Sorry for the long delay! Here is the last LONG part of my birth story. If you haven’t already please check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 before reading this so you are in the know 🙂
Immediately I was whisked off to recovery. It was a full house in there! Right away our family was able to come and see us and meet Princess Peach. First my in-laws came and then my parents and Auntie Beige. It was so exciting for them to meet her but she was screaming. And screaming. The nurse came by to tell me that they couldn’t move me to my room until my body unfroze and when I could move my legs and wiggle my toes they would move me upstairs. The baby was screaming. So my mom asked the nurse if someone could help me nurse her and their answer was “someone will help her upstairs. We are too busy here.” So my baby screamed.
I was determined to get my feet and toes wiggling and within an hour (fast, I know!) I was asking them to move me. So they did! I thought I was very lucky when we got to our semi-private room (all the privates were taken) and we were alone. I thought we had scored big time but that didn’t last very long. In the middle of the night Crazy Lady and her husband and new baby were wheeled into our room.
The following day Crazy Lady must have had 1,000 people visit her in the hospital. She had family members, friends and even co-workers visit! There were at least 6 people cramped into her tiny side of the room at all times.
As I had a C-section they needed to send me up to ultrasound to make sure they didn’t knick anything in Princess Peach’s insane delivery. So I left Princess Peach with my husband, and mother and mother-in-law to watch. They told me I would be fast….more like 3 hours fast. AND at the same time I being carted around on my moveable bed with my CATHETER attached to me. They refused to take it out until they saw on the ultrasound that everything was ok.
I had horrible breast feeding programs. Went to a lactation class where about upwards of 10 new parents (new moms and dads) come together in a room with a lactation consultant and your new baby. The moms pretty much pop their boobs out of their shirts and in front of everyone are supposed to start feeding their child. Princess Peach wanted NOTHING to do with this. She would scream, turn her head. She had NO interest. So the lactation consultant comes over, assess the situation, grabs my boob, and strips her to wake her up, play with her feet and NOTHING. This kid did not want to eat. So after a very frustrating LONG period of time we had NO success. Awesome. Wasn’t my fancy breastfeeding pillow supposed to solve all of those problems? So I got a referral to have a lactation consultant to come to our room to privately help us. In the meantime their answer because Princess Peach would NOT latch was to finger feed her formula. It was horrible experience for new parents.
When the lactation consultant came into our room privately her solution was to pretty much to have me topless and to put Princess Peach on her side naked (to keep her awake) and she just continually shoved her face onto my boobs. So horrible. Then Princess Peach started screaming. OBVIOUSLY! She’s hungry and this woman is being so cruel. The lactation consultant then told me that she was having issues from my horrible birth experience and that she thinks that “the trauma of her birth is causing these problems”. Maybe she has a birth headache, maybe she hurt her neck coming out, maybe this, maybe that. Really? I didn’t want to hear it. So then she suggests that I take her to see a chiropractor who specializes in babies. I did not feel comfortable having someone (even though a trained specialist) manipulate my newborns body. Totally freaked me out.
That night after all of our visitors left around 8 so did our neighbours Crazy Lady. Immediately she starts freaking out to her husband and crying saying that “this is my third child and I know what I’m doing and I’m so tired. I just want to go home”. She was inconsolable. Her husband was trying so damn hard. She decided to buzz the nurses and told them that she was leaving. They told her that she couldn’t leave until the baby has a meconium poo. So she became OBSESSED.
At one point the nurse comes in and takes blood from Princess Peach’s foot. It was brutal to watch. She squeezed her foot sooooo hard just to get a few drops of blood out. She didn’t explain why she was drawing the blood. Just before midnight the nurse comes into our room rolling a HUGE incubator. What ensued over the next 12 hours was HELL. The nurse crammed the incubator beside my bed. Our room became boiling because it gave off so much heat. She put the sunglasses on Princess Peach, stripped her and put her into the incubator. Her instructions were that out of every 3 hours block she needed to be in the incubator for 2.5 hours of it. In the remaining 30 minutes I had to feed her and change her diaper. Right. Thanks lady. Then she left
At the 2.5 hour mark we take her out and she just lost it. Her body was boiling and she couldn’t calm down .We tried to follow the directions but we couldn’t even get her goggles back on. We buzzed the nurses’ station. No answer. Buzzed again, and again and again. Finally, a nurse answers and her answer was to give the baby a pacifier. Really? As a new mom I complied. I didn’t know any better! Crazy Lady and her husband pushed the curtain aside to tell us to “calm down” and the baby was crying because we are nervous…Hmmm….Thanks but, no thanks. Didn’t ask for your commentary. So The Hubster finally after many hours picked her up and stood by the nurses’ station. A nice nurse finally took pity on him and helped us out.
The rest of that night was a blur. We just wanted to get through it and we did. Surprinsgly even though she hardly spent any time under the heat lamp that night, Princess Peach’s jaundice disappeared. To this day I’m not convinced that she was really jaundiced to begin with.
Oh, I forgot that after Crazy Lady gave us her two cents her son shat his meconium out and at 4 am packed up and left the hospital. We were thrilled that she left.
Then next day was tons more stress with breast feeding, trying to pump, and finger feeding. Hellish really. Ohhh….AND yelling at everyone…doctors and nurses to take my catheter out!!! I was so fucking pissed that it was still in and they kept refusing to take it out so I would walk down the halls with my pee purse 🙂 Def not a HOT moment.
Friday morning our nurse tried to kick us out. I flat out refused. The baby wasn’t eating so I wasn’t leaving. So we stayed. We got upgraded to a massive private room. It was so nice. That night I ate a delicious smoked meat sandwich……so yummmmy. Around 11pm The Hubster said he needed to go out and returned a little while later. At midnight he pulled out a white box with two slices of cake and two straws sticking out of the cake. He couldn’t find candles but at midnight it marked our 2 year wedding anniversary. We were in total awe. Here we were parents to a new baby two years later. It was awesome.
Saturday is a day I will never forget. We got to take Princess Peach home on our anniverary. That day we started the rest of our lives……and the best is yet to come 🙂
Ready to go home!
Renee, I can tell you I didn’t have a C-section, but the aftermath after having our first sounded a bit like yours with my baby screaming and not wanting to latch. In hindsight, I was probably projecting nervousness with it being my first, but who really does know better when it is your first child. That said we also had her right around our 3 wedding anniversary, so I could also relate to that just slightly. Great ending and totally worth the wait.
Omg, Renee! What a horrible experience (but worth it in the end!)? What hospital were you at that made you do a group breast feeding class??!! That just seems so wrong – not just because you’re whipping them out in front of complete strangers but learning to breastfed is sooo hard and sooo stressful at first- I can’t even imagine having that experience shared with a bunch of peoplevI difn’t even know! Brutal!
I’m so sorry you and your baby had to go through that. There’s so many things that make me sad for women in your story. You were barely treated like a human being let alone with respect! I really feel midwives are much more helpful than doctors. I actually hate doctors at this point. So many bad experiences and stories like this.
Hi Renee, I JUST read your birth story, thank you for sharing!!!! You are a great writer – I felt your pain, wanted to hit CRAZY LADY, and totally want to know who Hot Doc was ;). Good luck this next time!