lisaf
Super tired new mom
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Hey everyone,
Figured I'd share the full story with those of you who I think would be interested
I'm not offended if you don't want the details but I wasn't really able to share what was going on at the time.
I'd had mild contractions all weekend, even thought my water might have broken and was a bit concerned about the light bleeding I'd had so I went into the hospital on Sunday. Waters not broken, got to go home. Woke up Monday at 4am in true labor and started to cope at home, timing contractions on my cell phone.
By noon, they were fairly regular and I wasn't handling them as well so we called our doula. She heard me go through a contraction and pointed out that I was letting the contraction get ahead of me and I needed to be taking control, breathing my way through them and not just hanging on and letting the contraction take me along for the ride. Once she pointed that out, the contractions were a LOT easier for me to handle!
The doula arrived at 1:30pm and helped us go through the contractions, made sure I stayed hydrated (though I threw up a lot, lol).
I was doing so well and coping.. we went into the hospital at 7pm and was 6cm dilated. Got my IV for my antibiotics... it took them 3 painful tries to get the IV in and had to end up putting it in my hand. We then kept laboring on our own and things weren't really picking up... labor should not stall at all once you hit that stage. And once my labor got disrupted, we couldn't get it to pick back up. They didn't check my urine for hours after I checked in... when they did they realized I was dehydrated and spilling keytones... both things that can mess up labor.... they added fluids and glucose drip to try and help and it did help a little bit. (at the time, the doula wasn't sure if my labor was slowing because me and the baby needed a break and/or if the head was going to be too big)... my contractions just were not getting stronger or longer though.
12 hours after checking in at 6cm, I was only 7cm and still at -2 station, but I got to 100% effaced. So we had to do pitocin and we talked about just doing a drop or two of it. Then at one point a nurse came in a cranked it up without telling/asking... and once they cranked that up, I had a LOT more trouble handling the contractions. They wanted to crank it up again and I begged them not to do too much... they did 1 drop more and I could not cope at all... at one point I was in the bathroom moaning/screaming, throwing up and peeing all at the same time.. DH was apparently in tears in the other room. The pitocin only progressed me to 7.5cm after 2 hours of excruciating contractions.
You REALLY lose all dignity. I feel so much closer to DH than I ever did... just this sense of total trust that he will always be there for me, no DHer how hard it is or scary etc.
Anyway, when I was at that point of losing it, I gave in on the pain relief just so I could think straight for a bit... had the phentenol... got a bit of a nap. Had them check me again to see if the relaxation and napping helped me progress at all. The only change was that I was at -1 station instead of -2... So at that point I did get an epidural. I did it because we needed to break the waters and I knew I couldn't handle any more intensity to the contractions.
The anesthesiologist was soooo typical.. he even said 'In my opinion, there is nothing natural about natural childbirth', lol.
Anyway.. it helped a lot... I slept for an hour.. then they had to put the catheter in. I still had sensation from the catheter.. I swear it was like the baby was flicking it from the inside.. so I moaned for the next hour, trying to nap but just SO uncomfortable with the catheter. They broke my water when the catheter was put in and put in an internal monitor to check the strength of the contractions
I kept wanting to push a bit, so they checked a half hour later and I was close to 8cm, lol. A few hours later, they checked me again and I was so out of it, when they said I was 'complete' I thought they meant fully effaced, which I already knew so I was disappointed, lol! Turns out I was 100% effaced, 10cm dilated, 0 station. They waited another 45 minutes to see if we could get him to drop any further to shorten my pushing time.
I had 2 doctors attending the delivery because they were so worried about his size and shoulder dystocia. I started to push at 3pm and an hour later, (4:04 exactly) I delivered our baby! Apparently it was a really fast push, especially for a first time mom and a baby of his size.
DH ended up watching the whole pushing process as he held a leg up because he was fascinated. I even reached down and felt the head. I got so excited to meet my son during the pushing... more excited than at any point in the pregnancy. After I had pushed the head out (which it just felt amazing great once the head had passed!!) I knew they were all holding their breaths for the shoulders to come so I made sure to push really strong on the next push and he popped out without one hesitation! HA!
