One Month, Two Hospitals

NOTE: I'm changing my baby's real name to "Jiffy Pop" on here. Silly? Sure. But I want to give her some anonymity and some for myself as well. There are still some people I don't want locating this blog, and her name makes it a lot more possible. (And it's one of my favorite nicknames for her).

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No great surprise that I've been AWOL from the blog for awhile. The birth of Jiffy Pop was a bit different than expected. I'll try to sum up the post-birth drama.

After a few days of recovery from the c-section, I was put up in a dorm at the hospital and spent my days walking back and forth from my hot little room (without a fan or private bathroom - ugh), to the NICU (infant intensive care) unit. Between that 20 minute roundtrip walk several times a day to the start of breastfeeding and INTENSIVE breast pumping (as militarily dictated by the hospital staff), I was stunned to see what baby weight I had fall off. I've never been able to lose weight easily, so I guess that was a bonus to the regime.

Jiffy Pop was pretty amazing, and besides being small (a little over 4lbs), she began to grow and develop with few issues. There was some jaundice, and one of her eyes got some birth goop in it (yuck) and was a bit nasty. I was shocked when they used my breast milk, squirted into her eye(!!) to treat it. I heard the term "liquid gold" over and over in reference to that early breast milk with all the colostrum in it. But it's true though, a few days later her eye was fine.

I spent the next two weeks at the hospital, and was deeply impressed with the care Jiffy Pop got. I was also saddened by the babies around her, who hosted a myriad of problems even though we were in that "almost ready to go home" room. The boy two cots down had brain bleeding and the one next to us couldn't breathe well. I spent my days alternating feeding her through the tube in her stomach to attempting to breastfeed. I tried to breastfeed as much as possible, since once she could breastfeed for every meal, we could go home. But it tired her out, so the nurses would only let me do it 2-3 times a day.

When Beau was in town, we had the opportunity to enjoy the city of Hamilton in the 1-3 hour breaks from the hospital I got. I was nervous and fidgety during that time though and was always pushing him to hurry back! Those nurses kept a STRICT clock on things and if you were one minute late, they took care of Jiffy Pop themselves and I'd end up standing there feeling guilty and stupid.

I was bummed around Christmas because there was the chance I'd be alone and still stuck in the hospital, but at the last minute they told me I would be transferred to our "home" hospital -- the closest hospital to our home is about 1 1/2 hours away. This was great news, for many reasons. 1) It meant Jiffy Pop had advanced enough to be transferred, since our home hospital would only take her if she was at a certain age and development; 2) Beau wouldn't have to keep up that 4 1/2 hour drive each way to see us for a day or so; and 3) it just felt better. Closer to home, physically and developmentally.

So, Jiffy Pop and I spent the next two weeks in our home hospital. I did this "mothercraft" thing where I basically live at the hospital in my own room and Jiffy Pop is there with me 24/7. The room is connected to the NICU by a door which I initially had open out of outright fear but soon kept closed at all times. There were a lot of restless nights where every fidget and grunt (and preemies are KNOWN for their extensive and constant grunting) had my eyes flying open, sitting bolt upright, checking if she could breathe. To this day, I am illogically frightened of something happening to her, particularly with her breathing. I didn't sleep much, nor did I do much but feed her, change her, and put her back to sleep, but it was steps closer to home.

What IS that? What is it in us that is terrified that our babies will stop breathing or get suffocated? Is it some evolutionary leftover instinct when babies' death rates were so high? Or is it still current with the fear of SIDS? I actually know a woman whose four month old boy died of SIDS and this woman is a PhD who works with infants! So, it can happen to anyone and it truthfully freaks me out, though little by little I grow more confident.

Anyway, after those additional two weeks went by, four weeks total spent at hospital (since they don't use "the" before hospital here), Jiffy Pop was finally eating every meal with me, her dreadful stomach tube was removed, and we finally went home.

Wonderful, frightening, proud...and so much relief.

Here we go!