Quick update.

My doctor came through in the end. Dallas and I couldn't be happier with how she handled everything. She was there, and she was wonderful.

I did not give birth naturally. Oh no sir, I did not. And the epidural was easy. It did make my blood pressure drop enough that I had to have extra monitoring, but it made my labor bearable. The nurses kept telling me I could push the button to up my dosage if I got too uncomfortable, and Dallas tried to convince me to push it when we got to the pushing stage because it was very nearly gone. I'm pretty sure I could feel everything. It certainly hurt enough to be everything. And I remember most of the process. I remember the first contraction spent pushing, and I remember looking at Dallas and saying, "I'm having a baby. Oh, god." or something very similar to that. Everyone laughed. I was not kidding.

The feeding situation is out of control. I had my heart set on breast feeding as soon as he was born, but that couldn't happen because he needed extra attention. I didn't want him having any artificial nipples, but that couldn't happen because he had low blood sugar. My mom was able to help him latch on to my breast, but everyone who helped me get started after my mom left had no success, so I spent the first day or so using a nipple shield--a little silicone cap that goes over your natural nipple. And then he was so jaundiced we couldn't rouse him, so we started discussing my colostrum supply and I began pumping every two hours to see if I was producing anything. I wasn't. We had to start supplementing with formula in order to get him to go to the bathroom and start clearing the bilirubin. I started bawling with every feeding because I felt like such a failure. These big stupid breasts were completely worthless, and I was pissed off at them. By the time they sent us home, they were unbelievably sore and I was unbelievably angry at them. So I brutalized them. One late night, unproductive pumping session, I gave myself an extra vigorous massage (they told me to at the hospital, but I took this one to a mean level) and voila! The next day, I started making milk. Now I'm producing between 4 and 5 ounces per pumping session. Dresden's jaundice has not gotten any better, so I still have to bottle feed him, and I do hate that. But at least he's getting breast milk, right? I don't even mind the extra 30 minutes pumping adds to our feeding routine. I know it's better for him. It's not ideal, but it's the best I could do. I'm still pretty sensitive about it, but I believe I've done everything I could. I'm thankful for whatever milk I get. Pumping dry breasts was emotionally and physically painful.