post birth story

whoops.  i just now realized that i never posted this.  if you haven't read baby's birth story yet, do that first.  or you can just skip all of it together!

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then they wheeled my bed to the recovery room while i held my baby.  i felt like a silly princess on a parade float.  everyone in the halls was oooing and ahhhing and it was just weird.  for the next few hours after we got to the recovery room there was a lot of in and out with the nurses and a whole lot of nothing that i don't really remember now.  i think they did footprints and shots and stuff like that maybe?  things started calming down a little when the sun came up, which was around the time chris said "so when am i supposed to sleep?"  ha.  whoops, forgot about that.  i was so wired, sleep was the last thing on my mind but i think i tried (while chris succeeded) for a little while until chris left to pick up my mom from our apartment.  this was when i turned my phone back on but kept it on silent (fyi, i kept it on silent for the entire first week after baby girl was born.  i highly recommend it.)  that whole day (still thursday, since she was born at 1 am) was just hanging out with mom and chris and baby girl.  chris dropped mom off at our apartment that evening and attempted more sleep on his tiny little pull out chair thing.  it looked so incredibly uncomfortable. 

see the pull out bed in the back?  it sucked.

some of the nurses i had were really good (like evelyn... the very first nurse) and some just plain sucked.  the one i had that night totally sucked.  she was this big black woman who never had kids and every time she came to check on me, which wasn't very often, she would barge in the door, turn on the lights, and talk really loudly even though i asked her to be quiet every single time because i had a very tired husband trying to sleep.  without fail, three words into my sentence or question, she would interrupt really loudly trying to guess what i was saying and would always get it horribly wrong.  this would repeat at least three times every time i needed something.  honestly, if it was up to her, or one of the other crappy nurses, my kid would have gone 6 or 7 hours without eating since she never woke up to feed.  good thing i wasn't sleeping so i could make sure to feed my kid every three hours.  this nurse also seemed to never be around when i asked for pain meds and would tell me she didn't think it had been six hours yet when in all actuality, i was monitoring the clock very closely for when i could get my next dose.  and she kept giving me the motrin instead of the good stuff even when i told her the motrin didn't do anything for me.  whatever.  i would say i'm over it, but obviously, i'm not.  i'll continue to hold my grudge.  and she kept not taking my IV out which made it hard for me to use my left hand.  i was mad about that too.

the IV ended up not even being taken out until a full 12 hours after they initially told me it could be taken out.  they said they'd take it out after i went to the bathroom (to make sure i wasn't dehydrated or something), but then changed the story and told me i had to wait a few more hours.  well, i passed out the second time i went to the bathroom (poor little asian nurse had trouble supporting giant carrie and so i have the memory of being lightheaded and dizzy and my vision going black and slumping over on this tiny asian woman and hearing "help! help! husband!!!!!!! help! HUSBAND!!!" until chris came in to help her help me back to bed) so they told me i had to wait even longer.  i was getting so frustrated.  they kept telling me it was lack of sleep and food and then they'd toss me a packet of saltines and tell me to get some rest.  i kept telling them it was from the loss of blood because i passed out exactly like how it happens when i donate blood... and i was losing a lot more blood than what you typically donate.  and i hadn't had my iron vitamins in 48 hours.  they insisted it was the sleep.  right, i always pass out when i'm sleepy.  whatever.  i told them to take out my IV and put in a new one later if necessary.  they said no.  annoying.

one of the nurses had told me we could leave in the morning and then someone else told us that check out takes forever and that we probably wouldn't be leaving til between 11:30 and 1:30.  i appreciated the reality check.  i was sick of people saying what you want to hear and then hearing the reality later.  morning brought more doctors, nurses, etc. to draw blood, check baby, see how i was doing etc.  the name person came by and we officially gave our kid the name abigail elise hillier.  abigail is the name chris has been in love with from the very beginning and elise was my middle name which is a family name.

around noon, i put on clothes to go home.  HOLY COW i did not know that would make me feel so good!  i do not like wearing clothes so i had not anticipated this at all.  but it made me feel like a normal person again.  we waited for lunch (none of the hospital food was very good and it didn't help that i had zero appetite) and then headed on our way!  the wheelchair pusher volunteer girl was really nice and she gave us a cute little pink baby hat with one of those puff balls on top.  chris drove us home while i hovered over our kid in the back seat and took a million pictures. 

 

 

 

 

 

THEN REAL LIFE STARTED!

it's been great.

pictures on facebook