He went straight onto my chest and I started bawling and stroking his head, laughing because he wasn't crying, he was moaning and sounded just like me during the labor process.
However, the moaning and not crying was actually a bad sign so they pulled him over to the baby station and started to try and get him breathing/crying better. They ended up calling the NICU and had to take him over there. At the time of delivery, I wasn't worried about this, but in hindsight it became a rather traumatic thing for me.
He had a partial pneumothorax (sp?) which is a partially collapsed lung. Basically as they expel the fluid from their lungs, it can end up trapping air behind the fluid and instead of the fluid being pushed out, more and more air gets trapped behind it until the aviolia (sp?) burst in the lungs, sending air into the chest cavity which collapses the lung.
By the time they were ready to put a line into his chest to let the air out, he had actually pinked up and was totally healthy, great respiratory rate, great oxygen saturation levels etc. Basically the lungs had sealed themselves off and he was breathing well enough. He didn't need any treatment.
However, air was still trapped in his chest and until that cleared up, he was at risk of re-collapsing his lung. He was totally healthy and the risk of that happening again is low but if it happened and he wasn't on monitors, it would take too long to realize it then to get help and he could end up brain damaged etc... so they had to keep an eye on him.
They didn't want him to cry hard etc..
they didn't want to risk feeding him because it can stress the lungs a bit so they put him on a glucose IV and watched his blood glucose levels (guess they were worried I had gestational diabetes undetected due to his size, lol!).
We had some hope that he'd heal enough by 7pm to come into our room. So I was still in labor and delivery recovering, eating food etc. When they had me pee before leaving L&D, I joked that I was going to fill their bucket... then actually did and almost overflowed it, lol!! The nurse had never seen someone pee that much, hehe!!
Then on the way over to maternity, we got to visit him in the NICU. We even got to hold him.
My amazing doula had gotten me set up with a pump in my room so I got to start on that right away.
We found out that he couldn't come back to our room with us. DH took that really hard and went off somewhere to shed a few tears. I was upset, but also was so confident he'd be with us the next day that I figured we'd need the sleep.
He was born at 9 lbs, 15 ozs and 22 inches long.
I had to pump every 3 hours but I got 2 good blocks of 3 hours of sleep.
The next morning at 9am we were supposed to hear if he could come out of the NICU. We didn't hear until 11am. At that time, we had a new doctor in charge of our son and he gave us a really good, thorough explanation of what had happened and why he needed to be in the NICU. It was really hard to handle, but we understood why he needed to be there. He said they wouldn't do another exray that evening since there had been no change since the last one and we didn't want too much radiation if there was no benefit. So we would possibly get him back the next morning after the exray then.
We spent the day visiting him and dealing with nurses/doctors over in the maternity side. I did NOT handle things as well this 2nd day.
I tried to nap, but kept getting harrassed by nurses who had been trying to go through procedures with me while I was in the NICU.
On that day, our baby got his first meal.. he guzzled down a whole day's worth of pumping colostrum. The nurse started me on trying to get him to the breast. It was very frustrating and he wasn't good at latching. The nurse I had was AMAZING though.. she was so supportive and encouraging and told me that it was totally normal to struggle like that, that I was actually doing really really great with him and that it would just be a process.
She even felt things had gone so well that we should try to feed him exclusively on the breast and that the NICU would call me anytime he was hungry and I'd come over to feed.
We left the NICU and 5 minutes later I got called back, lol!
Well the frustration here is that it takes time to walk down, you have to get buzzed in, then you have to scrub up at a sink with special stuff before you can even see your baby. So doing all that each time he needed a feed or anytime I just wanted to see/cuddle him was really hard.
I was really happy with the staff there... they had the perfect balance of being available to you if you needed help or had a question but did not hover and really made you feel like you were the parents and had a right and say to things like holding your baby even if he was sleeping etc.
