This post will probably be long and quite boring for most of you, but I wanted to record some random things I want to remember about recovery, postpartum time and Jovie's first 2 weeks.
Also here's your TMI warning :)


Recovery:
My body was more than ready for Jovie to come, but she just wasn't, she was still nice and cozy in there and I ended up with a csection 4 hours after I began pushing! (I'll post the entire birth story soon). To be honest, I was pretty disappointed about it and sometimes still am. I'm so thankful that she's here and healthy, but I can't help be sad at times that we didn't get to experience the delivery we were hoping for. I never got to have the baby put right on my chest or watch Robb cut the cord like we so wanted. I know God had a reason for things to go the way they went and we trust that plan to be best. Her heart rate was dropping during contractions and I'm just so thankful there's an alternative way to delivery.

I had a rough recovery with all kinds of crazy things happen those first few days in the hospital.
~I had to have Magnesium through my IV for the first 24 hours (i think) after delivery to lower my blood pressure. That stuff made me kinda loopy and sadly it makes my memories of that time a little fuzzy.
~I had an allergic reaction to the Mag and it made my legs itch like crazy, I wanted to rip my skin off! I had Robb try to scratch them as hard as he could but it just wasn't cutting it, so he got my hair brush out of my bag and used that to scratch them until the benadryl kicked in! Genius, just too bad we didn't have two!
~Friday night was rough, I was exhausted but didn't sleep well between the vital checks, lab work, the nurses coming to give pain meds and push on your belly (owie!) it was a long night.
~When I had the urge to pee the next morning I got up and sat on the toilet for 10 minutes and just couldn't pee, I had to pee but nothing was happening. It was the weirdest feeling. Then, when I gave up and got up off the toilet I passed out on the bathroom floor! All the nurses came in to help me up and they even busted out the smelling salts!  Some time passed and by then I was about to burst I had to pee so bad it was painful. I was so bloated it felt like i was gonna split open my incision. Again, I tried and tried and had no luck, Robb ran the bathroom water and my nurse gave me lavender oil to smell in hopes that it would help me relax and pee. I ended up needing the catheter put back in to relieve the pressure! Out came 900 ccs! I knew I had to go! I'm still not sure exactly what caused that, I heard it could have been due to how swollen I was down there after pushing for 3.5 hours with all my might, or it could have been a long lasting effect from the epidural.
~By Saturday night night I had the peeing thing figured out again, but started having horrible pain in my neck, I first thought it was a bad kink from looking down at the baby all the time but the pain started to move down to my ribs and it was excruciating. Turns out that was trapped gas pain from the surgery. Who knew that could cause so much pain?! I hardly slept at all that night either!
Sunday was a much better day. I was able to walk around more without hunching over, the gas pain was there but tolerable and I had some time to catch up on sleep between visitors.
~Monday I had my staples taken out and finally was able to go home!
~My legs were super weak, and still aren't back to normal even 2+weeks later. I must have lost a ton of muscle tone while on bed rest and totally exhausted my myself with all that pushing. It felt like I ran a marathon after spending 2 weeks on the couch. They are getting better but stairs are hard and I have to use my arms to lift my legs and cross them. Walking is fine but if it requires lifting my leg or getting up off the floor without something to hold onto and use my arms to lift me up I'm in trouble! So strange!
~I felt like I was hit by a bus and had two babies, one vaginally and one by csection. I had an ice pack on my belly and an ice pack on my crotch...I was a hot mess!
~I was feeling like a new women after the first 6-7 days and was off the pain meds completely.
~It was hard to spend those days resting and recovering when all I wanted to do was take care of my kids again. It had been 2 weeks since I did any care for the boys due to the bed rest and I missed them so much. It was hard to not compare my mothering ability to when we took the boys home from the hospital and I had no recovery whatsoever and could do anything and everything to care for them. I couldn't do anything without help from Robb and that's so difficult for me.


And after all that, I would still do it all over again in a heartbeat. Our little miracle was worth every ounce of pain, discomfort, exhaustion and embarrassment of my recovery.

Postpartum:

First of all, I already miss being pregnant! I knew I would, we obviously are thrilled to have Jovie here so we can love on her and share her, but there is something totally special about being pregnant and growing a little miracle inside you.

