So to recap a bit from the last post, Eddie was born at 12:05am on Thursday, about 50 hours after I first got to the hospital for a planned labor induction that ended in a C-Section. This was the exact opposite way I had envisioned this going and it turns out it was only going to get worse. And here is my usual warning, if you get queasy when it comes to women’s parts and fluids coming out of bodies, I recommend you read with caution.
As I lay there strapped to the table still drugged up from the surgery, I barely got to look at the little life they had just taken out of me. I didn’t get to hold him or touch him since I couldn’t really feel my arms. They told me they were going to take him to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). Wait, what? You’re doing what? What for? What’s wrong with him? I had heard them say he got a 9 out of 10 on the Apgar test, so he couldn’t be that bad off. Turns out they wanted to keep him there for 48 hours to do a bacteria culture test to make sure he didn’t have an infection because I had spiked a fever near the end of the labor. TWO. DAYS. HIS FIRST TWO DAYS. My heart absolutely sank. All of the happy, rosy images of my baby being set on me after birth and starting to breastfeed and having that cuddly special time were quickly disappearing. Gone, they were gone. GONE. Eddie’s first food wouldn’t come from me, it would come from a smelly bottle of formula. To add insult to injury, the NICU nurse came to talk to me and ask me a few questions. The main one was about pacifiers. I explained to her that my goal was to exclusively breastfeed and therefore wanted to limit the number of nipples he was given. I also explained I would go over there as often as I could to breastfeed, recovery from surgery permitting. In the most snarky tone she could muster she asked me, “Well, what I am supposed to do when he cries???” I don’t know lady, you’re the professional FIGURE IT OUT. Now my hopes of successfully breastfeeding were going out the window as well. I was alone and pissed and scared. At some point I asked the anesthesiologist if I could close my eyes as I felt really tired. He was really great, talked to me a lot and comforted me. At some point I woke back up and felt like I was going to puke. He had told me to start making a lot of noise if that was a possibility, so through the oxygen mask I started yelling “PUKE PUKE PUKE PUKE!” He ran over with something for me to puke in and I did. And back to sleep.
I woke up in the recovery area, and they asked me if I wanted morphine. Well, what they really asked was to rate my pain on a scale from 1-10. You quickly learn what answers get you drugs. She warned me that right now I would want to take the drugs before the pain started getting bad, so as soon as I felt the anesthetic wearing off to ask for the morphine. I asked about seeing Eddie and was basically told not until I was more mobile. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see him. After a little while and two doses of morphine they took me over to the maternity ward. At this point, the pain was creeping up on me but they had to wait for the morphine drip to get there from Fort Knox... I mean, the pharmacy. My husband and a friend of mine were sitting with me and I kept telling them to go tell the nurse that the pain was starting to get really bad. They didn’t seem impressed. At some point it hurt so bad I started screaming and didn’t stop. If nothing else I figured it might get the night shift nurses to call the pharmacy and tell them to get off their ass and hurry the hell up. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain but this was the worst pain I have ever felt. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they came with the morphine. But first they had to lock it into a box on the IV pole. It seems they really have to keep an eye on the narcotics. I kind of wonder if the reason it took so long is that they needed to find an armed security guard to walk it up to the maternity ward and couldn’t find one. Then they handed me a button and said it would give me a dose whenever I pushed it, but not more than one per ten minutes. I could see the clock on the wall without my glasses (I’m near blind so it had to be a big clock) and pushed it every ten minutes until the pain had been reduced enough for me to sleep.
When I woke up, the first thing I wanted to do was go to the NICU. Remember, I haven’t held Eddie yet. Ever. It takes two people to push me over there. First off, the doors at the hospital are just big enough for a wheelchair (I couldn’t walk yet) and someone had to push me. Also, they don’t stay open. Dumb. Second, I am basically chained to the pole with the morphine. It’s going to be a day before I can switch to regular pain killers. The other IV fluids they have going into me (drip and antibiotics) could have been taken off the pole and carried on the chair. But the morphine is locked onto the pole. So there has to be another person to open doors and push the pole. It’s a big fat pain in the ass and of course, we have to go to the opposite side of the floor. Then I have to scrub up, not easy when I have trouble getting up and standing. They are really making me work to see my kid. A less determined person might have just said to forget it and go back to the room.
Every new parent thinks their kid is the most perfect thing they have ever seen, I’m no different. Most newborns to me look funny and not cute. Eddie didn’t have that newborn weirdness to him. I was relieved I wasn’t repulsed by him. I’ve never been much of a baby person and don’t like to hold other people’s babies, but this was different. I was worried about that all during my pregnancy. This felt right in a way in doesn’t when the baby isn’t yours. After holding him for a little bit I started to try and breastfeed. By this time he had been given several bottles of formula and pretty much had a pacifier in his mouth whenever there wasn’t a bottle in it. From everything I had read, I was in for an uphill battle. Added to that the fact that I have pretty large breasts to begin with, which can be hard for a baby to deal with. Men like getting a large breast stuck in their face, babies, not so much. I was also hampered by the many wires they had attached to him and the IV that was in my wrist. I was having difficulty getting him to latch on and not just take the nipple. Then the nurses descended on me, the supposed “breastfeeding experts”. The thing they weren’t experts in is how the mom is going to feel when suddenly everyone is grabbing her breast and trying to stick it in baby’s mouth. And as they got frustrated it wasn’t working, I got frustrated with them. I knew at this point he wasn’t going to starve, so I was trying to take it easy. I wasn’t too successful and feeding him this time around and I was getting tired from all the effort, so I went back to my room.
I did this several more times that day with differing levels of success. Of course, no matter how successful or how long I fed him, they stuck a bottle in him on their schedule anyway. It’s not too encouraging when whatever I did to feed him didn’t really matter to them. It was really exhausting to move that much with staples in my abdomen. It hurt to get up and take steps, but they really push you to do that. They want to know as soon as you poop, it’s a way of knowing your abdomen muscles are working properly. That wasn’t happening yet. I did have some gnarly gas though. And it really hurt to sneeze or cough. Ow.
That evening, I was planning to go attempt to feed Eddie again and the NICU called the maternity ward and said, “Don’t bother coming, we are just going to give him a bottle”. That was about the end of my patience. I lost it. I even threw my phone on the floor, it almost broke (it did damage it pretty good). I started to wonder why I was even going over there at all. And this was still only the first day of me being a mother. Later that night a friend of mine came to visit and cheered me up. I was really starting to feel sorry for myself. She convinced me I needed to go right now to the NICU even if I didn’t try and breastfeed, just go hold my son for a while. I had also mentioned to her I felt stupid because every time I went over there I forgot to take pictures. She helped the nurse get me over there and came with me into the NICU. As soon as we got there, I realized I once again forgot my phone. My friend, being ever the smart cookie, just smiled at me. And then pulled my phone out of her pocket. Some of those pictures of Eddie and I are still some of my all time favorites. I held Eddie until 12:05am Friday morning. Happy first day of life!
To be continued... Next time, a contrast of nursing styles: the nurse from hell and the most awesome nurse on the planet.
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