Our Family of Four

"Are you ok to hold her" the nurse asked.  I anxiously shook my head "yes" as I was beyond ready to hold our daughter.  Scott told me she was ready to start eating as she attempted to nurse from him the moment he first held her.  I was happy to hear her instincts had already kicked in and baby girl was hungry!

The father of two

Lila was tucked under a blanket on my chest as they pushed my bed back to my room.  I couldn't believe I was getting to hold our daughter and return to my room so quickly.  This was so different then my delivery with Paisley.  Scott was by my side as we exited the OR and made our way down the hall.  I was anxious to see our son and have our family of 4 together.

I was so relieved to see my mom, sister and sweet Paisley waiting in the hallway.  Paisley had a concerned look on his face but also relief to see his mom and dad.  Despite Scott looking very un-
Scott like, dressed as a surgeon, Paisley quickly    
                                                                                   made his way into his dads arms.

Back in our room, Paisley anxiously looked at me holding "Lila."  If I could've read his mind, I would guess he was thinking "So this is Lila...."  We had talked her up so much in the past couple months that it's hard telling what exactly he was expecting.

"So that's Lila..." thinks Paisley

Scott gave Paisley the "big brother" gifts that Lila had brought for him.  While Paisley was happy to see the new book/trucks/snacks/etc., you could see the gears in his brain turning as he tried figuring out what exactly was happening.  

Gift time!

We were told that Lila had only 1 artery and 1 vein in her umbilical cord at birth and that her cord had been loosely wrapped around her neck once.  Our nurse went on to tell us there was absolutely nothing wrong with her and this news did not mean anything at this point, she just wanted us to know.  Scott and I discussed this information later and he remembered during our anatomy scan, they specifically checked the cord and at the time there was not a concern.  After an extensive search of Google, Scott learned that sometimes one of the veins/arteries (I don't remember which one) can dissolve if the other vein/artery is an over-achiever.  This happens every so often and does not present a risk to the baby.  They said Lila's heart sounded perfect and her wet diapers that she promptly began making reassured us that her kidneys were fine.  As for the cord being wrapped around her neck, that didn't present any problems either.  Had I not been on drugs from surgery at this point, the news probably would have freaked me out more then it did.  Since we found out when we did, I digested the information and moved on.  

She is perfect

As the day wore on, our families were there to meet our daughter.  There is nothing that compares to seeing your mom/dad/sister lay eyes on your newborn baby for the first time.  I am so glad I was more coherent after this birth and was able to witness our families falling in love with our daughter.  Maybe in my mind I knew I needed to be as present as possible to love on our little boy who wondered why mom was laying in bed while the rest of the family was standing around her.  My mind, while focused on our newborn, was also very aware of Paisley and taking care of his needs as best as I could from the confines of a hospital bed and a catheter.  

As my morphine slowly began wearing off, the itching began.  I was warned that this would happen, and it was awful.  My back itched, my face itched, everything on me itched.  It reminded me of a Little House on the Prairie episode where Albert gets addicted to morphine and goes through withdrawal.  I felt like Albert. 

My family

My family spent most the day with us and I was sad when it was time for them to leave.  I loved having everyone in my room loving on my children.  Paisley headed home with Scott's parents.  He had been well behaved and didn't have any problem saying good-bye to us and heading out the door.   I wasn't moved to a postpartum room for a couple hours because my temperature was lurking on the low side (despite me sweating profusely).  This was the worst part of the entire experience because I was hot, sweaty, itchy, and blankets were being piled on me to raise my temp.  I would scratch my back the best I could while being hooked up to the monitors.  I later realized I had broken the skin on my upper and lower back from scratching so hard.  I thought to myself "the next time I do this, I'm bringing a back scratcher."  I quickly realized that unless God is a comedian, this would be the last child I birthed.  

Little Lila

Luckily my sister and Scott were the only ones left when my stomach decided to toss itself into the little pink plastic kidney shaped bowl sitting beside my bed.  Not only did it happen once, but 3 more times as the evening wore on.  While they wheeled me from my old room to my post-partum room (my temperature finally got to 96), I told them they better hurry because I was about to throw up again.  They got me a trash can without a second to spare.  I was happy when the nauseousness stopped and Scott and I ordered dinner from the cafeteria.  He ate pizza, I stomached some yogurt and fruit.  

