Settling In...

Tess is two weeks old already, what would have been her original due date, plus one day. She went to the doctor today and is already 7 pounds. One day I will tell her how excited I was when she hit seven pounds, and she will laugh... So, I ended up with a C-section, but I have no regrets. I feel like I tried my best for a vaginal birth, and it didn't work out. Actually, my doctor told me that chances are, I would not have been able to have a vaginal birth, ever. It seems that my cranial sacral bone is pushed forward, and leaves a very narrow passage between it and my pelvic bone. She told me that Tess was starting to turn into a brow position, just like Owen. The whole birth was mirroring my previous birth with Owen, but they did let me labor (for six hours, unmedicated, on pitocin!) and it was worth it to feel a part of childbirth. I felt as if we struggled, she and I, and the best solution was a C-section. Anna, the doula I had hired, told me that I did everything except have the baby come out vaginally. After hours of labor, my cervix was not dilating and it began to swell. Anna told me that that was a sign the baby was protecting itself and we would find out when we went into the C-section what was wrong. Sure enough, when I went into surgery, the doctor exclaimed "aha!" when they pulled her out. Apparently, there was a "true knot" in the umbilical cord, meaning it was a tight knot. It hadn't affected her at all up until this point, but if we had tried to deliver vaginally, it could have been very bad. Anna told me she's only seen it three times in the ten years she's been practicing, and twice it resulted in still birth. So, thank God for modern medical science! I have a healthy baby girl, who by all counts, can grow up to be normal and typical and ordinary. So, this time around, I feel as if I bonded so much more! I was able to have her on my chest after the birth, and then they let me breastfeed her for a few minutes in the recovery room. I also got to have her in my room with me. It was so different from Owen's birth, when he was whisked away into the NICU and we had to keep going there, and seeing him hooked up to monitors and feeding tubes. I feel as if this time, I got to feel like an ordinary parent. But the fears have not gone away. They sit on my shoulder and pester me, trying to make me paranoid about her. Both Erik and I keep questioning if what she is doing is normal. How would we know? We thought Owen was typical and normal for two weeks until we found out he had Down Syndrome. Now, we question what is normal. I told Erik that for once, just once, I would like to be a naive parent and believe that everything is fine and there are no problems. But, since we had Owen, our definition of normal, and life in general, are different from the typical parent. I'll write more later, I just wanted to catch up for a brief moment. Still, looking at my child with Down Syndrome, who I am incredibly in love with, and my new baby, I feel so blessed to have them both. I don't think I would ever feel so grateful if I didn't have Owen, and hadn't gone through the mental adjustment that I did. Maybe that's the difference. Maybe typical parents will never appreciate their children as much as I do, because my joy is perhaps more hard-won.