baby-sitter home with the instructions that we would likely be calling her to come back at some point that day, though we couldn't say when.  This piece of the labor puzzle only further frustrated and stressed me out because I felt awful for having to jerk her around and yet I desperately needed her to be available for us. By about this time too, my contractions started to lengthen out again to 8-10 minutes apart while still being extremely intense.  I got in the shower and had a long, tearful meltdown.

Josh and I had been up all night and there was no way I was going to be able to sleep through contractions, but of course by 6:30am Ryan was up for the day and Josh was forced to deal with her.  I felt really bad for him but I was also in no way capable of dealing with her while laboring.  By noon, my contractions had picked back up to 4-5 minutes apart.  I called my doctor who happened to be the on-call doctor at the hospital by this point, explained the situation, and he said to come in.  So, we called the baby-sitter for a second time to come back out to the house.  And as if the labor gods were playing a cruel joke on me, by the time she arrived, contractions were back to 10 minutes apart.

I pretty much lost my nerve at this point.  No sleep, plus intense contractions for 18+ hours, plus stress about Ryan's care, plus frustration with my own body for it's inability to progress normally had officially put me over the edge.  We didn't want to go into the hospital with contractions that far apart and risk being sent home a second time but we also didn't want to send the sitter home AGAIN.  Thankfully, amidst my tears, she agreed to stay and be there for us until this baby was born, no matter how long that took.  THANK YOU LORD.  She watched Ryan all afternoon while Josh caught up on sleep and I labored in our bedroom/shower.  Just knowing I didn't have to worry about Ryan was quite a relief.  I spent multiple hours on the phone with my Mom that afternoon just having her breath through contractions with me and help me focus on that rather than the pain.  Mom was my other lifesaver during labor.

FINALLY, at about 8:30 PM contractions were back to 4 minutes apart and at this point every single one was extremely painful, 8/10 on the pain scale.  We arrived at the hospital around 9 PM where I was checked by my own doctor and told I was now 4 cm dilated and 90% effaced and was definitely being admitted.  In fact, the nursing staff laughed because they had been waiting for me since noon when I had been told by my doctor to come in!  I, however, was NOT laughing at this point.

The original plan was to break my water and then receive the epidural.  However, it took 3 different people and 4 different tries to start an IV on me and so that process took almost 1.5 hours.  Gotta love tricky veins!  Because of the extended wait time, I wasn't sure I would last through having my water broken before having my epidural.  At this point it was almost midnight and I had been in labor over 24 hours with no sleep.  I was mentally and physically exhausted and knew that my contractions would only intensify once my water was broken and without an epidural, I didn't think I would be able to handle it.  The decision was made to administer the epidural first and break my water immediately after.  Thankfully, the cRNA who had been the one to actually start my IV was already in the room so he did the epidural at that point without an extended wait time.  Some relief was provided immediately and though I could still feel a lot of pressure, I was so much more comfortable.

My water was broken and within 10 minutes, my blood pressure dropped rather dramatically and babies heart rate began to drop too.  Because of this, they had me up on all fours, naked booty in the air, with oxygen and an entire team of doctors and nurses in the room.  Ahhh there really is NO modesty during childbirth.  They gave me some medication to bring up my blood pressure but also decided that the baby wasn't responding well to the loss of fluids so they inserted a line to keep pushing fluid into me throughout the duration of labor.

At this point, I was finally able to get a little sleep as was Josh.  The next few times that they checked me I was a five and I think the nurses and doctor began to get a tad nervous that I was going to stall out at 5cm and they would have to start pitocin, but they gave me some more time, put my legs on this peanut shaped ball and the next time I was checked around 5AM I was 8 cm.  Around this time, I felt like my epidural was beginning to wear off as I was having extremely significant amounts of pressure as well as tightening and pain through my abdomen.  The decision was made to up my epidural which in turn made me almost completely numb.

I rested some more but also started to feel quite queasy.  I didn't know if it was a lack of food for almost 36 hours, a lack of water, or just stress and exhaustion in general, but I did not feel good at all.  When the doctor came in at 6:45AM to check me and told me I was now 10cm and ready to push, I told him I didn't think I was up for it if it was going to take awhile because I wasn't feeling good.  Josh was asleep during all of this discussion (we'll thank nights at the hospital for making it possible for him to sleep through just about anything) but the doctor and I decided I would do a "practice push" and if he felt I would deliver quickly we'd go for it and if he felt it would take awhile, he'd let me rest a bit more first.  After one push, he told the nurse "we need to wake her husband up."

The doctor gowned up and the nurse woke up Josh and three contractions (9 pushes) later, our little Miss was here.  All 9lbs and 2oz of her.  Ironically, I couldn't feel anything during the delivery because of the upped epidural a couple of hours prior.  And they had taken off my contraction monitor so I was waiting on them to tell me to push because I couldn't feel my contractions and they were waiting on me to push and at one point I looked at them and said "aren't you going to tell me when to push?"  They all laughed and said they couldn't see them on the monitor anymore!

I was barely able to hold her after delivery as I got an EXTREME case of chills and was basically shivering violently for at least 15 minutes and begging for warm blankets.  At the same time, I was ridiculously thirsty and asking for water, which I chugged and then vomited up almost immediately.  I think my queasiness prior to her delivery was just my bodies way of telling me "it's time to push this girl out."  After I warmed up, I got lots of snuggles from this sweet girl and she nursed almost immediately.

Minutes Old.

Nobody could believe that she weighed in over 9lbs.  All estimates prior to delivery had been in the very average size range including an estimate on the Friday before (3 days prior to delivery) of a mid 7 lb baby.  Her delivery, while easy, left her with a broken clavicle on the right side.  I actually heard/felt a POP during delivery but assumed it was my own hips/pelvis.  Luckily, broken collar bones are not uncommon and all the doctors have said she will heal fine without any medical intervention needed.  We have just been being extra careful with her right side.  Other than a collar bone fracture, we've been blessed with another healthy baby girl who latched on immediately and has been great at nursing.  She has the chubbiest/yummiest cheeks just like her sister did/does and a full head of dark hair.  So far she has been a pretty easy baby even giving me some 4 hour stretches between feedings at night.

Ryan was a bit apprehensive of her arrival at our house at first, but has since warmed up to her and has really taken a liking to her Sissy "Roar-we."  I know it is going to be so much fun to watch as their sibling relationship grows and grows over the years.  There is nothing in this world like a sister. And I plan to do a blog post about Ryan's transition from an only child here soon.

First official Sister meeting.

The battle for Rory's name continued until the day after she was born (discharge day).  The birth certificate office only called our room about 6 times during the duration of our stay asking for it!  For those who are curious, we had three names that we were considering.  Louise was always going to be the middle name, after Josh's grandmother Louise Scurlock.  I had a favorite, Josh had a favorite and then there was Rory.  We both held strong to our top picks until the last moment and then decided that Rory was a good compromise and that she seemed like a Rory Louise anyway.  Now, I can't imagine her being named anything else but Rory Lou!

We are so glad you are here Rory Louise and I guess it was only fitting that you made a long, drawn out appearance just like your big sister.  I expect you'll be trying to mimic her every move for years and years to come.  We love you so much already and you fit just perfectly into this family.