That first night with your new child is indescribable.  As tired as you are, you hear every squeak and peep the infant makes.  Scott did an excellent job jumping out of bed and bringing Lila to me when she was hungry.  Our room was fairly small so Scott had to sleep on the pull out sofa while I was in the hospital bed.  Following surgery I had to stay in the hospital bed for 24 hours.  I was secretly happy that Scott had to change those first few diapers that contain the tar-like poop.  Don't tell him that though...The nurse popped in every few hours to check my vitals and the nursery nurse popped in to check on Lila.  We let the nursery take her when they needed to do various tests or when the pediatrician was in the nursery, but the rest of the time we wanted her with us.

Overall, I felt great.  So great that after 24 hours of not taking any pain medicine, the nurses strongly recommended that I take 1/2 a pill as I would begin moving around on day 2 and they worried the pain would hit me full force.  Lila was nursing like a champ and the lactation consultant said she was beyond impressed with the number of feedings that Lila was having.  She was also cluster feeding within 24 hours of birth which doesn't happen often.  Little did we know we had quite the eater on our hands already!

Day 2 of our stay and I was unhooked from all the tubes and cords.  I never felt to free!  First on my to-do list was shower as I felt so sweaty from my hot flashes the day before.  I loved putting on clean clothes and brushing my teeth and hair.  I felt human again as I freely roamed the hospital room.  The nurses assisted me the first few times I got out of bed, but soon enough I felt comfortable moving on my own.  I had the absolute best daytime nurse,  she was super personable and enjoyable to have around! 

The pain wasn't bad, but I was a little stiff when I walked around.  The nurse was impressed with my level of mobility and told me I needed to take it easy.  I was determined to get back to normal as quick as possible...I have babies to raise! 

I was happy when all our family arrived and was super happy to see our little guy stroll through the door.  He got in bed with me and happily sat by my side for half an hour.  I had previously worried about his interaction with me after seeing me hold his sister.  Luckily he just acted happy to see me!

She wasn't happy she didn't get to eat any of her cake

Paisley loved all the attention he was getting from both sets of grandparents as well as his aunt and Greg.  He was spoiled with big brother gifts from everyone.  Mom brought me Starbucks so I was a little spoiled too.  The hospital brought in a "birthday" cake for Lila so we had a little party!  I loved having everyone there celebrating our girl.

We moved to a bigger room that had a king size bed.  Scott and I were both happy about that.  After everyone had gone home and it was just the 3 of us, Scott ran to get take out from Hooters.  We were both tired of hospital food and we hadn't ate at Hooters since we were in the hospital with Paisley.     

Big brother passing the time by playing

While we ate we watched our infant daughter sleeping on the Boppy between us.  We wondered what our favorite almost 2 year old was doing.  We were happy to have our daughter and ready to get home and be a family of 4.  We tucked Lila into her baby bed and curled up in an attempt to get some sleep.  Lila didn't cluster feed nearly as much as she had the night before, but she also didn't have any desire to let Momma sleep.  

Lets go home!!

Sunday morning when our wonderful day nurse appeared I asked if we could go home today instead of the following day.  Scott and I were ready to start this new chapter.  A part of me dreaded the first night home without the busyness of the nurses and the constant action of the hospital.  The other part of me knew I would have to face that first lonely night at some point.  (Even though Scott is there, being up at 3:30 am with an infant, in a quiet house, feels very lonely.  That was the hardest part of returning home with Paisley.)  She didn't hide her disappointment of our early departure saying her next parents would probably be bad patients and she loved having us.  She said she would start working on our release paperwork.

We had a couple visitors, Lila had her hearing test (which she passed with flying colors), her newborn pictures were taken, the nursery nurse gave us the run down of taking an infant home, an OB looked at my incision and gave her release, our day nurse went over the final list of do's and don'ts, and we were officially released.  

Scott pulled the car around and carried Lila down while I rode in a wheelchair.  It was actually a bittersweet moment because I was so happy to be going home, but I was sad that I had birthed my last child and this was my final stay in the maternity area of the hospital.  

The sun was out and a blue sky greeted us.  The day looked identical to the day we brought Paisley home.  He was still at Scott's parents house and they would bring him home later.  Just like our drive home with Paisley, we got Subway sandwiches for lunch.  

We pulled in the drive and we were home.  Home with our daughter.  We were home and ready to start the rest of our lives.

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