After all the hustle and bustle associated with delivering Kellen was over, we had time to catch our breath and had some alone time just the 3 of us. I tried to feed him - seemed to go okay but didn't really know what I was doing. There was a nurse shift change just after I delivered Kellen and now the focus was monitoring both baby and I post-delivery. This nurse was very nice but she was kind of a spaz and scatterbrained. No matter though really. She was nice and that's all that really mattered to me. She tried to help with the first nursing session. It was super awkward because she was roughly stuffing a lot of my boob into Kellen's mouth. His mouth was so tiny and my nipple could barely fit in his mouth though so the nurse's efforts didn't really pay off. We just made do with what Kellen could latch on to. It hurt pretty bad though. Outside of that, Kellen was recovering from delivery really well. He was rosy complexioned, was breathing well, and did not complain about anything. He passed his first meconium stool that night if I recall correctly. The majority of the time that we spent with him that day was done with either me or hubby holding Kellen skin-to-skin and letting him get his rest.
After the first feeding, our parents came in to meet their grandson. Kellen is the first grandchild on both sides so there was much anticipation leading up to his birth. They had been in the waiting room all morning and afternoon. I can't imagine how antsy they must of been! Not to mention worried too since they basically didn't hear anything from us for 4+ hours! We had told them to come to the hospital that morning since I was fully dilated and getting ready to push - but little did we know that it would be 3.5 long hours of pushing and 1-2 hours of cleaning/stitching me up after delivery! So our parents came in and there were lots of tears and "awwws" exchanged. Kellen was passed around to each of them and lots of pictures were taken. Thru all that Kellen never made a peep. He had his eyes open briefly but that was all he had the energy for. The nurse came in while they were there to give Kellen a shot of some sort (I'm definitely not one of those mom's who is going to keep a running tally of every shot and pin-prick that her son has ever had - that's what the nurses and doctors are for!). The nurse took the baby and everyone let out a muffled gasp when she seemed to carry him to his bassinet by his neck! Ugh. Kellen seemed fine though. I guess when you are around babies all day you realize that they aren't that fragile after all - but still! Holding him by the most delicate part of his little body did not seem like a good idea. Then the nurse gave him the shot and he let out a high-pitched wail. That was all I could take - get that devil nurse outta here and give my baby back to me! She left soon enough and Kellen was comforted by everyone as he went back to sleep. Our parents left soon after that to let me and hubby get some rest too.
For the first few hours after delivery my attention was focused on everything but my own recovery despite the fact that I was the one who had the most recovering to do. After all the excitement, emotions, and endorphins coursing thru my veins eased up a bit, I realized that I had a long road in front of me. About an hour after delivery I guzzled down a large amount of apple juice. I had not had anything to eat or drink (besides for ice chips) since the day before and this apple juice was the best thing I had ever tasted! The nurse told me to slow down and sure enough 15 minutes later I puked it all up:( I had a pretty severe case of puking and then dry heaving too - but it was over soon enough and was feeling better not long after that. Besides for that, I thought I was recovering ok but was definitely starting to feel the pain of childbirth.
A couple hours passed by and I decided I wanted to go to the bathroom. I didn't really have to go - I just had an urge to get out of bed and see what would come out (I had heard some terrible stories about the first bathroom trip - lots of blood, etc). Since I had an epidural, 2 nurses needed to accompany me for my first trip. I called them in, the nurses arrived, fastened a belt around my waist in case my legs wouldn't hold my weight and we started on the 10 foot trip to the bathroom. It went ok. I could feel some gushing of fluid coming out when I initially stood up, but nothing alarming and I had a towel between my legs so I didn't make a mess on the floor. My legs seemed to be ok and while I was really sore, it wasn't too bad. I got on the toilet, peed, and proceeded to clean myself up. I was really bloody down there, but like I said, I was expecting this. The spazy nurse was talking really fast to me - about what I have no idea. I think she was explaining all the steps I had to take to heal the 3rd degree tear on my perineum. She was talking about ice packs, pads, ointment, etc. I wished she would shut up - the sound of her voice was starting to wig me out. I was looking down at my hoohaa still cleaning and I started to see spots, heard ringing and "wha-whaas" in my ears, and started sweating profusely. "Ugghhhh - I think I'm gonna faint..." - then the spazy nurse started really spazing and called in a bunch of other nurses. I don't remember what happened next - just remember my nurse barking orders at the other nurses and somehow I made it back to bed I think in a wheelchair (?). Someone gave me something to sniff along the way and it perked me up a bit. I laid back down, got my IV and blood pressure monitor hooked up again. My blood pressure was really low (surprise surprise) and I started violently shivering. Hubby was rubbing my arms to warm me up and the nurses were piling warm blankets on top of me. They flattened the incline of the bed and tilted my head toward the floor to get blood to flow back to my head. I stayed this way for awhile. Eventually I stopped shaking and started to feel better and was tilted back up. My nurse told me that my near-fainting episode resulted from a combination of lack of sleep, having nothing in my stomach all day, and the amount of energy I exerted during delivery. She said I should take a nap and then eat something - in that order. So I asked her to take Kellen to the nursery so I wouldn't have any distractions and I took a nice long 4 hour nap. When I woke it was 11pm and the nurse wheeled Kellen back in to our room for a midnight snack. Hubby had ordered food while I was sleeping and I ate after I nursed the baby. I was feeling 100% better - almost normal. It's amazing what food and sleep can do for a body. I went back to sleep after that & the nurse got me up every 3 hours during the night to remind me to nurse Kellen.