Later that night, we had a new nurse there... she was everything that the other staff hadn't been... she hovered... shoved advice down our throats.. told me things that were contrary to current knowledge about breastfeeding. She told us not to hold him and to let him sleep.. she said he wasn't hungry because he was happy on a pacifier (umm, the kid had only eaten one meal in his life, how would he know what made his tummy full or not?). We felt like we didn't have much of a say in things either. She also decided we needed to know how to take his temperature (using a hospital thermometer?? half the learning process of that was learning how to use their dang thermometer! Tell me how that is useful?).. she seemed to be showing off by taking his vitals, listenin with the stethescope etc.. before letting us hold him.. something we never saw anyone else do.
Anyway, we started to breastfeed and it was going ok.. better than the time before but still a struggle but I was ok with that. She kept suggesting things and pushing things at me.. she even squirted formula on my nipple without even asking to try and get him to suck.
She barely left us alone and she even smelled bad.
Eventually she told us that he was getting hungry and if we didn't get this breastfeeding going, that they'd have to put him on formula. JUST what I need, pressure and stress, right?
I was in tears at that point and we told her we'd go back to our room and pump and send it over to feed him.
We went to my nurse and told her what was going on... I was NOT ok with that nurse being in charge of my baby! My nurse was amazing and really really stepped in for me and talked to the charge nurse over there. A lot of what my nurse was saying and suggesting goes against hospital policy... she's new to the hospital I guess
What bothered me the most is that she was allowed to work a shift without being properly trained in policies and procedures. I also wish I had known how to handle it in the NICU.. I had no idea who was in charge or who to ask for etc.
I got so stressed about it and didn't even trust her to call me when he was hungry. I ended up not being able to sleep that night. At one point I was sobbing hysterically, hyperventilating and couldn't breathe... after 30 minutes of this, DH had to go get the nurse to help calm me down. The nurses were great, I just needed to vent some of what was upsetting/stressing me (one thing being that people were demanding updates and I didn't even have time to tell most people that he was in the NICU let alone give them details/pictures etc or tell them that things were not going so well for me). The nurses promised to set me up with a late discharge the next day so that I could spend as much time as possible with him.
Things were better when we went to the NICU for the next feeding, but I wasn't allowed to switch nurses apparently due to some continuity of care policy... so we got her to leave us mostly alone and stop the pressure on breastfeeding etc. It was still annoying that she'd ask how long we fed for... ummm, its colostrum, there are a few drops.. he latched on and gave one good suck.. I didn't exactly time how many times he did that. The charge nurse even came and butted in at one point and totally seemed to get what I was saying and was ok with it.
I was able to sleep for 30 minutes at one point that night.
Next morning we were over there visiting our son, trying to decide his name and waiting for news from the doctor. This time, there was definite improvement, but not enough to release him. The doc said they'd check again the next morning. He went to the other side of the room and I dont' know who said what to him, but he changed his mind and decided to do another exray that evening since there would be a chance he would discharge and go home with us.
They were super nice to us in the NICU and set us up in a private isolation room for a while, with a bed even to nap on so we could bond like a family. They also got the lactation specialist on staff to come out and help (she sucked by the way.. just started trying things without explaining or demonstrating.. couldn't get him to latch on or even suck a finger and just eventually said to keep trying and left). I got the same nurse as the day before, the wonderful one and she was a huge help and is the one who got us that room etc. The manager of the NICU came and talked to me and apologized for the nurse the night before and even told me that stuff that was said goes against policy (nurses are not allowed to give formula without parental consent or a doctors orders).
The amazing nurse talked to me about the formula issue and my supply and pumping and she sent me off to get a nap. I said ok to some formula because I didn't want his discharge held back by jaundice or low blood sugar levels. Unfortunately, I didn't get a nap again due to procedures/discharge stuff to go through.
DH went home to let the dog out and nap. He didn't get more than an hour nap though since the dog had been left too long and soiled his crate
He had to be bathed and everything. We feel SO horrible about this. He's never soiled his crate in his life and it was totally our fault.
I ended up sobbing/hyperventilating again at one point over everything and just the stress of the NICU situation. I got a visit from a social worker (which I was supposed to have gotten earlier as a standard procedure for having a NICU baby). It helped a LOT. Basically I was running on adrenaline and the only time I had to stop and think and process stuff was when I tried to sleep and then everything came rushing out in an overwhelming gush.
