Becoming a Second Time Mom

I had my second son in January of this year so I am officially a boy mom. I’m scared. haha. No, but seriously I’m scared. So many broken bones, stitches, and bugs in my future. But, also so many momma’s boy moments to be had and I can’t wait! Here is my story of becoming a second-time mom.

My second pregnancy

So I had my second son meaning my second pregnancy with another boy. I should be an old pro now, right? Wrong. Pregnancy was a total 180 compared to my first son. This time I had insane morning sickness, headaches, and any other terrible pregnancy symptom you can have. At 39 weeks I went in for my weekly appointment and everything looked great. I was 4cms and 90% effaced so we knew baby boy number 2 would be making his appearance soonish. Due to his estimated size, they scheduled me for an induction at 39 weeks 2 days. I hadn’t had any Braxton hicks or anything up until this point so I was fairly certain I would make it another two days. Well, it was an ice storm that day and on my way out of the doctor’s office, I fell. Twice! So I marched, or waddled rather, myself right back inside to get checked out. I have never been in so much pain in my life. I could literally barely walk my pelvic muscles hurt so badly.

After 5 hours of being monitored and having all my blood tests come back normal my OBGYN was talking to me about sending me home. I had a contraction or two while I was there but nothing consistent. When she came back to do a final physical exam I had dilated to 5cms and my contractions were becoming more frequent. So since it was an ice storm we decided I would just stay until little squish arrived. I didn’t want to start an induction because my husband was at work an hour away and he needed to go home and get our bags, get his mom set up to stay with our two-year-old son while we were in the hospital and still drive to the hospital. I knew it was going to be several hours just to get home in the ice.

A little back story.

For several days leading up to my 39-week checkup, I was insanely sick. I had a cold that I couldn’t kick for 4 weeks and to top it off I had the worst stomach flu I have ever had. Non-stop puking for days. So needless to say I was exhausted in pain and really not feeling up for labor, especially after falling.

Due to all of this, my doctor recommended we do an epidural right away so I could try and relax and maybe even sleep for an hour or two before I would need to start pushing. So I got the epidural, which took 3 tries to place and was awful. But, once it was in was perfect.

Another side story

With my first son, I waited to get the epidural until I was 10 hours into labor and 7cms. My epidural was on too high so suddenly I couldn’t feel from my upper chest down at all. I couldn’t move my body at all. And my son had been grabbing his umbilical cord on an off and his heart rate would drop until I would move around and he would let go of it bringing his heart rate back up. So not being able to move the next time he did that was scary and my son wouldn’t let go of his cord so I was being prepped for an emergency c-section when he finally let go. So I asked them to completely turn off the epidural. And I brought my son into the world feeling it all.

Back to my labor with my second son

This time around the epidural was at the perfect level so I basically had a pain free labor once it was in. I am so glad I got it because I really did need to rest to be able to push later on. My husband let me know he was leaving our house to head to the hospital so my OBGYN started me on Pitocin around 8pm and broke my water and my son was born at 10:34pm. I had been at the hospital since 9am that day so I was very glad to have such a speedy labor and delivery. My son latched right away, he had no health issues, his APGAR was a 9 and he was completely perfect.

My first son had tongue and lip ties so breastfeeding was a terrible experience (check out my article on breastfeeding with a tongue tie here) and I ended up exclusively pumping. I over produce so when I weaned my son I had over 1000oz saved up in the freezer so I felt like this time around would be so easy. I wouldn’t have to deal with pumping and I didn’t need to worry about my supply so it was going to be great. Wrong.

The effect of stress on breastfeeding

It is so true what they say that no two children are alike and no two experiences will be the same. This time around about 2 months in my supply started to go crazy. For a couple of days I would have virtually nothing and then a couple of days I would overproduce an extra 20 oz a day. It was so so stressful. So I started researching ways to keep my supply up. I didn’t realize how much stress could affect your supply!

Which having a newborn in and of itself is stressful enough but I was also dealing with selling our house, buying a new house, having to put down my dog of 11 years (read all about my dog Jack in my Instagram post here because he was the best!), my toddler has his molars coming in, my baby has already been in the hospital once due to a viral infection and he and my older son both have croup. So needless to say stress definitely played a huge factor in my supply changes. So what could I do?

Bringing my breastfeeding supply back up

Well I started drinking an extra 50 oz of water a day and added a few extra snacks (I am definitely still not eating enough but I’m working on it), I started drinking fruengreek but I really don’t know how much it helped. I started adding oatmeal to tons of stuff I add (like lactation cookies, smoothies, etc). And, in about a week my supply was back up and I can take that off the list of things to stress out about!

I think the most important thing for anyone that may be struggling with supply issues is drinking enough water. 8 glasses a day isn’t going to cut it when you are breastfeeding. My lactation consultant suggested I drink a water bottle everytime I breastfeed or pump so that is about 150 oz a day! So if you need a quick way to up your supply start chugging some water!