Life with Ilse
Today is Ilse’s fourth day of breathing the fresh air of the bright world. Well, not so fresh — she’s remained within the same four walls this whole time — and not so bright — it is a foggy January day, which is not helping her current complexion issues. She still spends the majority of her time sleeping, but has gotten herself all mixed up and backwards. She has her long sleep stretches during the day and her short stretches between feedings at night. So she’ll go 3-4 hours between nursing during the day and around 2 hours at night, which, after you figure in the burping and the getting settled back into bed and the falling back asleep part, works out to about one hour of sleep at a time. I keep her in light and noise during the day and keep it dark and quiet at night, and that worked like a charm to get the boys on a decent schedule, but it doesn’t seem to phase her. I wonder if the time of day they are born makes a difference in their initial rhythms; the boys were born in the middle of the night and she was born in the middle of the day.
She has no issues with nursing, although I was concerned about her yesterday. My milk had come in the night before and she ate frequently all night long, then went from 4am to 1pm without latching on and getting a good meal. Twice in that time she hung out and got a little snack just being a lazy bum and letting the milk drip into her mouth without working for it, but she was wide awake and alert and simply wouldn’t latch, then she slept for 3 hours. I called my midwife, who was going to come over that day anyway, to find out when she was coming and get her opinion on it. She said that the sleepiness of jaundice peaks at day 3 and actually getting milk now was making a difference in how often she needed to eat. Ilse woke up and chowed down without a problem just before Fran arrived to check on us, so Fran said that Ilse’s getting her long stretch in already and now we just need to figure out how to get her to take it at night and not all morning. :) I also remembered that my perception might be a little off since my last baby was Jaeger, who went from 8lb 2oz to 10lb in one week — he never let an opportunity to eat pass him by! Ilse has decided that despite her head start in the weight department she does not wish to be a feminine Jaeger. So right now I have an over abundance of milk and I’m hoping it won’t take too long for my body and Ilse to work things out between them.
Matt has decided that I should be rewarded for my efforts of Wednesday with all manner of food and beverage. The last hour and a half before Ilse was born was honest torture, and I know I not only felt that torture but looked and sounded like I was being tortured. Matt stuck it out with me the whole time — my mom had to leave; she started cleaning my kitchen — and I’m sure it was harrowing for him, as well. His manager gave him the rest of the week off with paid “emergency” leave, so he didn’t even have to take vacation time, and he’s been pampering me. Three days in a row now he has prepared bacon and eggs and amazingly fluffy pancakes for breakfast and yesterday afternoon he got down to business in the kitchen after a trip to the grocery store and broiled steaks wrapped with bacon, sauted mushrooms, mashed potatoes with cream cheese and garlic, cooked broccoli, and popped a cork of Cabernet Sauvignon. It was amazing and I finished the Matt-sized helping he put on my plate. Then after he put the boys down to bed he scouted out a cookie recipe from epicurious.com and made better chocolate-chip cookies than I have yet produced myself. He has also done all the dishes and kept the young crew of this ship under law and order so that when he does go back to work tomorrow neither the housekeeping nor the attitudes will be in chaos and disarray. And last night as he got up to help Jaeger who had fallen out of bed, he peaked in on me rocking Ilse to burp her and calm her down, and he thanked me for being patient with her. And I had just been thinking that rocking a sleepy newborn on your chest and smelling her baby head was one of the best things in the world. I do think I have the best husband in the world. :)
And as with my first two deliveries, my recovery is going swiftly and well. I picked up life-as-usual with Jaeger by day 2 or 3 and hence prolonged the completion of my recovery to the full six weeks. Since Matt has been home all this time and normal life does require more effort these days than it did back then, I have been taking it easy and enjoying my time cuddling my very own newborn while Matt cooks and cleans and disciplines. Last night, however, I might have undone the progress this ease had wrought. All last night I was slightly paranoid for some inexplicable reason about something happening to Ilse while she slept. She wouldn’t keep calm in her cradle when we first went to bed, so I broke down and slept on my back (yay!) with Ilse tummy to tummy on top. I have slept on my back since she was born without moving, so I was pretty sure this would be fine. Co-sleeping is not our thing; with newborns we’re paranoid about crushing them and with older babies, well, we want our space. But she remained calm and we slept that way for three hours until the next feeding. After that she was content to be swaddled and laid in her crib, but I startled myself awake about forty-five minutes later, not sure where she was and scared because I was sleeping on my side and last thing I remembered she had been on my tummy. I then fully awoke and took a deep breath; she had not fallen off the bed when I turned over, she was in her cradle. Then material such as that made up my dreams the rest of the night until around 4am when Jaeger fell with a loud, heavy thud out of his bed. I heard it in my sleep and immediately leapt out of bed with a loud gasp, and then slowly came to my senses focusing groggily on Ilse in her cradle and hearing Matt, who was getting up to help Jaeger, say quickly, “It’s Jaeger, it’s Jaeger, it’s ok, calm down.” Then I took a deep breath and realized I hadn’t taken any pain medication for over 15 hours. After that little episode I’m moving a little more slowly again and will be taking my ibuprofen regularly throughout the day.
So I’m more tired during the day this time around since her body clock didn’t come set correctly like Hans’ and Jaeger’s did, but I still feel great. It feels excellent to be not pregnant. Post-partum means sleeping on my back, drinking multiple cups of fully-caffeinated coffee, sipping a glass or two of wine, not waddling, eating chocolate without heartburn, sitting without heartburn, smelling a baby head, and laughing at a baby pecking at my shoulder and teasing a baby with kisses when she’s hungry. I like post-partum. :)
