home sweet hormones

On 2:00 pm Sunday, we had finally received word that we could go home. The nurse would be back in five minutes with discharge instructions and then we could go. I got busy getting dressed (real clothes! Maternity still, since it takes quite a while for the uterus to go back to its normal size, but they weren't a hospital gown...) and dressing Bridget while Al loaded up the car and got the car seat. The nurse came by with the discharge instructions, some of which surprised me.

Not surprising were the instructions about taking care of Bridget: Take her to a pediatrician within the week. Take her temp once a day; if it reaches 100.4 degrees, hospitalization is immediate. If it is lower than that but seems higher than normal, undress her, wait five minutes, and take it again; she could just be too hot. If she's peeing, she's eating enough and not dehydrated. Make sure she pees and poops and eats regularly. Etc.

Surprising were the instructions (well, some of them) about me: No driving for two weeks. What? I hadn't expected that, but the nurse explained that toxemia can have set in and not been caught before labor and delivery, and some moms had ended up having seizures as they were driving because they hadn't been treated for it. Okay, and since I was swollen up even more than before the delivery due to the IVs they had running through me (going home with special hose to try to get the swelling down, when what works best is to put my feet up on pillows when I sleep at night), I was ready to take it seriously. No baths for four to six weeks. Which meant...hot tub is out, too. Why? They don't want you to risk getting an infection of the uterus, which could be painful and bad (probably an understatement, but I'm not sure what types of "bad" could occur--I would imagine complicating future pregnancies could be one of them). Okay. I can wait. I don't even see my doctor again for six weeks, also a surprise, but there were the expected instructions too: keep taking prenatals since I'm breastfeeding, eat, take care of stitches the way they taught me until they dissolve (about ten days), no sex for four to six weeks, expect bleeding for four to six weeks and only use pads to control it, etc. Okay, okay. We signed the paperwork and were ready to head out when Bridget got hungry again. So another forty-five minutes later (around 3:30 pm/4:00 pm by now), we were finally off. As I was wheeled out (very disorienting to be in a wheelchair--I don't believe I've ever had that experience before!), I was so excited. It was near sixty degrees, sunny, and we were going home with our baby!

The minute I walked in the door, though, it kicked in. The messes-drive-me-crazy and look-how-much-we-didn't-get-done instinct. Stuff everywhere in the kitchen and dining room, dirty carpets, dog toys all over the family room, new cat puke on the carpets. And Beth was bringing Mya home and just as I needed to start breastfeeding again (around 6:00pm), Aunt Ann (Al's sister) was on her way over to visit. People that aren't here very often seeing my home a disaster. I wasn't happy about it, and am just now getting to where I'm accepting it and able to start doing something about it. I've been hormonally driving Al crazy about that, and unfairly placing a lot of blame on him. And Sunday night and Monday night were nightmares for me, just because (as Jen warned me) I was suddenly having trouble breastfeeding and it was frustrating both Bridget and I to no end: she just would not accept an every-three-hours timetable (as the lactation specialist had insisted she must) and would not latch on for two hours or more when I tried. That's when the hormones kicked in and the crying started (my crying, not Bridget's). Yesterday I grew more and more worried, since Bridget seems to sleep for hours at a time (I wasn't expecting that) and refuses to be awakened to eat. I finally decided (after receiving reassurances from Ruthann that Makala did that and she's healthy now) that I would let Bridget go longer last night (between five and six hours) and between that and me being vigilant about her diapers (she seems to pee and poop two to three times before, during, and after each feeding), last night's feeding was a breeze. And today the pediatrician assured me that the three hours thing is nothing to worry about: let her choose her own schedule and cluster feed if she wants (she has been doing more of that during the afternoons) and just don't let her go more than six hours inbetween feedings. If she's still peeing, she's getting enough, and she's obviously getting enough since she's gained 2 1/2 ozs. back since leaving the hospital. Whew! And speaking of feeding, it's about that time. So next time? More about Bridget and less about me. More tomorrow...

Oh, and I know you've been dying for pics, so here they are.