Marlo Jane

This little girl is the light of my life!  I had never been a "baby person" until my little Marlo was born!  I was never a very sensitive person, until she was born.  I was never a lot of things until she came into my life.  Marlo was born 6 weeks early.  I have a heart shaped uterus of which I was unaware until my water broke one evening waaaaay before it was supposed to.  Marlo was also breach, therefore an emergency c-section was in the works.  My hubby and I arrived at the hospital shortly after 11pm, and she was born at 2:25 am on June 2, 2016 at 5lbs 9oz, 18 inches long.  Talk about a whirlwind!

Marlo was placed in oxygen and heated incubation chamber for the first 24 hours of which I was unable to see her due to having the c-section and all that comes with it (catheter, compression boots, IV, ect).  Not our birthing plan AT ALL!  I have a pretty high pain tolerance, so the plan was to go all natural if possible, but to not beat myself up if I decided on an epidural.  All that changed at about 10 pm on June 1st.

So along with insane hormonal emotions running through me, I wanted to see this baby!  I hadn't gotten to visit her in the nursery and they would not bring her out because of her delicate situation.  In the end, she was only in incubation for a 24 hour period as I mentioned before.  She was a tough cookie, and was able to spend most of my hospital stay (4 days) in our room.

Breastfeeding was torturous, I don't think my body was ready for it yet, but she did get some breast milk within the first 5 weeks of her new life.  I tried and tried to pump and feed, but she was growing at a rapid rate, and my milk was just not coming in.  She's been on formula ever since and is now a hefty 13 pounds.

The reason I am sharing this story is because I know I beat myself up over the things that I didn't accomplish that I wanted to; natural birth, breastfeeding for at least 6 months, a full term baby.  But in reality, we don't get to make those choices, the universe makes them for us.  I was lucky to have a wonderful support group of friends and family that allowed me to push through the hard times and recognize that as long as Marlo was healthy, why did it matter how she got here?  Now I don't even think about the things I wasn't able to do, because just waking up to her sweet face every morning made it all worth it.