Day 5...to be cared for

Jan 24

Today was the first real day I got to spend with Song and the kids. Boy, those kids are a handful, and Song has very capable hands. She totally took care of me and Martyn all day, and her kids....what an awesome woman!

She fixed me breakfast, lunch and dinner, and hung out with me and just encouraged me all day. We bundled the kids all up, Martyn too, and walked over to the park behind our house. It was Martyn's first outing to the park, and first ride on the swings! (When I told Eli about this later at night, he got this look on his face like he was all horrified, and said "you put the boy in the park swing?" No, I sat on the swing and held him and kind of swung a bit. Silly.)

It was pretty cool though. Song was a great encouragement to me. I'm having to force myself to take it easy, I feel pretty great, though my bottom was really sore today. I'll leave it at that.

But she just kind of checked up on me all day, reminded me to eat and fixed snacks and meals for me and just made me feel really well cared for and loved.

I haven't been feeling all that hungry until I sit down to eat something, then I'm just like ravenous. When Nicole came for my first post-pardum visit, she told me to eat even if I'm not feeling hungry. I'm still building a baby, just not with blood. She reminded me that nursing mamas need to eat an extra 500 calories a day, just to keep up with the breast milk production.

Sheesh.

Speaking of breast milk, my milk came in last night in full force. I woke up in the middle of the night in a huge puddle, and was too tired to get up and deal with it at the moment so I just went back to sleep. Later in the night, I got up to go pee and was all chilled, probably from sleeping in the milk puddle. My boobs were all engorged and I was thinking about Martyn's little umbilical cord that was just hanging by a thread when I went to bed, and looking horrible. By the time I came back to bed I was just shaking really hard, like I was in shock or something. I got into bed and just started crying, and holding the baby up as close to me as I could. Eli scooted up to me and just wrapped himself around me and the baby and comforted me.

I think it scared him a bit, like he thought I had lost a whole bunch of blood or something (I hadn't)....I think the shock of everything, plus the pain of engorged boobus-hugous, plus just worrying about the boys belly button getting infected, or just worrying about him period for that matter, just all came crashing down on me at once.

Martyn's umbilical cord came off last night in the night, and his little belly button is a little oozy, but it looks just fine.

I imagine the rest of my life will be filled with things I could worry about Martyn. It's still worth it though.