Last night was our first night home from the hospital. It was hell.
I knew the first night back would be rough, but it's even harder when your milk hasn't come in yet. While in the hospital, it was nice being able to call in a nurse for anything I needed and to order food from the cafeteria. Now we were on our own, and in the middle of the night, little Darrell was screaming for food... and I just didn't have it. Nursing has been extremely painful - excruciating to the point that the nurse was startled by my pain - from the start, and I could only attempt it with a bunch of Motrin in me. But even breathing through the pain didn't matter because the small amount of colostrom I had wasn't enough to satisfy him. I was in tears with frustration and helplessness, and Darrell finally told me just to give him the formula the hospital sent us home with. They had given us some formula to supplement my colostrom through a tube attached to my nipple because he wasn't gaining back his weight, but the tube thing didn't work out. They also gave us a few bottle nipples, though I was loathe to feed him formula.
I finally gave in and fed him the formula while bawling at 3 am in the morning. It was actually comforting to hear from a friend today that she had gone through the same thing: first night home, milk hadn't come in, newborn hunger cries... and while she bawled on the floor, her mother fed her son formula. At least it wasn't just me!
In any case, we survived the first night... and my milk came in this morning. He also had his first visit to the pediatrician this morning. We were running late because I haven't figured out my timing yet - it used to be I was out the door ten minutes after getting up, but now I have to reconfigure/discover how much time to plan for with the baby! - but all went well. I really like our pediatrician, Dr. Broberg with Austin Regional Clinic, because of his warmth, sense of humor and relaxed manner. When I interviewed him during my pregnancy, I wanted to know if he was okay with non-circumcision (yes, a quarter of his patients aren't circumcised) and whether he was the type to order tests and specialist appointments when there was a problem or to wait and see first. He said he was the latter, which is what I was looking for since I believe there's way too much testing and referring in the health care industry these days. I also asked him how he would react to parents who wanted to use an altered schedule for vaccinations. He said, "Well, we keep a baseball bat in the closet..." I immediately liked him :)
The pediatrician at the hospital had wanted us to take Darrell to a urologist because his opening was apparently small, but Dr. Broberg saw no issues with it and said we were fine waiting and seeing - just his style and what I prefer. Darrell weighed in at 7 lbs, so he was finally gaining back a little of his weight. He was 6 lbs, 14 oz a few days after he was born, and the hospital was concerned he had lost so much weight, so it was reassuring to see he's finally started to regain it.
Meanwhile, my husband went back to work today, but I'm incredibly grateful it's Friday so that he's home for the next two days. We have the second night to get through next.
[Note: This entry was written 6/21/10 and backdated.]
No comments:
Post a Comment