I mean, I wanted a natural birth and knew many women who wanted one and ended up with an epidural/c-section who were disappointed. What I'd read about having a doula is that it helps you get through the birth and not feel disappointed even if it doesn't turn out as you wanted (which is totally true!). So I planned for a doula to avoid being upset about a birth experience that wasn't ideal, and now I ended up with a post-birth experience that was a total disappointment.
We worked on the discharge stuff and nursing throughout the day. At 5pm we were waiting for the doctor to come back... and we were shocked to hear we actually got to bring him home! I can't believe how lucky we were. I really really can't imagine having to go home without him and have nothing but sympathy and respect for all the other NICU parents who have to leave their children behind when they leave the hospital.
We're home now and just struggling to get breastfeeding going. We rented a pump to keep my supply up but we still have big latching issues. I will try this for as long as I can bear to but its exhausting to have to feed and pump and deal with the worst of both options. Very very tired, not getting much sleep and really feeling deprived of my time alone to catch up with friends and emails etc.
Best advice I can give to any expectant parent is to set up a kind of phone tree or put one person in charge of spreading news/information. It was too much stress on top of everything else to have people constantly wanting to know things and having to notify them through all kinds of different sources. If we could have had one friend or family member to update and rely on them to tell everyone else, that would have been such a relief.
Now I just have some stress from people who don't understand that we need time alone to get breastfeeding established, to learn how to take care of our child and do NOT need visitors who only want to come and hold the baby. I ended up struggling through a few feeds alone the other day to let DH catch up on sleep so that he could pamper me and repay my sacrifice later in the day... instead he spent the afternoon on the phone with people who were upset and causing drama about us being too restrictive about having visitors. I was beyond pissed and truly wanted to keep those people from seeing him for a long time. I'm still really really mad about getting robbed of that afternoon. I made a sacrifice and pushed myself to the limits and they stole the pay-off from me over petty hurt feelings that really just don't DHer right now. UGH
We named our son Daniel Logan
Anyway, thats all for now! It took me 3 days to finish writing this, lol!
Figured I'd share the full story with those of you who I think would be interested
I'm not offended if you don't want the details but I wasn't really able to share what was going on at the time.I'd had mild contractions all weekend, even thought my water might have broken and was a bit concerned about the light bleeding I'd had so I went into the hospital on Sunday. Waters not broken, got to go home. Woke up Monday at 4am in true labor and started to cope at home, timing contractions on my cell phone.
By noon, they were fairly regular and I wasn't handling them as well so we called our doula. She heard me go through a contraction and pointed out that I was letting the contraction get ahead of me and I needed to be taking control, breathing my way through them and not just hanging on and letting the contraction take me along for the ride. Once she pointed that out, the contractions were a LOT easier for me to handle!
The doula arrived at 1:30pm and helped us go through the contractions, made sure I stayed hydrated (though I threw up a lot, lol).
I was doing so well and coping.. we went into the hospital at 7pm and was 6cm dilated. Got my IV for my antibiotics... it took them 3 painful tries to get the IV in and had to end up putting it in my hand. We then kept laboring on our own and things weren't really picking up... labor should not stall at all once you hit that stage. And once my labor got disrupted, we couldn't get it to pick back up. They didn't check my urine for hours after I checked in... when they did they realized I was dehydrated and spilling keytones... both things that can mess up labor.... they added fluids and glucose drip to try and help and it did help a little bit. (at the time, the doula wasn't sure if my labor was slowing because me and the baby needed a break and/or if the head was going to be too big)... my contractions just were not getting stronger or longer though.
12 hours after checking in at 6cm, I was only 7cm and still at -2 station, but I got to 100% effaced. So we had to do pitocin and we talked about just doing a drop or two of it. Then at one point a nurse came in a cranked it up without telling/asking... and once they cranked that up, I had a LOT more trouble handling the contractions. They wanted to crank it up again and I begged them not to do too much... they did 1 drop more and I could not cope at all... at one point I was in the bathroom moaning/screaming, throwing up and peeing all at the same time.. DH was apparently in tears in the other room. The pitocin only progressed me to 7.5cm after 2 hours of excruciating contractions.
