Charlotte is here!

heritten · November 2013

Short Story

Charlotte was born at 10:40 AM on 11/7 and weighed 7 lbs 3 oz and was 20 inches long.

Long Story

I have only been home from the hospital a few days and have been spending nearly all of it feeding her so this is the first time I got a chance near the computer long enough to type it. If you dont want to read it, I mostly typed it for myself so I don't forget anything in my sleep deprived days to come.

Contractions started around 7 PM on the 6th, but as a first time mom I wasn't exactly sure if they were real or not. I had had what I thought were braxton hicks or possibly prodromal labor for a few hours every evening all week so I wasn't sure if they were real. I tried to go to bed, but I don't know how much sleep I actually got. At about 11 PM they started getting harder and around 4 AM they got harder yet again. In my mind I was ready to call the doctor if they got worse yet again because I didnt want to seem like wimp if they werent true labor pains. But I was not willing for my husband to go to work when his alarm clock went off (he works an hour away) so I made the call to my doctor. It was about 6:30 am at this point so she gave me the option of going to L&D or coming in to the office at 8 AM when it opened (the office is in the basement of the hospital). Again, thinking I can suck this up a little more because I am probably crazy I opted to wait until 8 AM and go to the office. (Part of the reason I kept second guessing myself is the baby had been breech since 29 weeks and two doctors in the practice had previously told me I would not go into labor on my own and would probably be pregnant until my scheduled c-section at 41 weeks). But the NST confirmed I was in fact contracting and the exam confirmed I had dilated to a 2 and the little bit of bleeding I was experiencing just before that meant I was probably just about to lose my mucus plug. So my doctor asked me what I wanted to do. My first question was "is she still breech?" because if she had turned head down I had taken Bradley classes and intended to do this pain med free and would be going home. So we did an ultrasound and confirmed she was still breech and since I was obviously in labor that wasn't quitting I opted to do the c-section.

So my doctor walked me and DH upstairs to triage where they started prepping me for surgery. (Apparently you don't get to have a huge L&D room if they know you wont be there long). I had called my mom right before I called my doctor so she made it about 15 min before surgery but I didn't know because no one told me until I was in there. My DH managed to make it through enough for the doctor to comment that Charlotte pooped in her face as she came out butt first and scream, but was about to pass out because he cant handle medical things and they had to take him out of the OR because he was so white he looked like he was about to pass out (and probably almost was). Wuss. I'm having the surgery done and you cant even hold my hand through it. As I got sewn up nice nurse anesthestist talked to me and they wheeled the scale over so I could see Charlotte get weighed and measured. Apparently she scored a 9.9/10 on the Apgar score (yay little 2 week early breech baby).

Once I was sewn up they gave me Charlotte and I was wheeled back into triage for our hour of bonding time. My mom came in and got to hold her first grandchild for the first time. At the end of the hour they started running tests on me. Apparently my heart had started acting funny for about 8 minutes in surgery so they sent in a cardiologist to start looking at my heart (apparently having a heart rate of 30 is not a good thing). Also apparently a nurse had stuck me I don't know the whole story and so they had to draw my blood to make sure I didn't have AIDS or HIV. Whoever they sent was a bit on the incompetent side, they had to stick me three times before they could get any blood and I still have a huge inch and half across bruise a week later. I was downstairs in triage for about 4 hours waiting on those two test, I cant remember now which one was the hold up. A nurse got a little grumpy at me because she kept asking what I needed and my response was "my baby". She got snappy because she kept thinking I was implying they were withholding my baby, but I just missed her and its not like there was anything wrong with her, she was just in the nursery in post partem waiting for me to get there.

Finally some time in the afternoon they wheeled my bed upstairs (I had a spinal and still couldn't walk) and gave me Charlotte back. We were in the hospital the next four days (I was discharged on day 3 but allowed to stay as a rooming in person until she was released day 4). Day 1 my great accomplishment was walking to the bathroom surprisingly quickly according to my awesome nurse Diana (she has a British accent and was so nice). My OB checked on me in the evening and all was going well. Day 2 the breastfeeding was seemingly going great but I was in a lot of pain as the morphine wore off. My OB checked on me twice this day, once in the morning and once on her way out. Day 3 I felt so great I invited visitors. Stupid move. Breast feeding started going poorly and Charlotte only pooed/peed 3 diapers all day after going through 20 in the first 2 days. It was a Saturday and my OBs husband had to work, but she still called and checked on me. Morning of Day 4 we were supposed to be going home and they pediatrician came in and said Charlotte had lost too much weight 11-12% and was down to 6 lbs 5 oz or so I cant remember the number so they made the call she needed to stay. At this point we decided to give up on exclusively breastfeeding and that we had to start supplementing with formula. The doctor on call for Sunday had already come in and checked my incision and released me so unfortunately I was not allowed to stay as a patient even though Charlotte was not going home. Luckily the hospital had a "rooming in" policy that I was allowed to stay one more day but essentially use my hospital room as a hotel room, the nurses would not check on me anymore, nor bring me meds or food. So before 3 PM that day, we stocked up on everything we would need for the day ahead (toilet paper, disposable mesh undies which I actually like and am still wearing) and sent my DH to the pharmacy to have my prescription pain meds filled. That was a very quiet night in the hospital, not many people are in post partem on a Sunday evening. The wing seemed to get smaller and smaller to me every day, from seeming huge during our hospital tour to tiny by that fourth night, despite seeming empty (it felt weird there were people who had been admitted and released in the time I had been there). We roomed in with Charlotte that night, most other nights we let them take her for a least part of the night, our hospital did weigh ins and other tests at night. We had gotten a bit suspicious at this point because it seemed like they had not been bringing her to us enough at night, depending on our nursery nurse they didnt always bring her every four hours and she has a tendency not to wake up at night to eat. (I did like the policy that we had one post partem nurse and one nursery nurse assigned to us per shift and they came and introduced themselves and wrote their name on the white board on the wall with their hours so we knew who our nurses were. Some I had repeats, especially since I was there four days, some I only had once in my stay like awesome Diana my post partem nurse from my first day.) I dont know if they were giving her bottles at night or what, I dont know which would be worse at this point, I wanted to exclusively breastfeed but it didnt work out. On Monday morning, Day 5 or 4 24-hours worth later she weighed in at 6 lbs 7.3 oz and we got the green light to take Charlotte home, with the expectation we take her into the pediatrician on Tuesday for a weigh in.