The Birth of Evelyn Rae: Epilogue

Get caught up:
{Part One}
{Part Two}
{Part Three}

{Part Four}
{Part Five}
{Part Six}

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**Note: The entire birth story has been added as a tabbed page on the blog. It's long, but that way my husband, who hasn't read the story or looked at the photos yet (slacker) can read it all at once. Or you can too, if you want to. ;) **

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Shortly after Evelyn was delivered and we were cuddling with her, my sister in law went out to notify the parents!

During this time I got to do some fun other things like deliver the placenta, get a tiny stitch for my tiny tear (Yup I tore a little bit thanks to those dang shoulders coming out on their own), and chat with the nurses about bleeding, etc. 

When she got back in the room she was able to take some photos of our private time with our new precious bundle. One of the greatest things about the midwifery is their practice of leaving you alone for an hour post birth, to just bond with your baby.

Most of this time was spent breastfeeding...that's right! We were already breastfeeding! I was really unsure and uncertain of how well breastfeeding was going to go. I knew I desperately wanted it to go well, but that newborns are all over the place on their ability to latch right away, etc. 

So far, Evelyn and I have been REALLY lucky on that journey. She was over a week late of course, so it helped that she had a nice big mouth to get a full latch right off the bat. I will post more about our breastfeeding journey a while later.

We were so lucky to spend some of her really alert time all together as a family with no interruptions or distractions!

In seemingly no time at all the nurses were back to weigh and measure the babe, and to check on me. While her daddy took her to do some fun stuff, I got to experience the joy of "fundal massage" aka where the older nurse punches me in the gut.

I was bleeding more than they wanted me to be, even after my little baby was doing such a great job of contracting my uterus via breastfeeding. Somewhere in the discussion (I wasn't paying attention as I was too distracted by how much my baby weighed, etc.) it was decided that Blair should come back in to make sure all the placenta had come out after all, etc. It all sounded very serious, but I was on a post birth high and could have cared less. Until Blair had to do a rough internal exam that is. Then I cared a whole lot, because that shizz hurt worse than birthing the baby just had. Youch. 

After that, they let me breastfeed some more and ultimately decided to get me on a pitocin drip to help with the bleeding. Since Evelyn was already here, I wasn't worried about drugs at that point. Eventually, the bleeding subsided, and in the mean time I got to cuddle my baby some more and enjoy the genius idea of vaginal ice packs. They were AWESOME. I thought it would be weird and uncomfortable when they brought me the first one - but it was amazing. Best invention ever.

Since I was taking a little longer than originally anticipated to be done with all that, the nurse kept A distracted by helping him give Evelyn her first bath.

She was pretty fed up after that and was ready to come back to cuddle.

Soon after they had done all the measuring, etc. My mother in law came in to meet her new grand baby! She has been a nurse for many years, and so she did her own exam to make sure Evelyn was a-ok.

We then let the aunties have some cuddle time too, while my MIL and A ran off to grab us some sandwiches - I was starving.

After we ate the worst (but tasted the best ever) subs in the world, it was nap time for baby.

...and for daddy.

Hey, he had a long day too, right? This was the time that they told me I should go ahead and nap too, but I was way too amped still. I just laid there and cuddled with my family and felt like the luckiest person on the face of the planet.

While they took me off to go to the bathroom... (who knew that they would be so concerned about your ability to go to the bathroom after giving birth? Not me. Quick side story - I just didn't have to go. I dunno why, but I didn't. So, when the nurses asked I just said nope don't have to - 6 hours later one of them finally told me they would have to catheterize me if I didn't go. I jumped up and went right then and there - no one told me there was a timeline!) ... Daddy took the opportunity to get some skin to skin contact in with the babe.

After another hour or two of quiet cuddle time, they came in to do the footprints.

Shortly after, my sister and sister-in-law left us to our new little bundle. We had some other friends come to visit and bring us dinner (sushi! Yes!) and we drifted off for our first night with baby. We left the hospital the next afternoon and started the new chapter of our lives.

We've never been happier.

Evelyn is 7 weeks, 1 day old

...and whew. This took forever to tell!