Time in the Maternity Ward 2011

Our family on Friday evening

James was born via c-section at 12:23, and they split us up almost right away. I had to go to the Recovery Room for the c-section, and they took him to the nursery to test his sugars because he was so large. Numerous attempts to get him back from the nursery failed, and I was getting pretty unhappy as the hours ticked by. And unlike, everyone else, I couldn't visit him in nursery because I was connected to so many tubes. We finally got him back when it was almost 4 in the afternoon.

Reunited at last.

The first evening in the hospital was very bad, due mostly to the fact that the nurse assigned to us was both inattentive and casually rude. I'm pretty sure at one point she implied that I was a bad mother because I wouldn't let my child have formula because I was trying to breastfeed. Can anyone even be a bad mother before her child reaches the ripe age of 12 hours old? Perhaps. But I don't think I was.

Believe it or not she managed to top this when I realized I was having difficulty breathing and she first acted dubious, then administered more pain medicine (a depressant for someone having difficulty breathing?), and finally at our insistence called a resident. To be fair the residents weren't all that helpful either, but by the next day they had figured out my blood count was low because I had lost a lot of blood. But you know, it wasn't so far-fetched that a woman who had major abdominal surgery might have a complication a few hours later, and if that complication is BREATHING, that seems like something not to dally over, because most people like to do that a couple times a minute.

I was very relieved when the day nurse arrived. She was a take-charge type. She was also super-militant about breastfeeding. She was followed by James's pediatrician who told me to ignore the nurses. He said that all babies lose weight so I shouldn't let the nurses scare me (impossible when you're sleep-deprived, medicated, and a first-time mom). He also said it didn't matter if I used formula or not, or used a pacifier or not, but that life would be easier if I used a pacifier. The lactation consultant came in and told me different things than the nurses or the pediatrician. To say that we were confused would be putting it mildly. And I was angry that the hospital couldn't keep its story straight at an already stressful time.

I'm not even going to elaborate on the horrors of sharing a room with another family whose baby would only cry when ours was quiet and vice versa.

Luckily, we had visitors who relieved a great deal of the stress of being in the hospital. Kevin's mom came back Thursday morning, followed by Jon and Briggs in the afternoon with some Jameson and coffee for Kevin's new daddy life.  On Friday my friends Chrissy and her husband Jason visited with a bag full of bagels for us and baby gifts for James, and finally on Friday my mother returned to help out and let Kevin go back to the house for a little while. We also got flowers and many calls from Ash and Janice.

Jon and Briggs visit on Thursday afternoon

Chrissy and Jason visit on Friday morning