Maddie's Story - Part 2: The hosptial

Ah, the hospital days. Such fun...

Well, I probably slept about 7 hours total, the entire 3 nights I was there. Maybe.

I understand why things are the way they are in the hospital after you have a baby. I mean, there's a LOT to take care of. But GOOD LORD could they give you a break for 10 minutes?

Let's start with the care & maintenance of you. Going to the bathroom takes forever, because getting out of BED takes forever. Just because I had an 'easy' birth doesn't mean I felt 'painless' down there. Every muscle was sore. My legs felt very similar to the way they used to the day after we ran the mile in 6th grade (cause I'm out of shape, yes, but also because I was apparently pushing with EVERY muscle, not just the important ones). There's this whole lovely routine you have to go through of cleansing and padding and ointment and tucks pads - oh, yes, my dears, you try giving birth without ending up needing those the next day.

And they want you to order meals during these hour and a half periods during the day. Never got a straight answer the whole time I was there about my diet - if I was on the low-carb thing still or not - so I eventually stopped worrying and ordered what I liked. It was decent. But I didn't have time to eat, really.

Doctors, nurses, visitors, housekeeping, hospital manager, pediatrician, Obstetrician, diabetes specialist, baby photographer, more doctors, lots more nurses, all day long. And all night long. The diabetes specialist came to my room at 11 PM the day I delivered (the day I slept for an hour and a half, too) and I still have little to no memory of our conversation. Except that he acted annoyed that I was planning to breastfeed, since it meant I couldn't take Glyburide anymore and would have to be taught to give myself insulin shots if I ended up being diabetic still and needing meds. "The girls always want to breastfeed!" or something like that. Jerk.

And, oh, yeah, from 9 AM to 10PM, there's a baby in the room with you. Now, you can call a nurse to help you, but guess what? She's all yours. And you have to keep a strict record of when she eats and what's in her diaper when. And you have to nurse her, and feed her whenever she appears hungry (what, she was going to wear a sign that said "feed me"? I had no idea!). And feeding her, back then, meant whipping out a boob, which you really can't do when the housekeeping guy is sweeping the floor. At least not do that and feel comfortable. But it didn't matter, she wasn't feeding anyway.

So then I would call the lactation nurse, a special lady who was only there for certain hours and had very cold hands and pointy nails. And she and possibly another nurse would take my woefully ill-equipped breasts and shove them in my poor hungry baby's mouth and my poor hungry baby would wolf and them and latch onto nothing and cry in desperation...it was Hell. And often I'd have a visitor when this was all happening, and I'd have to pretend that I didn't mind my mother and mother in-law looking on (and later doing some of the groping themselves) while I sat back helplessly and had my boobs manhandled and my baby cry. I felt like I was doing everything wrong, my baby was starving, and it was all the fault of me and my stupid-shaped anatomy. (Hormones, stress, and lack of sleep also played a part, but whatever, I was pretty down, and very worried.) Eventually they had me try to get her to stay latched on for 10 minutes and then feed her 15 ml of formula with a wide syringe afterwards. Boy wasn't that magical. Then one night the nurse who came and picked her up from me practically yelled at me for ONLY giving her that much, because "that's not a feeding!" ...and wheeled her away so I could feel like shit in peace.

Then there was the nipple shield. It's a thin piece of floppy plastic that's supposedly shaped like a nipple (if you have these nipples, you must have fun wearing a bathing suit) and that was supposed to help my daughter latch on. Except it created more work for her, and since she was "lazy" and "impatient", according to the baby nurse, this just caused more crying on both sides of the boob. It also hurt like Hell, and because I don't have Victoria's Secret model boobs, it would never stay on. I felt like I needed 5 hands to feed her. I might have succeeded in breastfeeding her if I did, come to think of it. In fact, my problem when I left the hospital was that, aside from one amazing time, the only success I'd had feeding her I'd had when at last one other person was manipulating her and my boob at the same time. If anybody is still wondering why I have no sense of decency or modesty left, please go back and re-read from the top again.

I had a parade of guests, all family, and it was lovely to see them all, and lovely for them to meet Maddie. But to have maybe been successful with breastfeeding what I needed was a few days of just her and me and Bob and a nurse on call who would teach me, not do it for me. And the endless stream of healthcare professionals who wanted my time and my ear and my blood didn't help. I probably sound like I'm whining and making excuses for the whole breastfeeding thing going down the tubes - and yes, folks, it's down for good - but I gotta be honest: the hospital was no place to rest, recover, or learn to feed her.

I can't say I'd do it any differently again, except for getting upset about the breastfeeding thing. I mean, I can't tell relatives and friends that they can't come see the baby. It just doesn't work that way. You don't have that option as a new mom. They come. It's their baby too. People did wait in the hallway if I was in the middle of an unsuccessful something, but then I had the added stress of knowing that they were out there, waiting, and that's not good for business either.

By the end of the stay I was more tired than I'd been in years, sore, and very scared about what was going to happen when we went home, since I hadn't been able to feed my kid more than once that whole 3 days without the use of a syringe and formula bottle.

Now, the hospital time wasn't entirely craptacular. Maddie & I did have some nice quiet moments sitting in our gigantic bed. We talked (I talked), we slept (she slept), and I told her all about everything.

See, was coming home to a house full of people and she'd need to be prepared.

More on that later.