We spent a total of five days in the hospital, from December 30th to January 3rd. The first two days were labor and recovery, and the last three were learning how to care for Xinyi. Due to the c-section, I wasn't allowed to get out of bed for 24 hours after surgery was over. That meant I wasn't able to really care for our baby. Even later, when I was up out of bed, I was often in so much pain that it took long amounts of time to do everything. It took me several minutes to make my way to the bathroom that was no more than five feet away from me. Thankfully Shane and my mom were amazing, they took shifts caring for Xinyi and caring for me. All I did during that time was rest, feed Xinyi, and eat. They did everything else for her, taking care of every diaper, every cry, every whimper, and they simultaneously had to care for me!
You can probably guess how wildly different Shane and my hopes and expectations were from reality. I had guessed we would have a late December 30th or early December 31st baby after the induction and we would be home by New Year's Day or the day after. I dreamt about changing her diaper on the hospital bed with me and cooing at her and soothing her when she was fussy. And Shane? I can only imagine at the very least that he did not think his wife would be stuck in bed recovering from a c-section, still hopped up on pain medications, unable to do even the simplest things for herself. Or that he would have such a heavy burden of caring for both of us.
We were finally discharged from the hospital and we made our way home. For anyone who is pregnant or might bring a baby home someday, practice putting a stuffed animal in the car seat. Trust me, it feels silly, but when you have your newborn, you can't do anything fast enough for that little one to stay happy :).
Once we were home, we had a few really rough days of readjusting our schedules to newborn life, which is an endless cycle of baby wanting to eat and sleep in 2 to 3 hour intervals. And due to the c-section, my milk came in very slowly. To top that, Xinyi was a sleepy eater at the beginning, making feedings long, and downtime between feedings almost non-existent. Shane and my mom continued to take care of Xinyi and me all the time, and I slept, fed her, and ate. I finally changed my daughter's diaper for the first time when she was 5 days old. 5 days! By then, I was weaning off pain meds and feeling better and more normal. And I started to have time to think.
What if we hadn't agreed to the induction? What if we had waited for her to come on her own? What if we had waited to break the amniotic sac? What if I had pushed harder or endured more pain without an epidural so I could feel when to push? Maybe the c-section wouldn't have happened and I wouldn't have spent five days passing on narcotics through my milk to our baby, and I wouldn't have had major surgery. Maybe we would have had the natural, unmedicated labor we had hoped for and expected.
It's overwhelming to think about the what ifs -- they never end, and there are no real answers. I know that neither Shane nor I have any regrets about how labor went in terms of our efforts. We gave it everything we had in every stage, from beginning to end. We've talked about it a lot, and I am so proud of how supportive Shane was in all of labor. Even when I was at the height of pain, he did not waver in supporting me in my desire for an unmedicated birth. And as soon as I wanted an epidural, he was unwavering in supporting that decision. The doctor and the many nurses who helped us labor told us during our hospital stay that if anybody could have pushed out this baby, it would have been me. They said they were amazed how long I went without an epidural with so much pain. All I know is that I needed to give it my everything, and I did, so Shane did too. I asked the doctor later, do you think she would have ever come out? The doctor said no, she didn't. The swelling on her head showed I was pushing effectively, but somehow she was just stuck. She wasn't coming out that way. It may be a morbid thing to say or think, but at a certain point Shane said to me, "If this had been the 1800's, you both probably would have died." I have to admit I had already thought the same thing.
I know we'll never really know what would have happened if... And at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Xinyi is here and healthy and beautiful and perfect to us. And we are so grateful to live in an age where c-sections do exist and babies have more than one way to come out :).
Here she is, three days old and being kissed and loved to pieces by her parents:
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