Kelli
Kelli Margaret was born on December 4, 1986, two weeks late, at 6 lbs. 10 oz. and 18 inches long. She was so tiny, so much smaller than her brother, but she would turn out to be a triple handful!
I delivered Kelli via C-Section after 21 hours of labor. We were trying for a VBAC, which is a vaginal birth after Cesarean, but my body just would not progress, so after a couple hours of begging, my doctor finally agreed to deliver her. I had a local anesthetic, and therefore was wide awake when Kelli was born. This would be a very different experience than having Tommy, because I had a general anesthetic with him, fast asleep.
The moment Kelli was born, she began to cry, and I didn’t know it in all my happiness and bliss at the time, but getting her to stop crying would be one of my life’s greatest challenges. Tom was in his glory, so happy that we had a baby girl. He watched the whole surgery from start to finish, and as soon as she was out, he got to hold her. He brought her near me, but not near enough in my opinion. This would be the beginning of what I would consider a lack of bonding, and this lack of bonding would impact my relationship with her the rest of her life. Make no mistake about it though; I loved this baby so much. She had coal black hair, fondly reminding me of my mom.
Once again, we went through the business of counting our baby’s fingers and toes, and once again, we could be thankful for a perfect little being. This time, though, because I had a local anesthetic, I did not get Kelli for over 12 hours. The time leading up to our first visit with her was filled with me being left to lay on my back so that the spinal injection site would heal properly and I would not have the horrible spinal headaches that can sometimes come with a local anesthetic.
Unfortunately, while I was supposed to be lying on my back, the fill-in nurses in recovery moved me onto my side several times at my request. I was so high from the anesthetic, I had forgotten that I was not supposed to be moved. The fill-in nurses in recovery must have forgotten too, because they moved me at will. Consequently, my spinal injection site did not heal properly, and I would experience earth-shattering spinal headaches for the next six days. As a result, I was not able to hold or care for Kelli without horrific pain, and I only actually got to have her twice during that seven days; hence, the lack of bonding between mother and child.
During one of the two visits with Kelli, I tried to nurse her. That was a fiasco. She did not suckle to me easily and cried and screamed the whole 45 minutes. The nurses helped me and she finally got her fill. Oh I forgot to mention that I had not planned to nurse her. My doctor went on vacation right after delivering Kelli and although it was in my orders, the nurses forgot to bring me my breast milk dry up pills. So I had no choice, but to nurse her, as I suffered severely with heavily engorged breasts and headaches to kill to boot. The nurses tried to talk me into nursing her on a regular basis, but with the headaches, I could not even consider it.
Finally on Day 6, a doctor I did not know performed a blood patch procedure on me. He put me in a twilight sleep, drew blood from my hand and patched the spinal injection site with it. Before that procedure, I was pretty sure that I was going to die. I called my dad up and told him that I loved him. I could not remember the last time I had ever told him I loved him, but with me being certain that I wasn’t going to make it, I thought I’d better let him know. After the blood patch procedure, I was in recovery for about an hour. Almost instantaneously, my headaches disappeared, and I wondered why this procedure hadn’t been done on me sooner.
On Day 7, I was released along with my newborn baby girl. She must have wondered, “Who in the world are these people anyway?” Tom brought the car up to the hospital entrance, and he would spend the next 45 minutes, trying to get Kelli to stop screaming and thrashing long enough to get her belted into the car seat. And that is no exaggeration. I just sat on the bench waiting for him patiently and calmly but oh so naturally crying right along with my baby. People would stop and stare and smile at me sadly. Many seemed to know my angst.
Finally, we would get to my cousin’s house to pick up Tommy and try to start a new life together with two kids. Kelli cried during the ride, which was a new one for Tom and I, because Tommy had loved car rides so much. We got her out of the car seat and into my cousin’s house, and she would continue to cry for the next year or so. She would cry especially hard when someone other than Tom or I would hold her. She was a real gem and making my life a living nightmare.
This time, our baby did not suffer from colic, but it didn’t matter, she would cry anyway. She would cry during bath, in between meals, and especially during visits with family and friends.
When Kelli was six weeks old, I went to work for Underwriters Laboratories as a word processing operator during the second shift. It was a part-time position, 30 miles from home, and I worked from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Saturdays. This gave me the opportunity to be home with the kids during the day and Tom would take care of them at night.
Even on weekend nights, Kelli would have nothing to do with me. She was a Daddy’s Girl through and through. Only Tom was “allowed” to hold her in the evenings and even sometimes during the day. She still would not allow anyone other than Tom or I to hold her, and that would remain true until she was a year old.
She sure was a cute little thing though. I loved her as much as I loved my son, but a little differently. This was my baby girl, even if she didn’t seem to think much of me.
When Kelli was three months old, she showed signs of growing a little hair. She had about oh three strands of hair or maybe four. I was so excited about it, that I put a little barrette in her hair, but soon regretted it. I accidentally pinched her poor little head in that barrette, and she screamed bloody murder at me. Man, she was pissed! She thrashed around so much that I had a hard time getting the barrette out, but finally was able to. Those tears streamed down her little face as though someone had tried to take her out. Soon, I would discover that Kelli’s hair was never meant for barrettes. I think she didn’t grow a full head of hair until she was about nine years old.
So begins the story of Baby Number 2. Oh yes, little Tommy loved his baby sister. He wanted to hold her and kiss her at every whim. I have a picture of Tommy peaking over the bassinette at his sister and smiling at her. And I can’t close this blog without mentioning how helpful he was to me too. He was an awesome new diaper getter, and when the swing would stop, and Kelli would wale, he would run around the apartment trying to do whatever he could to make her stop. Finally, he figured out that if he pushed the swing back and forth manually, her crying would curtail.
This all sounds like it was such an awful ordeal, and believe me, there were times when I thought I would tear my hair right out of my head, but Kelli really was a sweet baby; so cuddly and playful and a good little eater too. She had a smile to break your heart, and she sure loved her big brother. It broke my heart to leave my babies each afternoon to go to work, but we had just bought our first house and really needed the second income to cover all the bills.
And so our family was growing, and we were elated!
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