We left the hospital with a baby this time

One week later after being discharged from the hospital and it hit me....albeit a little late....we actually left the hospital this time and got to bring our baby home. The feeling is so surreal I can't even explain it....but I think I'm liking this whole "Earth Mommy" thing.

So recovery.... after my hour spent in the actual recovery room, although not fully recovered clearly, they moved a motionless me to Mother Baby. As soon as we were situated, both sets of our parents and my SIL were allowed to come into the room and meet their grandson/nephew Thomas.

Around 4:30pm , my patient tech for the evening came to visit me and told me I had to get out of bed. My response was pretty much something along the lines of, "I'msorrywhat?". I had heard that they get you up and moving pretty quick but I've been hearing that quick=next day and NOT 8 hours after surgery. Holy crap! Is this even allowed?? She assured me that I was still under the Morphine dose and it wouldn't be all that bad. She was mostly right...it wasn't, it just felt really, really weird. As soon as she helped me stand up, she walked me over to the bathroom which was confusing since I still had my catheter in. She gave me a squirt bottle full of warm water and explained to me how to give myself what I've now come to have read online is the "vaginal car wash". Yes folks, you gotta spray that thing down even though the baby came out the belly. I suppose it makes sense because the bleeding has to go somewhere and that is the closest point of exit but the idea of it was very strange. Apparently this would be my life the next few days every time I went to the bathroom. In addition to the car wash, I also was wrapped up by the nurses like a little sausage in my hospital grade binder. Oh my, what a wonderful invention that is :)   Around that time I also began itching incessantly which was apparently a lovely left over from the Morphine as well. I already have itchy skin, as I have external mast cells on me, so that was a ton of fun let me tell you. The lovely nurses pumped my IV full of Benedryl and that seemed to help but it also knocked me out and left me pretty loopy even into the next morning. Needless to say, that was the one and only dose of Benedryl I took.


Most of my day Tuesday was spent thinking to myself,  "Wow, this recovery isn't pleasant but its not that bad either". Little did I know, LOL. With the spinal block, they also inject a 24 hour dose of Morphine as well. I totally forgot that it would eventually wear off until I woke up on Wednesday morning and then.... Oh yeah, this sucks, everyone was right. Around 4:30am that morning the patient care tech came to visit and give me my Norco, which I had finally conceded to take, and asked me if I wanted to get out of bed and go to the bathroom. Honestly, I thought she was just being nice and asking me so I told her maybe later. Well, apparently she had a list of women to get their catethers out and make sure they went to the bathroom and I was first on the list. So she said, ok fine well I'll be back for you later. Sure enough about an hour later she was back!!! Catheter came out and to the bathroom I went!!! The nurse came in a little later and locked my IV but left it in me just in case. After I went to the bathroom twice, she did come back in and remove it completely.

The rest of our time there we spent getting to know our little boy a little better. He slept in the nursery the first two nights but stayed in our room on Thursday night. He also had a lot of visitors!!!  Great Grandma Shirley, Uncle John and Aunt Jill, Jim and Donna, "Auntie" Laura, and Mommy's cousins Mike and Donna. We also had a complimentary photo shoot with Bella Baby but after she left, I took a picture of my own with his brothers blanket. We have a newborn shoot scheduled with the photographer that did our maternity photos soon so we'll have more to share soon as the Bella Baby ones were pretty expensive!!

 

 

Finally the day we were looking forward to most arrived. The day we all go home together!!!  What I didn't anticipate was how small Thomas would be and the outfit I brought for him to go home in was WAY too big!!!  So we had to improvise. We got the bags down to the car, Thomas strapped into his car seat, and we were on our way!!