I can't even tell the number of times I have a moment of panic when I realize I haven't felt the baby kick in awhile! It's an awful feeling that thankfully only lasts a half second when I realize that's because I'm not pregnant anymore! Ha!

Those first few days after her birth I had a major big appetite and was way hungrier then than I ever was during pregnancy!

I am not nursing due to the medication I take and I have no problem with that. We formula fed the boys as well, obviously, and they are healthy and happy boys!

I do get nervous though whenever I have to mix a bottle up in public. I'm afraid someone will come over and tell me I'm feeding my baby poison or something from those 'passionate people!' With the boys I always had a good excuse and now with Jovie I still do, I need to take those meds to stay healthy and she needs me to be as healthy as possible, but some might not see it that way.

My creatnine the day of delivery (Friday) was up to 2.45, and by Monday it was down to 1.8. My baseline before pregnancy was 1.3. My hemoglobin was 9.5 on Friday and 7 on Monday. I had it checked again this past Monday and it was back at 9.5! I'm continuing the injections to try to boost it a bit more but hopefully will only need a few more. I'll continue to have frequent lab work to get my medication levels back in tune as well as check on kidney function.

My milk came in and dried up within a day or two, much quicker than after Brenham's birth, my milk lasted for weeks after his birth.

We are just so in love with her and are so unworthy of this life God has given us and its given me a little case of anxiety. Anxiety over something bad happening because she seems to good to be true.  I had that after we took the boys home too. I'm constantly working on it, praying about it, and reminding myself that God doesn't want us to worry but just be thankful and give our anxieties to Him. (Phil 4:6)

Somehow I only have 3 pounds left to lose until I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight. That being said, I'll still have some work to do to get back in shape. Like I mentioned earlier, I have no muscle tone and things are a lot softer than they used to be!

Postpartum hormones are real! I don't consider myself to be a highly emotional or sensitive person normally, but lately oh my word that's so not the case! I've cried over the silliest things but most of my tears come from pure happiness and thankfulness for this sweet little girl.

I've been able to get at least a 20 minute nap in everyday so far. It's not much but sometimes it's just what I need for a little burst of energy to get through the day.

Jovie:
We're still getting used to having a girl! She gets called "buddy" and "he" quite a bit yet and shopping in the pink section still feels a little odd! We are just loving it though!

We have no idea who she looks like. That's actually something we kind of forgot about, this baby could look like us! It was just never something that was important to us, for our kids to share our DNA never mattered so now that we do have a biological child we don't even think about that part! I think most people say she looks like me, but I really don't know!

She's starting to like her paci more and more. At the hospital she never had a paci, definitely something new to us, the boys had one from the get go.

She makes the sweetest little noises, very girly compared to the boys as newborns!

She's just now finding her voice and starting to cry, before now it was just whimpers and whines.

She lost her umbilical stump on Christmas Day.

Jovie eats really well, burps good and doesn't spit up. We just bumped her up to 3oz during the nighttime feedings.

Her skin is peeling like crazy, that's something else we never experienced with the boys, I heard it has to do with her being early.

We were both expecting her to have more hair! We had 2 different ultrasound techs point out her hair during an ultrasound so I had pictured the baby to have a whole head of hair. She really just has some peach fuzz!

She always has her hands by her face and her fingers spread wide, both are things we noticed during multiple ultrasounds. Its so cool to know that all those sneak peaks we had of the baby on the ultrasounds were HER in there! I was looking at the very first ultrasound picture of her and saw she was 1.75cm long at 8 weeks gestation, and 29 weeks later she grew to be 18.5 inches. Such a miracle babies are.

I mentioned before that she gets startled really easily by noises, but one noise that doesn't startle her is the dog barking. She must have gotten quite used to that noise while in my belly because I distinctly remember both boys just screaming whenever the dog would bark those first few weeks we had them home.

She's gaining more and more head and neck strength and starting to be more alert while she's awake and looking around! She's growing!

She is such a good baby so far. God must have known that we needed that during this busy time in our lives. They boys are doing great too, they seem to have adjusted amazingly well to having her around! (More on them later!)