After Birth

Not long after I had Toni, I had visitors. I can't even remember if I went to sleep or if I cleaned up first. I believe I cleaned up first and not long after, had some visitors. I'll have to ask Junior about that since I was not all there. I do remember the visitors though. I remember at one point right before giving birth, during my stretch of pain Junior wanted to call my brother. What

i didn't mention in the other post was that when we checked into the hospital, my brother, sister in law and Kathy came to visit. It was all before I started really feeling any pain. Anyway, it was late and we weren't sure when we'd be having the baby. We didn't think it would progress as fast as it did. So they went home and my brother told Junior to call him anytime when we are having the baby.
So fast forward to while I was in painful labor and Junior is all, "I'm going to call Manoy (that's what I call him) real quick." I was in so much pain and I needed him there every minute that I was like, "NO!" hahaha... he could make those calls AFTER I have this baby!
So after we had her and after he past the excitement and happiness stage of Toni coming into our lives, then he made the round of calls. Within a few hours, we had quite a few visitors which, I was happy for! I know some people would rather be left alone and with good reason. You are tired, etc. But I, personally, wanted people there because that's just how I am. My whole family is like that. So it was nice when everyone came. OK, I checked with Junior and I did nap a little after birth before everyone got there around 8am. It was cool b/c people actually took the day off to come see our little pooper. There was a little break in the afternoon where we were able to nap and shower and oh man... did I ever APPRECIATE that shower! Oh, but I had to pee TWICE before I was allowed to shower so they could take the IV line out of me. I figured ok, no big deal. Uh yeah... did I forget I just gave birth and had an episotomy? Well if I did, I remembered when I went pee. It burned. and the care i have to go through every time i went to the bathroom... ugh. they give you these elephant sized maxi pads with a cooling agent inside to help relieve the pain down there. it helped but it did feel like i had extra junk in the trunk wearing that thing, OH... and they don't fit in your underwear (unless maybe you use granny panties) so they give you thses netted disposable ones that look almost like hot shorts. haha! anyway, after i peed twice and was allowed my shower, then we had more visitors in the later afternoon until night. Some people even came more than once or twice. It was very cool! She is definitely loved.

We pretty much got to keep her in our room the whole day and night. Of course we had the option of sending her to the nursery so we could get some rest, but we wanted her with us. Now I know why the nurses kept telling us we could keep her in the nursery at night if we wanted. She cried and cried all night. But it was ok. I mean yes, I was dead tired but it was my first night with her and well, i wanted to be with her!

So I end up staying up all night (Junior fell asleep maybe around 2 or 3am) until about 6:30 and then I woke Junior up to watch her so I could sleep b/c the only way she would stop crying was if she was held. I tried feeding her, changing her, swaddling her... nothing. she just wanted to be held. well they come in while i'm asleep and offer to take her. when they come back, they report that she has jaundice.

ok now back track some. while we had visitors, people were asking me if I had gone through the emotions and all that. I really hadn't. I mean when I had her, I was so drugged and exhausted that i didn't get all that emotional. I thought about how much I wished my parents could physically be there, and i still didn't get emotional. I mean I was happy everytime I saw her adorable face, but i never got emotional. guess it will hit later.

remember that pink eye or some sort of eye infection i had? well my dumbass forgot to clean the case tha the infected contacts were in. so when i took them off for the day and stored them, they of course got infected. then I put them back on after my shower and yes... eye infection all over again. but atleast this time i caught on early enough and didn't have to endure it for too long.

ok, fast forward to when the nurse tells us she has jaundice. I had just woken up and mind you my eyes are red from the infection! She's explaining that Toni hadn't gotten enough to eat that day (we had problems latching on) and therfore didn't have enough soiled diapers to show that she was getting rid if some of the excess bilirubin (which is causing the jaundice). So they are going to have to give her phototherapy to treat it. Basically she lays under this UV light, almost like a mini tanning booth, to help her get rid of it. And I knew all about Jaundice. Two of my nephews and one of my nieces had it. So I wasn't too worried. And the fact that they caught it real early was good. But she mentioned that Toni would probably have to stay another night and we were expecting to be discharged that day. Ok... my eyes started to well up. Did she just tell me in so many words that I couold not leave with my baby? And then I started to think it was my fault. I couldn't get the breastfeeding right and now look what happened and I failed her, etc.... yes... the emotions had finally hit. Then to make matters worse, the nurse says, "oh... you're upset." And I let it out. Red eyes and all I started to ball. I mean I knew better, but I didn't feel that way. haha! So I cried and cried and she and Junior are trying to comfort me. In hindsight, I'm not really sure why I was crying. I think the emotions just finally caqught up to me. But I did feel really bad she had jaundice and felt maybe if I was able to breastfeed more she wouldn't have the problem.

Well later that morning when my doc came to check up on me, there really was no reason for me to stay there but she knew since my little pooper had to stay she would let me stay the full 48 hours. Now I thought the 48 hours that insurance covers was from the time you check in but apparently it's from the time you deliver. So that was good news! But it was weird being there in the hospital without my baby in the room with me since she spent most of her time in the nursery under the lights. but every few hours, they did bring her to me to breastfeed for 30 mins so at least I got that time. It did kind of suck that even though I breastfed her, they still had to go and supplement her with formula. I was hoping to avoid formula as much as possible, but i guess since this was a medical situation i really had no choice.

That night her bilirubin numbers went down just by a tad, but since she was considered older
(more than a day) then it wasn't considered high anymore. Of course they had to keep her overnight and we had to wait until morning to find out if we could take her home or not.

Morning rolled around and we were able to talk to the pediatrician. The plan was to wait until 2pm that day to test her again. If her numbers were low enough, they turn off the lights and wait until 8pm to test again to make sure her numbers didn't increase while the lights were out. At this point Junior was already packing things into the car and so forth b/c we knew that regardless of her results, we had to go. The nurse explained to us that they were going to let us "hang out" but that they were technically going to discharge us. Basically they let us stay in the room while they didn't need it, but should they need it we'd have to vacate. That was pretty nice of them b/c I REALLY didn't want to go home without my baby!

At 2pm they tested her again and at 3pm let us know they were turning off the lights. So she got to stay with us until her 8pm testing. At 9pm, they gave us the good news and we were able to finally go home with our baby! So I checked in Sunday night after 11pm and checked out after 9pm Wednesday.

FINALLY we could dress her in her going home outfit WHICH was way too big even though it was marked newborn-3 months. But then again, I think she was considered a tad on the small side. Average, but maybe on the smaller side of average. She got to sit in her car seat for the first time and take a ride home for the first time. And I... sat in the backseat with her. haha! Junior looked like our chaufer. Can you believe I cannot drive for 6 weeks!?

Anyway, we get home and I hadn't seen Jake (our dog) in days! Junior had been making trips home everyday to tend to Jake, but I hadn't seen him since my water broke and I know he knew something was up because he was going hyper when it happened. So we make sure I greet him first as soon as we get home and he's excited we're home but gets all hyper again because hey... who or what is this thing you guys brought home? He did do a lot of sniffing, but hopefully since Junior brought one of her blankets home from the hospital on one of the days he went home to tend to Jake that her smell wasn't too strange. It took some time getting used to but I'd say by the next day, Jake was used to her.