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So, we got home with our newborn and started to get settled in. My mom was helping me because my husband was out filling my prescriptions. Unfortunately, my first issue had nothing to do with my newborn. As I was trying to crawl into bed I moved wrong and ended up with some really bad muscle pain. This pain was worse than anything I had felt in the hospital. My husband got home, and I took a pain pill and we waited but unfortunately that did not help. Less than 12 hours we were on our way back to the hospital. Doctor’s gave me morphine and that did not help but there was not much they could do. Nothing looked wrong with my incision, so they sent me home and had me call my OB in the morning.
So, home we went. Between not being able to lay down, the pain and a normal newborn that does not sleep for long periods I did not get a lot of sleep. In the morning I called my OB and one of the assistants was able to help me. They let me know what it was, because that was the side the primary doctor was on that is where most of the pulling and stuff happened during the c-section. It was residual pain from that and I just aggravated it when I climbed into bed (our bed is kind of high up).
Newborn routine
We spent the next few weeks just getting into a routine and getting to know Ashlyn. My mom spent a lot of time helping. She would come over anytime my husband had to go out since I was not able to do much yet. My husband had saved up his leave, so he was home for 3 weeks with me before he had to go back to work. When he did go back my mom would come over if I needed her to. I was scared being left alone at first with her but quickly learned that I could do this just fine. I had trouble breastfeeding, so we had a couple appointments with a lactation consultant at the hospital to try and help. At one of our first appointments she noticed that Ashlyn had a lip tie and referred us to a pediatric dentist who did the procedure.
She was 2 weeks old at this time and was about to have her first procedure. 🙁 When we went, and he looked she had a bad lip tie, so he recommended we take care of it right away. It is a quick procedure, so they did it right then. I cried longer than Ashlyn did. Within a few minutes of having it done we tried breastfeeding and we had a little bit of success. I am sad that even after that we were never able to get off using the breast shield (we started using one in the hospital to facilitate feeding the formula while breastfeeding). So, for me breastfeeding was a pain that I hated doing. Even with pumping my milk never really came in fully so after about 3 months it was over for me 🙁
Issue found
At her 2-month check-up her pediatrician heard a heart murmur. We were sent over to see a pediatric cardiologist to have it checked. Sure enough she was diagnosed with VSD (Ventricular septal defect). This was scary for us. We were told that where the hole is there would be a good chance that with medication and as she got bigger it would close on its own. She was put on medication for a little over a year and then we were able to stop. We had her last check-up at 2 years and we don’t go back till she is 3.5 unless there are issues.
Seeing your baby hooked up to cords even if is just for a quick test is hard. She did well during the EKG and when they did the ultrasound of her heart. We had monthly checks till she was 1 and then one at 1.5 and then at 2 yrs. I felt helpless that I could not just fix this and make it all better. After I started talking about it I found out that it is more common than I knew. Most of the babies who do have a hole, it closes and don’t need surgery. This is what we are hoping will happen.
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