Birth story still to come, but wanted to update to today.
We finally busted out of the hospital on Sunday. We were delayed by a day due to jaundiced James who looked like he'd gotten a hold of some of that fake tan spray and used it liberally while I was passed out on percocet in the bed next to his bassinet.
I got the OK to go home on Saturday (if I promised to go to the office to get my staples removed this week) but James held us up. He was still having the meconium poo. And his numbers were up for jaundice to 15.7. They put him under double lights far away from me in the nursery.
Now by Saturday I was losing my mind being confined to that hospital room. I. WAS. SO. BORED. No Internet, except on my web phone with its tiny screen. No books (cause I brought them last time and didn't read a thing). Crappy summer TV. Not so many visitors because everyone was sort of visiting each other instead. And when they took James out to get his ultraviolet suntan, it got even more boring.
Meanwhile, each new nurse and lactation consultant was giving me different and conflicting advice about how to establish nursing, how to get the new guy to latch, etc. Reminded me of the nurses and lactation consultants in California. By Friday night I was engorged and not much was flowing. I fed the kiddo and pumped and pumped. James got circumcised during a thunderstorm. I prayed that the doc would not be cutting when the big clap of thunder came. (all went well.)
I alternated ice packs and warm towels on the boobs after doing a Google search Saturday night on my tiny screened web phone. And I pumped some more on Saturday, in between when they brought James in for feedings. I supplemented what he pulled out with what I'd pumped, fed to him through a syringe.
They said they would send us home on Sunday with a Wallaby, which is like an ultraviolet light blanket. They said visiting nurses would come and check on him twice a day. But by the time he took his final blood test (he has many many many pokes in the heels of his feet), his numbers had dropped enough that they sent him home without all that equipment -- satisfied with just my promise to bring him in for more blood work at 7:30 on Monday morning.
He continues to improve. His weight is starting to go up instead of down. His blood test numbers are not getting any worse. And his poop is finally a color that reassures pediatricians.
I am healing very well too. Staples came out Sunday, since I was still at the hospital. A med student took them out. The same med student who a day early had mistaken the tape mark from my incision dressing for a previous c-section scar. But he was a good staple remover.
Overall my hospital experience was very positive. I actually liked this place better than the one in California, and I have more respect for my doctors now that I have spent so much more time with them.
Still, after spending what seemed like 47 days in a sensory deprivation cell, it is not an understatement to say I was elated to feel the oppressive humidity and heat of the outside air again. And listen to the bickering of my husband and mother-in-law who may have spent a little too much time together during this last week.
It is good to be home.