Notes on the Hospital Stay (Sep 27 2010)
Below are my memories of the 48 hours following delivery, up until we got home. My next post will be about the first week at home.
Friday, September 3 - Sunday, September 5, 2010
After delivering, I held Dana for a while and our visitors (my parents, Olivia, and Laura) got to meet her. I was still bleeding quite a bit, so every half hour or so, our nurse Heidi would come back and press on my abdomen, trying to get the uterus to contract. This was very painful and I was exhausted and kept thinking to myself "Just get through this, then the pain will be over for the day". I'd had this same thought many times over since beginning pushing at 1:15.
Around 5:00 or 5:30 (after visiting for 3 hours and then eating dinner), the nurses took Dana to the nursery for a bath and some routine tests, and I was wheeled up to my recovery room. Since I had lost a considerable amount of blood during delivery and was feeling pretty woozy anytime I stood up, I needed Will to help support me going to and from the bathroom. As we were making our way back to the bed, the recovery nurse came in. I explained that I had been feeling faint and needed a little help getting around. Then the questions began.
She asked, "Do you have a history of feeling faint?" No, I just had a baby 3 hours ago.
"Did you urinate in the cup in there?" No, I didn't know I was supposed to.
"Are you in discomfort?" Urrghh - yes, as I gingerly lowered myself onto the bed.
"Then why didn't you ask for any pain relief meds?" No one offered me any!
"Well, that was wrong." And she said she'd return shortly with something to take the edge off.
At this point, I looked at Will in disbelief.. he just rolled his eyes, in agreement. I can't remember exactly how long it took her to come back with the meds. It was more than 30 minutes, I believe. When she did come back, she didn't tell me what she was giving me, and of course I was too exhausted to ask. (We found out later that it was 600 mg of ibuprofen, but it seems pretty old school to not inform the patient what medication you're giving her.) She also brought some paperwork that she said she'd go over with us, including the birth certificate and SSN applications, but she never did walk us through it.
We also kept waiting for them to bring Dana in from the nursery, but by 7:00, she still wasn't with us, so we called the nurse and asked for our baby. When she was brought in, we tried breastfeeding again, but it was really difficult in the hospital bed. We tried using a bunch of pillows to get into position, but she kept sliding down. I was physically exhausted and did not have the strength in my arms or shoulders to move her back up, so Will kept having to help lift her and hold her in position. Meanwhile, Dana was getting frustrated and I was starting to freak out. I felt like a failure, and I knew Will was exhausted after being up since 5:00 AM.
We called for help from the night nurse a couple of times. Around 9:00, we tried to get some sleep, but Dana was pretty restless. We kept trying to feed her, on and off, until around 11:30, at which point the nurse came to take her for her midnight assessment. She asked how we were doing, and after we told her, she offered to take Dana to the nursery to cup-feed her some formula and keep her until the next feeding time around 4:00 AM. Since Dana was such a big girl, it was more likely that colostrum wasn't filling her up - she was just hungry. Will and I agreed that this would be the best plan so we could get a couple hours of rest and try again later.
That night, I was incredibly exhausted physically but wound up mentally and emotionally. I could not stop thinking about the day we'd just had, and all that had happened, and how our lives would be completely different going forward. Of course I had known this since seeing the little plus sign on the pregnancy test back in January, but now that Dana had arrived and we were wholly responsible for her, the truth hit me, and frankly I was terrified.
I didn't sleep well while Dana was out of the room, struggling with guilt for having 'sent her away' and anxiety about whether she was OK in the nursery. They brought her back at 4:00 as agreed, completely conked out. We read on her feeding sheet that they had given her 30 ml (1 oz) at midnight and another 40 ml (1.5 oz) around 3:30. You can imagine our surprise, since we had read that most newborns' stomachs can only hold 5-7 ml at birth and up to 25 ml by day 3. We had a big, hungry girl on our hands! No wonder she wasn't satisfied with just colostrum, if she could put away 70 ml of formula in under 4 hours.
Will's parents and Tyler and Daniel arrived later that morning and got to meet Dana, though she slept through their visits. My parents spent a good part of the day with us, trying our their new grandparent names, Grammy and Big Papi, and posting baby pictures on Facebook.
I continued to try nursing Dana as often as possible, to prevent her from getting desperate, but we kept running into trouble with those damn hospital pillows and I was still not strong enough to hold her in place. Throughout the day, we called the new day nurse Ursula for help. She was very warm, reassuring, and above all, patient. She helped us try different positions, and when I was having trouble nursing on the right side because of soreness, she brought a pump so I wouldn't get "lopsided". We still had a lot of frustration (and a good bit of crying on my part), but Ursula definitely improved the learning experience and was by far my favorite nurse of the entire hospital visit.
By evening, Will was worn out, so I was glad when he got the chance to go out to dinner with his parents and sister and her fiance's family. Originally it was suggested that they go to the local sushi place, but I said I'd throw a fit if I was left out of sushi, so they went someplace else. My parents stayed with Dana and me while Will was at dinner, and played with her a lot (much singing by my dad and baby-bouncing by my mom), in the hopes that she would get worn out and go to sleep easily once will got back. Instead, she just stayed wound up and did not fall asleep.
This time, we knew cup-feeding in the nursery was an option, so we called the night nurse at 11:00. I still felt guilty about having Dana taken to the nursery, but less so, since she would get a bunch of formula, and that would make her feel better. That night, I got about 6 hours of sleep, and I woke up the next morning (Sunday) feeling like a new person.
We had a pretty good morning. First Dana was assessed by one of the baby doctors and her discharge papers were completed. Afterward, an OB (the male doctor I saw for my 35-week appointment) came in and examined me, and said he'd get my discharge paperwork underway. We packed up everything we had brought with us, along with all the free stuff the hospital gave us (lots of diapers and formula). By 1:30, I had Dana in my arms as I was wheeled out of the hospital. We put Dana in her carseat (she did not enjoy it) and my dad drove us home.