Rest of the Hospital Stay

After Minna was taken to the nursery we were told I might be able to nurse her in an hour or so, if things went well. So while we waited me moved over to the mother and baby side of the maternity ward. Then they came in and said that Minna's blood sugar was too low, so they gave her formula and I would be able to nurse her in 3 hours. So I began pumping (bleh). Brian called a few people in our ward to let them know about Minna, and then decided to go home since he had been up for more than 24 hours at this point.

Brian was so tired when he left I called him to make sure he made it home and he did. He even remembered to feed the cats, which I was impressed at. When he got home he felt a little awake, so he decided to wind down by watching a TV show. He sat down in Joshua's chair and started to get to the show he wanted to watch. Two hours later he woke up in Joshua's chair, and looked at the TV to see he never actually loaded the show. He went to bed after that.

When they said I could nurse Minna, I went in to the biggest disaster of a nursing ever. Minna had an IV in, so we were trying to manuever her around without bugging it. Well I failed and the IV ended up being pulled out. Then she wouldn't even wake up to nurse. So they put the IV back in, and I asked how long they would let her go without eating before they put a feeding tube in. The nurse responded that she would take a bottle, so they would just give her a bottle until she nursed. I went back to pump again with visions of having to pump for forever because she wouldn't nurse.

Three hours later they came in and said I could nurse again. This time went much better, and she did her thing, and then they gave her a bottle afterwards. I went back to pump for a few minutes afterwards too, trying to speed up bringing my milk in.

Nursings went pretty well after that point, I continued to pump to get my milk in because they were giving her formula in the meantime. Our pediatrician doesn't go to Saratoga Hospital and one of the on call pediatricians told the nurse to not limit the formula they gave her, and to give her as much as she would take. Fortunately the nurses used moderation here, since Minna would take almost anything from a bottle. The formula made her spit up and didn't settle really well with her, but I knew she shouldn't loose too much weight so she needed it. When my milk started to come in, her spitting up started to get ridiculous because she would eat everything in the bottle whether she needed to or not. The labor and delivery nurse said that we could start backing off the bottles, giving her less and see how she was doing. By the time we went home Friday we were done with the bottles.

I had to get used to the nursery nurses there. After having Joshua in the NICU, I was used to nurses only have 2 or 3 babies, not two nurses for all the babies on the floor. And at the beginning I didn't realize that the labor and delivery nurses could help with the babies, so I drove the nursery nurses crazy. I also got in trouble because my room was right across the hall from the nursery, so a few times Minna's feet turned funny colors because of poor circulation and being cold. Well it freaked me out when I unwrapped her, so I took her across the hall to inquire about why her feet were like that. But I didn't wrap her up to go the 3 feet, because it seemed dumb to wrap her up, go 3 feet, and unwrap her. Then I got in trouble for not wrapping her up. Same thing happened when she was unwrapped at the nursery and I needed to nurse her right then. My kids won't nursed all swaddled up, they just go to sleep, so I started to push her the 3 feet back to my room, but got in trouble for not wrapping her up again. I really wasn't trying to freeze her, just speed things up.

The other thing that drove me nuts was they did tests and shots between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning. Maybe I was spoiled in the NICU where they didn't do anything to Joshua including baths after 10:00 pm so the babies would learn day and night. But they would give her a shot or poke her and then bring her in screaming to eat. Well she would be so exhausted she wouldn't eat, so then I would have to do a longer pumping session to make up for it at 2:00 in the morning. Then the first couple of nights when we came home she would sleep great most of the night (minus getting up to eat), but between 1:00 and 2:00 she would become inconsolable. After a couple of torture-less nights, she started sleeping then too.

I got along a lot better with the labor and delivery nurses and felt much better about the hospital stay, when I realized they were in charge of Minna too. They were chattier and more willing to help and more willing to let me do things my way. I really liked it when one of my nurses volunteered to give Minna her after nursing bottle, and I told her that she didn't have to if she was busy. She said no she had a minute and she loved to feed the babies. I thought that was really sweet.

One other thing that was interesting for me was when we were being discharged from the hospital. When I was discharged after Joshua they pushed me out to the car in a wheel chair even though I could have walked out. When Joshua was discharged from the hospital (2 months after I was discharged) the nurse had to carry him out of the hospital in his baby carrier. When Minna and I got ready to leave the hospital we got all packed up and waited and waited for a nurse to come by. Finally I went to the nurses desk, and she said to come out with Minna to the desk when we were ready to go and she would walk us down. By walk us down, she basically had to watch us put Minna's car seat in the car and that was it. I carried Minna out because Brian had gone to get the car. I am sure if I had been physically unable to walk or carry Minna I wouldn't have had to, but it was still really weird to me.

That is basically our hospital stay, minus the part where Joshua came to visit .