You REALLY lose all dignity. I feel so much closer to DH than I ever did... just this sense of total trust that he will always be there for me, no DHer how hard it is or scary etc.
Anyway, when I was at that point of losing it, I gave in on the pain relief just so I could think straight for a bit... had the phentenol... got a bit of a nap. Had them check me again to see if the relaxation and napping helped me progress at all. The only change was that I was at -1 station instead of -2... So at that point I did get an epidural. I did it because we needed to break the waters and I knew I couldn't handle any more intensity to the contractions.
The anesthesiologist was soooo typical.. he even said 'In my opinion, there is nothing natural about natural childbirth', lol.
Anyway.. it helped a lot... I slept for an hour.. then they had to put the catheter in. I still had sensation from the catheter.. I swear it was like the baby was flicking it from the inside.. so I moaned for the next hour, trying to nap but just SO uncomfortable with the catheter. They broke my water when the catheter was put in and put in an internal monitor to check the strength of the contractions
I kept wanting to push a bit, so they checked a half hour later and I was close to 8cm, lol. A few hours later, they checked me again and I was so out of it, when they said I was 'complete' I thought they meant fully effaced, which I already knew so I was disappointed, lol! Turns out I was 100% effaced, 10cm dilated, 0 station. They waited another 45 minutes to see if we could get him to drop any further to shorten my pushing time.
I had 2 doctors attending the delivery because they were so worried about his size and shoulder dystocia. I started to push at 3pm and an hour later, (4:04 exactly) I delivered our baby!
Apparently it was a really fast push, especially for a first time mom and a baby of his size.DH ended up watching the whole pushing process as he held a leg up because he was fascinated. I even reached down and felt the head. I got so excited to meet my son during the pushing... more excited than at any point in the pregnancy. After I had pushed the head out (which it just felt amazing great once the head had passed!!) I knew they were all holding their breaths for the shoulders to come so I made sure to push really strong on the next push and he popped out without one hesitation!
HA! He went straight onto my chest and I started bawling and stroking his head, laughing because he wasn't crying, he was moaning and sounded just like me during the labor process.
However, the moaning and not crying was actually a bad sign so they pulled him over to the baby station and started to try and get him breathing/crying better. They ended up calling the NICU and had to take him over there. At the time of delivery, I wasn't worried about this, but in hindsight it became a rather traumatic thing for me.
He had a partial pneumothorax (sp?) which is a partially collapsed lung. Basically as they expel the fluid from their lungs, it can end up trapping air behind the fluid and instead of the fluid being pushed out, more and more air gets trapped behind it until the aviolia (sp?) burst in the lungs, sending air into the chest cavity which collapses the lung.
By the time they were ready to put a line into his chest to let the air out, he had actually pinked up and was totally healthy, great respiratory rate, great oxygen saturation levels etc. Basically the lungs had sealed themselves off and he was breathing well enough. He didn't need any treatment.
However, air was still trapped in his chest and until that cleared up, he was at risk of re-collapsing his lung. He was totally healthy and the risk of that happening again is low but if it happened and he wasn't on monitors, it would take too long to realize it then to get help and he could end up brain damaged etc... so they had to keep an eye on him.
They didn't want him to cry hard etc..
they didn't want to risk feeding him because it can stress the lungs a bit so they put him on a glucose IV and watched his blood glucose levels (guess they were worried I had gestational diabetes undetected due to his size, lol!).
We had some hope that he'd heal enough by 7pm to come into our room. So I was still in labor and delivery recovering, eating food etc. When they had me pee before leaving L&D, I joked that I was going to fill their bucket... then actually did and almost overflowed it, lol!! The nurse had never seen someone pee that much, hehe!!
Then on the way over to maternity, we got to visit him in the NICU. We even got to hold him.
My amazing doula had gotten me set up with a pump in my room so I got to start on that right away.
We found out that he couldn't come back to our room with us. DH took that really hard and went off somewhere to shed a few tears. I was upset, but also was so confident he'd be with us the next day that I figured we'd need the sleep.
