First Day at the Hospital

I'm not a huge fan of hospital stays.  I don't like people walking into my room at all hours of the night and I think being home is more comfortable but there are certain things about being at a hospital that I can appreciate.

1) I can order food whenever I want...and I do.  Is it great food.  No, but it comes relatively fast and I don't have to clean it up.  Plus if I want a cherry popsicle at 2:30 in the middle of the night someone will go and find me one.
2) You don't have to worry about getting your clothes dirty.  Look having a baby can be messy work.  There is a whole lot of body stuff happening.  Get dirty, someone will come and help you change and that someone will put those messy clothes somewhere and you will never have to see them again.  This particular hospital does pink gowns in maternity which was fun.
3) And speaking of cleaning you won't have to clean anything in that bathroom either or the sheets so feel free to bleed without worrying.

The blessing of a C-section was no one came in to press on my uterus during the night.  Good grief that is torture.  I did have to have blood drawn and poor Little Man had to have quite a bit drawn as well.  Because he was technically a preemie they had a policy at the hospital I was at that they had to do a glucose draw on him every time he ate for the first 24 hours.  By the middle of the night his poor little heals looked like he'd been walking on glass.  Finally he got a reprieve.  One of the night nurses told that if I wanted to "forget" to call her when I was doing my night feeding we wouldn't have to do the draw.  Of course that is how she reported it in the morning to the incoming Ukrainian no nonsense nurse.  She was not impressed with me, although I'd like to think by the end of the day she had warmed up to me.  Some items of note from our hospital stay...

-They didn't put a shirt on Little Man.  They had a wrap thing for him but no one got him dressed.  I had some clothes for him but I didn't bother either so for the first two days of his life he was jut a kid in a diaper wrapped in blankets.

-The Olympics were happening so when I was all alone of even sometimes when people were there we spent a lot of time watching the Olympics.  Can anyone say synchronized diving, Gold Metal soccer match, Usain Bolt and gymnastics.  It was lovely.  If you are going to have to be stuck in a tiny room for two days do it during something interesting, like the Olympics.

- Our room was super tiny but was still one of the bigger rooms.  The hospital is downtown and while it is the biggest one in our area it really has no place to grow.  As a result they've gotten the rooms down about as small as you can.  For the most part it wasn't that big of a deal but when you put J, our four other kids, my mother-in-law, my mom and her hubby in the room with us, well you can imagine it got really crowded.

-The kids loved meeting their little brother.  I happened to lose most of the pictures of them doing it along with all the pictures of J holding him at the hospital when my dumb phone died a week after Little Man was born, a fact that I'm still super sad about, but believe me, they loved him.

-My mom and her hubby showed up on the second day I was there and just did not leave.  It was nice to have her company and it was fun to watch Men's Volleyball with Rhys (he played college ball himself) but two things that were not lovely, with such a tiny room I just didn't feel like I could shower with them there and secondly she just kept trying to adjust my gown so that my boobs weren't falling out.  If you read my previous post you happen to know I'm not shy about nursing in full view in my own hospital area so this obviously got on my nerves, but we survived. 

-This was the first time I'd ever sent a baby on purpose to the nursery.  J didn't stay the night...there was this terrible, I mean just the worst chair that theoretically folded out but it was so uncomfortable he headed home both nights.  So there were two, two hour stints where I sent the baby away after he fell asleep and to be honest it was lovely.  Little Man was a very noisy newborn and I could sleep really well during that time and then when he woke up I could nurse him somewhat refreshed.  It was the first time I'd felt comfortable/exhausted enough to ever do that and you know I'm sorry ladies I judged for doing it before because it just wasn't half bad.

-I just did not love the resident who was taking care of Little Man.  He had a student who he was teaching but he just came off so condescending to her, I just didn't love him.  He then asked me why they'd delivered at 36 weeks.  I gave him the full run down and while I'm speaking his eyes get super big.  "Are you in the medical profession?"  "No," I told him, "but I do know a lot about what is going on with my own body."  "Hmmm..." "Also my husband is a doctor."  "Uh-huh."  In the end it ended up ok and I do appreciate that he let us leave with Little Man at exactly 48 hours even though the Attending wanted him to make us stay and feed him a couple more bottles, so sorry resident for my earlier judgement.