11/11 in Journal

She’s here, on 11/11/22, which is another cool number!
Water broke last night at 10:30, and 5 hours later she was here. It went so fast, yet every moment seemed to take an hour at the time. It was so surreal.
I gave birth in the bathtub, bc they didn’t even have time to set up the birth pool. Everyone thought she’d be a boy this whole time. She is huge tho. Born 10lbs 10oz and. 15” head. My midwife says that is the biggest head she ever sees- she’s only had 3 other 15” heads in her entire practice.
They arrived when I was already in transition so I couldn’t even walk at that point. This birth couldn’t be more different than the first, except that I did hemorrhage again. It was handled well, though, and I’m on bed rest until strength returns, which is honestly quite nice lol
Just me and bebe in bed all day snoozing nursing cuddling 🥰
11/15
I can’t help but notice that my anxiety is just about nil compared to my first postpartum experience. Everything seemed so scary, then. My baby wouldn’t nurse. He woke up and cried as if he was in pain. He lost over a pound. I pumped after I tried to nurse every hour for 3 days. I hadn’t slept in over a week and was crazy delerious, terrified my baby would die.
I think back to that and I wonder what kind of imprinting it had on our son. He is so happy and carefree- gregarious tothemax I mean this kid loves new people- and I still wonder. We had the chiro out 3 times immediately after his birth to straighten him out - which he desperately needed after an emergency vacuum extraction and drugs up the wazoo. His left eyelid still has a slight droop when he’s tired.
All in all, very little to show for the amount of trauma that in my mind actually occurred.
So I wonder and I can’t help but compare the difference in how quickly and strongly my newborn daughter nursed. She latched within a half hour of birth! Her labor from transition was just less than 2 hours. She’s already well on her way to regaining birth weight just 4 days old. 4oz to go!
Ofc I feel so much better, too. I hurt, I’m sore, and I’m weak and tired, but it’s all sort of the good kind. You know? I feel like I just ran up Mt everest. I did something amazing. I accomplished a monumental task- it’s good and right that I’m sore. That attests to the difficulty of the task. And I had everything to do with the preparation and planning and decision making along the way to make it happen. It is just… A feeling of supreme confidence and assurance that I never felt after having our son.