He was born at 9 lbs, 15 ozs and 22 inches long.
I had to pump every 3 hours but I got 2 good blocks of 3 hours of sleep.
The next morning at 9am we were supposed to hear if he could come out of the NICU. We didn't hear until 11am. At that time, we had a new doctor in charge of our son and he gave us a really good, thorough explanation of what had happened and why he needed to be in the NICU. It was really hard to handle, but we understood why he needed to be there. He said they wouldn't do another exray that evening since there had been no change since the last one and we didn't want too much radiation if there was no benefit. So we would possibly get him back the next morning after the exray then.
We spent the day visiting him and dealing with nurses/doctors over in the maternity side. I did NOT handle things as well this 2nd day.
I tried to nap, but kept getting harrassed by nurses who had been trying to go through procedures with me while I was in the NICU.
On that day, our baby got his first meal.. he guzzled down a whole day's worth of pumping colostrum. The nurse started me on trying to get him to the breast. It was very frustrating and he wasn't good at latching. The nurse I had was AMAZING though.. she was so supportive and encouraging and told me that it was totally normal to struggle like that, that I was actually doing really really great with him and that it would just be a process.
She even felt things had gone so well that we should try to feed him exclusively on the breast and that the NICU would call me anytime he was hungry and I'd come over to feed.
We left the NICU and 5 minutes later I got called back, lol!
Well the frustration here is that it takes time to walk down, you have to get buzzed in, then you have to scrub up at a sink with special stuff before you can even see your baby. So doing all that each time he needed a feed or anytime I just wanted to see/cuddle him was really hard.
I was really happy with the staff there... they had the perfect balance of being available to you if you needed help or had a question but did not hover and really made you feel like you were the parents and had a right and say to things like holding your baby even if he was sleeping etc.
Later that night, we had a new nurse there... she was everything that the other staff hadn't been... she hovered... shoved advice down our throats.. told me things that were contrary to current knowledge about breastfeeding. She told us not to hold him and to let him sleep.. she said he wasn't hungry because he was happy on a pacifier (umm, the kid had only eaten one meal in his life, how would he know what made his tummy full or not?). We felt like we didn't have much of a say in things either. She also decided we needed to know how to take his temperature (using a hospital thermometer?? half the learning process of that was learning how to use their dang thermometer! Tell me how that is useful?).. she seemed to be showing off by taking his vitals, listenin with the stethescope etc.. before letting us hold him.. something we never saw anyone else do.
Anyway, we started to breastfeed and it was going ok.. better than the time before but still a struggle but I was ok with that. She kept suggesting things and pushing things at me.. she even squirted formula on my nipple without even asking to try and get him to suck.
She barely left us alone and she even smelled bad.
Eventually she told us that he was getting hungry and if we didn't get this breastfeeding going, that they'd have to put him on formula. JUST what I need, pressure and stress, right?
I was in tears at that point and we told her we'd go back to our room and pump and send it over to feed him.
We went to my nurse and told her what was going on... I was NOT ok with that nurse being in charge of my baby! My nurse was amazing and really really stepped in for me and talked to the charge nurse over there. A lot of what my nurse was saying and suggesting goes against hospital policy... she's new to the hospital I guess
What bothered me the most is that she was allowed to work a shift without being properly trained in policies and procedures. I also wish I had known how to handle it in the NICU.. I had no idea who was in charge or who to ask for etc.
I got so stressed about it and didn't even trust her to call me when he was hungry. I ended up not being able to sleep that night. At one point I was sobbing hysterically, hyperventilating and couldn't breathe... after 30 minutes of this, DH had to go get the nurse to help calm me down. The nurses were great, I just needed to vent some of what was upsetting/stressing me (one thing being that people were demanding updates and I didn't even have time to tell most people that he was in the NICU let alone give them details/pictures etc or tell them that things were not going so well for me). The nurses promised to set me up with a late discharge the next day so that I could spend as much time as possible with him.