The next morning brought another nurse shift change. This nurse was nice and she talked to me a lot about healing myself without being so spazy like the nurse before her. She showed me what my routine will be for the next day or 2 - the giant diapers made a comeback and at every trip to the bathroom I was to change out the diaper and the ice pack (this was a baby diaper stuffed with ice chips), squirt warm water on perineum, add tucks medicated wipes to ice pack, squirt epi cream on top of wipes and carefully pull underwear up. I was still wearing the super fashionable fishnet hospital underwear since I was still oozing and didn't want to destroy my own underwear. It was really hard to walk around with all this stuff in my pants - no playing tennis or anything - I was waddling more now than I was when I was pregnant! But anyway this was going to be my routine for the next couple weeks or so too - with the exception of the ice pack. They told me to stop wearing that after 2 days post partum. I also started my pain meds (vicodin I think) and an amped up dose of Aleve. This combo was great at managing my pain. Kellen was still an angel and snoozed most of the day. His pediatrician visited that morning and gave him a clean bill of health. The nurse brought Kellen to the nursery a couple times times for health checks - one of these times the OB did his circumcision which went very well they said.
We tried nursing again too. Every 3 hours was when I would feed him. This was still a challenge coupled with the fact that in the beginning, mothers don't produce much milk anyway - just colostrum which comes out at a rate of 1 tsp per feeding or something like that. So you just can't tell if the baby is getting anything or not. Nursing just really hurt though and for some reason, anything that hurt my nipples also hurt my perineum. Some sort of chain reaction of sorts. Multiple lactation consultants visited throughout my stay at the hospital and they recommended that I use a nipple shield which took my giant nipples which were sort of flat and molded them in to a better shape for Kellen to latch on to but I still didn't have a good grasp on it at all when we left the hospital. They did provide valuable tips and encouragement but they were saying that Kellen might have tongue-tie and was a "lazy eater". Tongue tie is when the cartilage that connects the bottom of the tongue to the mouth is too tight limiting mobility and sometimes prevents the tongue from extending out of the mouth. This causes nursing problems since babies with tongue tie can't generate a very strong suck reflex. It can also lead to speech and eating problems later in life. We said we would get it checked out at Kellen's next doctor appointment. Apparently it is easy to clip the tongue tie.
So this takes me up to the first 24 hours. It's amazing how much happened in those first 24 hours of Kellen's life. For the most part we were still basking in the realization that we were a mother and father FINALLY and we just couldn't get over how beautiful our son was!! We were fools in love again... only this time it was Kellen that we had fallen for:) There is so much more to report of course and I am way behind but I'll try to post it all eventually!
The next morning brought another nurse shift change. This nurse was nice and she talked to me a lot about healing myself without being so spazy like the nurse before her. She showed me what my routine will be for the next day or 2 - the giant diapers made a comeback and at every trip to the bathroom I was to change out the diaper and the ice pack (this was a baby diaper stuffed with ice chips), squirt warm water on perineum, add tucks medicated wipes to ice pack, squirt epi cream on top of wipes and carefully pull underwear up. I was still wearing the super fashionable fishnet hospital underwear since I was still oozing and didn't want to destroy my own underwear. It was really hard to walk around with all this stuff in my pants - no playing tennis or anything - I was waddling more now than I was when I was pregnant! But anyway this was going to be my routine for the next couple weeks or so too - with the exception of the ice pack. They told me to stop wearing that after 2 days post partum. I also started my pain meds (vicodin I think) and an amped up dose of Aleve. This combo was great at managing my pain. Kellen was still an angel and snoozed most of the day. His pediatrician visited that morning and gave him a clean bill of health. The nurse brought Kellen to the nursery a couple times times for health checks - one of these times the OB did his circumcision which went very well they said.
We tried nursing again too. Every 3 hours was when I would feed him. This was still a challenge coupled with the fact that in the beginning, mothers don't produce much milk anyway - just colostrum which comes out at a rate of 1 tsp per feeding or something like that. So you just can't tell if the baby is getting anything or not. Nursing just really hurt though and for some reason, anything that hurt my nipples also hurt my perineum. Some sort of chain reaction of sorts. Multiple lactation consultants visited throughout my stay at the hospital and they recommended that I use a nipple shield which took my giant nipples which were sort of flat and molded them in to a better shape for Kellen to latch on to but I still didn't have a good grasp on it at all when we left the hospital. They did provide valuable tips and encouragement but they were saying that Kellen might have tongue-tie and was a "lazy eater". Tongue tie is when the cartilage that connects the bottom of the tongue to the mouth is too tight limiting mobility and sometimes prevents the tongue from extending out of the mouth. This causes nursing problems since babies with tongue tie can't generate a very strong suck reflex. It can also lead to speech and eating problems later in life. We said we would get it checked out at Kellen's next doctor appointment. Apparently it is easy to clip the tongue tie.
So this takes me up to the first 24 hours. It's amazing how much happened in those first 24 hours of Kellen's life. For the most part we were still basking in the realization that we were a mother and father FINALLY and we just couldn't get over how beautiful our son was!! We were fools in love again... only this time it was Kellen that we had fallen for:) There is so much more to report of course and I am way behind but I'll try to post it all eventually!