 

 

To start off the "We're Home Now" portion of the blog post, we need to start with a "40 week" bump shot since Thomas was born at 39w2d. I tried as best as I could to hold him in the exact position he was when I was pregnant....this is pretty close :)

 

Unfortunately with all the fluids they pumped into me with my csection, I actually came home from the hospital weighing MORE than I did while pregnant. I am, however, happy to report that less than 2 weeks after Thomas was born I now weigh LESS than I did BEFORE I got pregnant. Thank you GD!!  You made me absolutely insane and crazy while pregnant worrying about the safety of my little Thomas but now that he's here and perfect and healthy.... I'm kinda liking the fact that I'm the size I am. Instead of working off baby weight I can focus on losing the weight I didn't get a chance to lose before getting pregnant with T. Phew! If....and that is a big if.... I get pregnant again someday, whether I have GD or not I'm going to follow the diet again. Matter of fact...I think I'm going to sort of stay on it now to try and lose the 15-20lbs that I'd have liked to have lost last year. We'll see, LOL

Thomas was due on Easter Sunday but he got to spend Easter with us at home. However, our Easter Sunday started with.....would you be expecting anything other than..... a trip to the ER. The massive amount of swelling was so out of control and my legs hurt so bad and when I took my blood pressure the cuff said 160/100. The day after I got home from the hospital with Jack is when my blood pressure spiked to 170/100 so this wasn't too far off and I made Jim take me back to the hospital to get checked out. My MIL came over to watch Thomas and off we went. When we got there my pressure was only something like 152/85, which is still wonky but not as bad. They drew labs, took a urine sample, hooked me up to another IV and blood pressure cuff. Labs came back normal , urine normal, and as I sat there blood pressure came back down so they unhooked me and I went home! We had originally planned on going to my IL's for dinner but after such an adventure of a morning, plus my recovery was going pretty slow at that point (yikes....they say Csection recovery is a PITA but you have no idea unless you've been there, lol!!!!) so we ended up spending Easter at home just the three of us. Thomas got all dressed up with his humungo bunny ears and everything!!

 



So now we're home and we've been hanging in there pretty good a little over a week with our little miracle of a rainbow baby. I can't help but just stare at him all day and shake my head because I cant even wrap my head around the fact that he's here and healthy and safe in our arms. Thomas (knock on wood) is a good sleeper and although we did have some trouble getting him to eat the 2oz the nurses said he should be eating, we recently discovered his preference for Similac. Now he's gulping down 2-2.5oz with each bottle.

He had his first pediatrician appointment last week and he dropped a few ounces. The doctor isn't worried since he left the hospital at 5lbs 15oz and weighed 5lbs 9oz at her office, since there is usually a difference in scale and it wasn't that substantial of a loss in weight she just wanted him to come back next week for a follow up weight check just so we have it on the same scales. With how much he's been eating the last week I'm sure he's gained weight by now!! He is actually so teeny tiny that all of his newborn clothes that we had for him were too big!! 

My MIL was nice enough to go preemie clothes shopping and get him a few outfits to get him through until his first growth spurt. And here I was worried that he'd be too big and not have a chance to wear his clothes....and now he'll be wearing newborn clothes when he's not a newborn anymore at this rate! Even his no scratch mittens are huge on him....

He has been able to nap in his crib a few afternoons and averaged about an hour which I was really proud of him!!  I, of course, stared at him on the monitor for the entire hour while I had my coffee and/or showered which is one of two things I have been doing while he naps. He looked so small and tiny in his crib I had to take his picture...especially with his "King of all Wild Things" painting above him, heehee

 





You're probably all wondering what Chesney thinks of Thomas. Well, we're not too sure what she thinks. She seems to be overly concerned though with him when he cries and gets waaaaay too excited when someone holds him. I think she's already starved for attention. Poor dog its not going to get any better, haha. She likes to get as close to the edge of the couch and peek in on Thomas when he's in his Rock n' Play. Honestly, I'm worried one of these times she'll try and jump in there with him. Therefore, she is not allowed to be alone with him in the room. She looks pretty cute though in this picture watching over him.

Last update of our new adventures of being home.....bath time. He hated it in the hospital and clearly he hates it at home too, haha

That's about all for now I guess!!!  We will update again soon I promise!!