Things were better when we went to the NICU for the next feeding, but I wasn't allowed to switch nurses apparently due to some continuity of care policy... so we got her to leave us mostly alone and stop the pressure on breastfeeding etc. It was still annoying that she'd ask how long we fed for... ummm, its colostrum, there are a few drops.. he latched on and gave one good suck.. I didn't exactly time how many times he did that. The charge nurse even came and butted in at one point and totally seemed to get what I was saying and was ok with it.
I was able to sleep for 30 minutes at one point that night.
Next morning we were over there visiting our son, trying to decide his name and waiting for news from the doctor. This time, there was definite improvement, but not enough to release him. The doc said they'd check again the next morning. He went to the other side of the room and I dont' know who said what to him, but he changed his mind and decided to do another exray that evening since there would be a chance he would discharge and go home with us.
They were super nice to us in the NICU and set us up in a private isolation room for a while, with a bed even to nap on so we could bond like a family. They also got the lactation specialist on staff to come out and help (she sucked by the way.. just started trying things without explaining or demonstrating.. couldn't get him to latch on or even suck a finger and just eventually said to keep trying and left). I got the same nurse as the day before, the wonderful one and she was a huge help and is the one who got us that room etc. The manager of the NICU came and talked to me and apologized for the nurse the night before and even told me that stuff that was said goes against policy (nurses are not allowed to give formula without parental consent or a doctors orders).
The amazing nurse talked to me about the formula issue and my supply and pumping and she sent me off to get a nap. I said ok to some formula because I didn't want his discharge held back by jaundice or low blood sugar levels. Unfortunately, I didn't get a nap again due to procedures/discharge stuff to go through.
DH went home to let the dog out and nap. He didn't get more than an hour nap though since the dog had been left too long and soiled his crate
He had to be bathed and everything. We feel SO horrible about this. He's never soiled his crate in his life and it was totally our fault.I ended up sobbing/hyperventilating again at one point over everything and just the stress of the NICU situation. I got a visit from a social worker (which I was supposed to have gotten earlier as a standard procedure for having a NICU baby). It helped a LOT. Basically I was running on adrenaline and the only time I had to stop and think and process stuff was when I tried to sleep and then everything came rushing out in an overwhelming gush.
I mean, I wanted a natural birth and knew many women who wanted one and ended up with an epidural/c-section who were disappointed. What I'd read about having a doula is that it helps you get through the birth and not feel disappointed even if it doesn't turn out as you wanted (which is totally true!). So I planned for a doula to avoid being upset about a birth experience that wasn't ideal, and now I ended up with a post-birth experience that was a total disappointment.
We worked on the discharge stuff and nursing throughout the day. At 5pm we were waiting for the doctor to come back... and we were shocked to hear we actually got to bring him home! I can't believe how lucky we were. I really really can't imagine having to go home without him and have nothing but sympathy and respect for all the other NICU parents who have to leave their children behind when they leave the hospital.
We're home now and just struggling to get breastfeeding going. We rented a pump to keep my supply up but we still have big latching issues. I will try this for as long as I can bear to but its exhausting to have to feed and pump and deal with the worst of both options. Very very tired, not getting much sleep and really feeling deprived of my time alone to catch up with friends and emails etc.
Best advice I can give to any expectant parent is to set up a kind of phone tree or put one person in charge of spreading news/information. It was too much stress on top of everything else to have people constantly wanting to know things and having to notify them through all kinds of different sources. If we could have had one friend or family member to update and rely on them to tell everyone else, that would have been such a relief.
Now I just have some stress from people who don't understand that we need time alone to get breastfeeding established, to learn how to take care of our child and do NOT need visitors who only want to come and hold the baby. I ended up struggling through a few feeds alone the other day to let DH catch up on sleep so that he could pamper me and repay my sacrifice later in the day... instead he spent the afternoon on the phone with people who were upset and causing drama about us being too restrictive about having visitors. I was beyond pissed and truly wanted to keep those people from seeing him for a long time. I'm still really really mad about getting robbed of that afternoon. I made a sacrifice and pushed myself to the limits and they stole the pay-off from me over petty hurt feelings that really just don't DHer right now. UGH
We named our son Daniel Logan
Anyway, thats all for now! It took me 3 days to finish writing this, lol!
I'm sorry the aftermath was not as expected 
