In The Hospital

Here, in this post, I tell you about our hospital stay. The one directly after the baby was born.

So, squirt, out came baby. And then the fun really began. The doc announced to Courtney that it was time to get the placenta out. By this hour the drugs from the epidural had kicked in, so he could have announced it was time to remove her kidneys with a butter knife and all would have been good. I, on the other hand, had heard some not so fun stories about this little process, and I was NOT drugged up. So, to work he went massaging her belly and being very nice about the whole thing while I stood watching with trepidation. Luckily, this went much quicker and more smoothly than the actual birth, and out came this... thing. It reminded me of a really shiny/silvery gallon sized zip-lock bag with spaghetti sauce inside. I was WAY more interested than I thought I would be. The doc noticed our interest and so yep, he just brought it right up into our faces to check it out. He turned it inside out, so then it was no longer silvery and slick, but instead very much like carpet in consistency, except still reddish purple and wet. So, there you go, time to play with new baby.

We got to hold him for 13 seconds, then we brought the families in to see everything. My 4 parents, my sister and her boyfriend, and Courtney's mom were there. Her dad was on the way.

So, in they all trooped, and the baby got passed around, my sister's boyfriend announced he was happy to be an uncle, and much merriment was had.

Then 15 seconds later, it was time to move to the "not so expensive, not as nice" room. So we all trucked down the hallway to a room to stay a couple of nights. Halfway there the fire alarm went off. Super.

We finally get into this room, everyone heads home, and we're alone, with this baby. We tried to breastfeed. How hard can it be? Take baby mouth, put on breast. Whammo.

NOT whammo. We turned, pinched, contorted, and the baby was just getting more and more angry. So, we gave up, and a little while later a nurse came in. She showed us how to do it right, and baby drank a little and went to sleep. Parenting is so simple.

10 minutes later, baby started crying. Well what the hell little man? You ate, your diaper is clean, you're all wrapped up and warm, nothing is wrong. And so on it went, through the night. Happy and sleeping a while, crying a while. Not a lot of sleep was had. It should be noted that for those without children that a baby crying in the room with you is roughly equivalent to someone exploding a 50 megaton nuclear bomb. Courtney was exhausted. I was pretty tired myself. About 6am, we sent the little guy to the nursery and slept in bliss for a few hours.

About 9, they brought him back to have more breastfeeding lessons. It went pretty well, and he ate a while and went to sleep. Through the day people came by and we told the same birth story over again and again. And the baby just sort of did his thing. Cry, sleep, pee, poo, rinse and repeat.

That night, we're alone again, and here we go. We want to be with the baby, but there was not much sleeping happening. And we try to breastfeed, but it isn't going all that well. The baby is best at screaming at us.

So, back to the nursery the baby goes, and to sleep we go.

Throughout all of these 3 days, it should be noted that Courtney is having to wear these gigantic maxi pads with an ice pack in them. I have no idea how she was comfortable or slept for one minute.

Also, if everyone did get settled and about to sleep, someone, anyone would barge in the room and want to test the baby's hearing, or make sure Courtney is drinking water, or something. Pure craziness.

Next morning, it's time to go home. They have circumcised the baby, we're all packed up, and down to the car we go. We live about 3 blocks from the hospital, so it's a short drive.

And upon getting home, the little man slept hard for a few hours. We all slept, more exhausted than we've ever been.