My last baby
My last baby was born in late August, making it our busiest month ever. Jace started high school, Emma was going to middle school, Barrett was starting Kindergarten and Leighton was still doing a half-day preschool program. We had four different start dates for school, and my doctor wanted to schedule my c-section at 39 weeks…only one week into getting everyone back to school! I knew we needed more time as a family to adjust to our new school schedule, and I also wasn’t interested in having another c-section at 39 weeks (will get to that in a different post). Joe took the lead in explaining to my doctor that we would be waiting the full 40 weeks.
I was crazy nervous for my third c-section, I was confident in my doctor and the procedure but had an unexplainable paranoia that something could potentially go wrong post-op or at home. It was so important to me to prioritize my recovery, and I didn’t want to miss a lot of these big milestone moments because I was stuck in a newborn haze. The surgery went smoothly, my anesthesiologist was an absolute dream. He was so kind and spent the procedure talking to me about his daughters and grandkids which made the time fly by! I’ve never been a huge fan of being in the hospital, I hate being woken up and this last time I feel like I really didn’t get any rest in the hospital. I couldn’t seem to sleep when the baby slept and since we were only two weeks into school, I couldn’t stop worrying about my older kids. We were given the option to go home a day earlier so we decided to take it.
I had hired a doula agency to help with my post partum, and we had our first overnight visit our second night at home. She overfed the baby, which is something that had also happened in the NICU. Landyn just screamed for the first 8 weeks of her life. It’s almost as if she was making sure we were going to meet her every demand and need, and after 8 weeks of proving ourselves she finally mellowed out. I tried so many different things, eliminated things from my diet on the assumption it was my breastmilk…the works.
The agency I went through had a few doulas working in our home. Aside from our original doula, I ended up spending a lot of time educating them on c-sections, breastmilk storage and explaining how I wanted things done. It was beyond frustrating when I was freshly out of the hospital and still juggling the responsibility of all the other kiddos. Towards the end of my contract, I found out the doulas weren’t up to speed on these baby basics because they weren’t even certified doulas. The agency owner became unresponsive when it came to scheduling, and I felt like I was spiraling. I ended up reaching out to my old nanny who is in school and asked if there was ANY way she could help us with the baby. Cassidy has been our super hero nanny that we officially lost in January 2024 when she began her first teaching position (we are SO SO thrilled for her) but she had so much experience specifically with babies that it was breathe of fresh air to have her back. Slowly but surely as a family we found our new rhythm had a magical first Christmas as a family of 7.
