It’s about 930 pm on September 12, 2010 and I’m sitting in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, for the third day, with Little Curt (A.K.A: The Bean / Trip). He’s 5 days old today and this is not at all how I imagined we’d be spending the day. We’re supposed to be at home enjoying his first Redskins/ Cowboys game on the big screen in the basement. Instead he’s got tubes in his nose and wires and what not attached everywhere else and he’s in a metal baby crib while I sit on a pullout chair with a breast pump attached to my boob watching the game. The Hubz is at home with the step-son because he needs a good nite’s sleep before he goes back to work tomorrow. I could have had my mother-in-law stay with me, but for what so we can both get hardly any sleep? Besides there nothing she could do for me that I can’t do for myself. So how did we get here?
My water broke the morning of Labor Day, September 6, 2010, as I was trying to get my breakfast. I’d just woken up starving just like every morning since I’d been pregnant. Once I realized what was going on I called Hubz, who’d just left for work maybe 30 minutes prior, and he headed back home. Next I called my mom, because she was going to be taking care of the step-son while we were at the hospital. I had the step-son pack a bag along with his school stuff because oh by the way the first day of school was the next day. Finally I was ready to call the Kaiser Advice Nurse. She asked me a million questions and told me to back a bag, which I’d already started doing, because chances were I was going to go to the hospital but we had to wait to hear back from the doctor on call. While I waited for a return call I packed my bag and got things together. I should mention that during this entire time, about and hour and half by now, I still hadn’t really had any major contractions. Maybe two or three but they were very tolerable and about ten minutes apart. The nurse finally called back about 11am and told me to head to the hospital but since I knew that chances were good they’d want to start Pitocin as soon as I got there, since my water had broke, I waited another hour or so spending the time walking around hoping to get my contractions moving. At about noon I decided we could go ahead and head to Fairfax INOVA Hospital, now I wish I’d either spent more time walking and not gone so soon to the hospital or that I’d been more of an advocate for myself and asked to hold off on the Pit so that I could try to get my labor started naturally without the drugs which is what I’d planned all along, not to have a natural birth but to let my labor be as natural as possible without the enhancement of drugs. I wound up getting the epidural after I’d dilated 3 cm, which was way longer, then I’d expected to make it before needing the drug, and then at hour 13 they started talking c-section because my labor wasn’t progressing. But Hubz was my rock and held them. At hour 15, midnight, the new doctor came in and started talking c-section again, I wasn’t happy that this doctor that I’d just met had barely taken the time to introduce himself and check me before he started talking about cutting me open and removing my baby. The Hubz and I talked with our nurse and decided we’d wait another hour and half, until 130a, and if I still hadn’t progressed we’d do the section, but things kind of took a turn for the not so good and at 100a the original doctor and the new doctor both came in and said that the baby wasn’t doing well and they really thought it was time to get him out, of course we didn’t know he was a he at this point. Well that’s all it took because the agreement had always been that if it became medically necessary we’d have the c-section no questions asked. They rolled me in at 115 and got me all set up, the Hubz came in at around 125 and about 10 minutes later the Bean was born at 135a, weighing 6 pounds 1 ounce, 20 inches long with a head full of almost black hair. In other words, he was PERFECT! The Hubz and the Bean were taken to recovery and waited for Momma while I got put back together and almost exactly one hour from start to finish I was with my two favorite guys. We were in recovery for about two hours and I was able to breast feed after the first hour. Trip latched on without any problems and all was golden for the rest of our stay at the hospital. I was doing so well that we were discharged after only 36 hours, instead of the standard 48, and I couldn’t have been happier because I was ready to get my little Bean home and get used to my new normal.
At home everything was going well until 3am on Thursday at which time Trip had been home for about 5 hours and he quit eating. We kept trying to put him to breast and he kept refusing or if he did take it, it wasn’t for anywhere near as long as hit had been. He slept most of the day Thursday and I also noticed that his color was a little off but just chalked it up to the little bit of jaundice all babies have. He was making weird grunting sounds that we thought were cute but would later find out were him having seizures. At the 2424 hour mark Hubz made the decision that we should go to the ER but I thought we should just call the Advice Nurse and see what they thought. The Advice Nurse put in a call to the Pediatrician on call who said that since he was still having wet and poopie diapers and since we had an appointment the next morning to continue to try and feed him and talk to our doctor that morning. So that’s what we did.
To be continued ... with the Bean's hospital stay and everything else that went along with it.
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