It was about 4:30 am and we were being wheeled from the OR recovery room to our hospital room, where we would remain for the next several days. The moment we were wheeled out into the hospital hallway a nursery rhyme chimed on overhead, it was to announce our little mans arrival into the world. We must have been congratulated by half a dozen nurses, I just held my baby boy close to me and proudly said “thank you“. I’m pretty sure the tears STILL hadn’t stopped since I had been told 5 hours prior that I was going in for an emergency c-section. Once we got to our room and the nurses left, Chris and I just had to sit there and reflect on the madness that had just happened in the last 48 hours. Yes, 48 hours! It was approaching 5 am, and it was 10 minutes to five on the 22nd that I started in active labor. We just sat there in shock for several minutes before the words were able to leave our lips. I hadn’t slept in two days and yet I wasn’t tired, by this time adrenaline had taken over and I was on cloud 9!
Day one was crazy! Visitors, lots of diaper changes and lots of pain as far as my incision goes ( I didn’t even get out of bed until day 2). Nursing was rough, because Marcus was born via c-section he wasn’t squeezed through my pelvis so this meant he had lots of extra fluid in his lungs. Babies are nose breathers and the poor little guy wasn’t able to breath because his nose was so stuffed up from the fluid, every time we got him on my breast his nose would gurgle, snot would be everywhere and he would cry. After we brought this issue to the nurses attention they would come in every two hours to put saline drops in his nose, this helped to open his nasal passages. Chris and I also noticed that he was vomiting after every feeding ( I of course assume he hates my milk or is allergic to it), we then brought this issue to our nurses attention as well. This next part was extremely hard on me, baby boy had amniotic fluid is his belly, this was causing all the vomiting and causing him not to nurse for long because he already felt full. A nurse (a not so friendly nurse to be honest) from the nursery came to get Marcus and said she would be pumping his stomach. I asked if Chris could go along and she tried to tell us no, I of course was not okay with this answer so I then informed her that yes, my husband would be going anywhere my son goes. As it turns out Chris had to stand outside the procedure room but he was able to see what was going on. Marcus had 10cc’s of amniotic fluid pumped from his tiny belly, keep in mind that babies stomachs are the size of a marble the first few days of life. My little guy came back to me crying big crocodile tears, my heart broke for him. After all the saline solution drops and the pumping of the stomach we thought all issues had been addressed and finally our little man can nurse problem free, right?!?! WRONG! As a defense mechanism from getting his tummy pumped little one was using his tongue to attempt to block anything from going to the back of his throat (since the tube was stuck down his throat), this made nursing even more difficult. A lactation specialist was called to our room so she could work with him, this involved her fingers in his mouth and massaging of his tongue. Finally, at last, whatever she did worked! Yay, right?!?! WRONG again! By this time Marcus had gone from 8.3 to 7.6, we were informed we would have to stay yet another day and that we needed to get his weight back up so he could be circumcised and so we could go home. Chris and I spent our last day in the hospital trying to beef up our baby boy, I would nurse him for 15 minutes on each breast, pump and syringe feed what I had pumped and then we would syringe feed some similac formula just to make sure he was filling his belly full, we would repeat this routine every 2 hours around the clock! All this work paid off, Marcus got up to 7.9 from 7.6 in one day. Saturday August 27th Marcus was circumcised, we started our discharge process and by 2pm we were in the car, as a family and on our way home!
Day one was crazy! Visitors, lots of diaper changes and lots of pain as far as my incision goes ( I didn’t even get out of bed until day 2). Nursing was rough, because Marcus was born via c-section he wasn’t squeezed through my pelvis so this meant he had lots of extra fluid in his lungs. Babies are nose breathers and the poor little guy wasn’t able to breath because his nose was so stuffed up from the fluid, every time we got him on my breast his nose would gurgle, snot would be everywhere and he would cry. After we brought this issue to the nurses attention they would come in every two hours to put saline drops in his nose, this helped to open his nasal passages. Chris and I also noticed that he was vomiting after every feeding ( I of course assume he hates my milk or is allergic to it), we then brought this issue to our nurses attention as well. This next part was extremely hard on me, baby boy had amniotic fluid is his belly, this was causing all the vomiting and causing him not to nurse for long because he already felt full. A nurse (a not so friendly nurse to be honest) from the nursery came to get Marcus and said she would be pumping his stomach. I asked if Chris could go along and she tried to tell us no, I of course was not okay with this answer so I then informed her that yes, my husband would be going anywhere my son goes. As it turns out Chris had to stand outside the procedure room but he was able to see what was going on. Marcus had 10cc’s of amniotic fluid pumped from his tiny belly, keep in mind that babies stomachs are the size of a marble the first few days of life. My little guy came back to me crying big crocodile tears, my heart broke for him. After all the saline solution drops and the pumping of the stomach we thought all issues had been addressed and finally our little man can nurse problem free, right?!?! WRONG! As a defense mechanism from getting his tummy pumped little one was using his tongue to attempt to block anything from going to the back of his throat (since the tube was stuck down his throat), this made nursing even more difficult. A lactation specialist was called to our room so she could work with him, this involved her fingers in his mouth and massaging of his tongue. Finally, at last, whatever she did worked! Yay, right?!?! WRONG again! By this time Marcus had gone from 8.3 to 7.6, we were informed we would have to stay yet another day and that we needed to get his weight back up so he could be circumcised and so we could go home. Chris and I spent our last day in the hospital trying to beef up our baby boy, I would nurse him for 15 minutes on each breast, pump and syringe feed what I had pumped and then we would syringe feed some similac formula just to make sure he was filling his belly full, we would repeat this routine every 2 hours around the clock! All this work paid off, Marcus got up to 7.9 from 7.6 in one day. Saturday August 27th Marcus was circumcised, we started our discharge process and by 2pm we were in the car, as a family and on our way home!
Leaving the hospital
Love,
Chris and Katie
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