Baby Ems was born early Monday morning and we moved into our private room by noon. The first couple of hours was extremely tiring. We tried to breastfeed, Emily latched on okay, stayed on for couple of minutes and promptly fell asleep. She was a sleepy baby! The nurses reassured me that it was okay and that babies are tired from being born. When the lactation consultant came by, she mentioned that we should try to wake her up when feeding, gave us several supplies, and left us to be.
I had read that Day2 is the hard part when babies learn that they are not in the mother's womb anymore. Our day2 was pretty much the same of the first. She was calm, slept most of the time, and tried several times to breastfeed. I wasn't sure if she was drinking anything but she wasn't crying or fussing so I assumed it was okay.
And then we reached...day3. Ohmygoodness for day3. I had sent my husband home to get some stuff and my mom was with me. She cried and screamed...all day. I tried breastfeeding but no milk was coming out. She just kept trying and trying until my nipples were raw and bleeding. I was frustrated, she was frustrated, and because she wasn't eating anything, she wasn't pooping and was losing weight. She bordering on jaundice and the nurses wanted me to make sure she was eating every 3 hours. I couldn't any longer and thankfully we met our new lactation consultant. The other two that we saw stayed for only a couple of minutes, cheerfully said I was doing fine, and had just left. The LC that came in on day3 helped immensely. She saw that I had flat nipples and suggested I use a nipple shield (which helped tremendously). She also suggested I start pumping to get my milk supply moving and set us up with one along with all the freebies that came with the medela pump. She showed us tricks and taught us how to get every last drop of the colostrum, including looking under the flap. It's called liquid gold for a reason, to us it was needed to get her to keep eating. I look back in humor thinking about how each drop was so valuable to us and we literally squeezed it into her mouth.
I'm not proud to admit but day3 was also my new-mom meltdown moment. I yelled at my husband, was incredibly rude to my mom, and started bawling in front of my very sympathetic and kind night nurse. I had been in bed most of the time because walking was painful, but it was this moment that I pulled myself up and forced myself to recover faster for Emily.
Although I was pushing "breast is best," her weight was getting closer to the 10% drop and so we were told to supplement with formula. Day4 came and doctors told us that she had to undergo medium jaundice therapy for 24 hours to get her jaundice level up. I had already been cleared to leave by my OB but my awesome nurse kind of strong-armed the doctor to allow me to stay another day. Emily was stripped down with nothing but her diaper, put on this special bed that emitted photo-therapy The bed came with a cover attached to it that had a place to put her arms and stick her head out. She was to stay on it as long as possible and only be taken off of it every 3 hours to fed and changed. It was heartbreaking to see her stuck in such a cold looking place when all I wanted to do was hold her.
Day5 came and after 24 hours, her level had not gone up as much as the Dr. wanted her to. She wanted to keep her for another day, however I had to go home. I was upset and confused bc seriously all Asians have jaundice and I thought there were other options we can do at home. The good news was that technically, the room was ours until 11:59 and we wanted to stay as long as possible. She was kept in our room til then and I pumped and pumped and pumped (bc my milk finally came in) to have on hand. Again the awesome LC set us up with a cooler, extra storage containers, and labels for us to put on the milk so that the nurses can give it to her overnight.
We checked out at 11:30pm. I also could not stop crying at the thought of leaving my baby behind. The weekend nurses were all unfamiliar faces and she would be in the nursery where there was like no other baby there. The upside was that the nurses felt sorry for me and kept giving me free stuff. hahahah. I cried being wheeled out in a wheelchair, I cried all the way home, and I cried myself to sleep.
Our pediatrician called us early in the morning to let us know that her jaundice level has come down and she can come off her therapy. They would check her levels again in 6 hours and if she was able to keep it low, she could go home. We had some breakfast and made our way to the hospital where they put us in a little room called "family room" for parents who had checked out of hospital but the baby had not. We cuddled with her and watched her sleep. Luckily, when she was checked again, she was able to go home! After six days in the hospital, she was finally going home!
Although I had imagined myself in a wheelchair, holding my baby in my arms, and going home from the hospital, I was finally glad to have her home and ready to get back into real world. Since then, every single time we go to the pediatrician, the doctor thinks she's jaundice (hello, she's asian!) and gets her level checked to make sure it hasn't gone back up. Our first week, didn't go off the way that I thought it would, but looking at her healthy smile now, I am thankful.
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