& Children's Center because at 3am there was nobody to help open doors for Ken to wheel me through.
Not only did we have such little time between feeding (because of travel time, time for me to get out of bed and use the bathroom, feeding her which took 60 minutes sometimes) but in the morning with hopes of breakfast after feeding her, a social worker came in, a clerk from the Birth Certificate office and the lactation consultant came in. We missed the lactation consultant who was upstairs when I was downstairs in the NICU.
By Friday afternoon we still had no answers as to when Lila would be joining us in my room. Ken and I became increasingly frustrated with the NICU doctor who we only met once. She informed us, along with some of the nurses on our floor, that once babies are admitted to the NICU they rarely (4 babies in 4 years) are sent back upstairs to their moms. We were angry. We told the nurses they needed to get the doctor to come back and that from what we'd gathered there was no reason for Lila to be in the NICU.
The nurse came back after paging and calling doctor saying that because of the IV fluids that were regulating her blood sugar that they couldn't release her. Our only choices were giving her formula to regulate her blood sugar or to put another IV in. I told them no formula that they would need to replace her IV. Realizing that we were not going to get her out of there we focused on trying to both we released on Saturday.
By late afternoon the NICU had a plan. They would check her blood sugar at 5pm right before her feeding and if it was above 55 they would send her upstairs with me. It was 74!!! They also wanted to recheck it before her next two feedings to assure her blood sugar was stable. What really ticked us off is that she never had low blood sugar, even at birth. It was only because they had started the IV that they were worried about taking it away. Ridiculous!!!
It's a good thing that she was released that afternoon because I was in so much pain I don't think I would have made it through the night getting up to feed her every 3 hours. We spent the evening/ night getting my pain under control. I could barely get out of bed to use the bathroom which was only 4 feet from my bed.
We decided to stay until Sunday to manage my pain and try to get some rest. Right...rest in a hospital!
Friday night Ethan came to visit his sister for the first time. He looked a little out of sorts when he first came to the door, but ran to my bed to cuddle with me. He sang "Happy Birthday" to her and kissed her head. I think he thought it was weird that his mom was in a bed and looked so tired and worn out.
The rest of Saturday and half of Sunday we tried to relax. My mom came to help with Lila Saturday morning and my sister stayed on Friday night to help with nursing and to let Ken go home for the night and half of Saturday. Lila nursed very well and we finally met up with the lactation consultant who told me I was doing it all right and congratulations that we made it out of the NICU without formula. She said she was surprised someone in the NICU didn't just give her formula. Yikes! I guess we dodged a bullet on that one.
Overall, our hospital experience, minus the NICU doctor, was a good one. We were ready to come home though.
More about that in my next post.
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