Breastfeeding Chronicals- Chapter 2

"The Night We Came Home From the Hospital"...oh that fateful night.

I was discharged and we packed our things. I carried my tiny baby out of Providence Milwaukie Hospital, and was escorted out in a wheelchair, per protocol. Ross drove the Subaru Baja up to the pick-up area. We carefully strapped our 6 lb 14 oz baby (her weight after the initial weight loss after being born) into the huge Britax convertable carseat. She was a tiny little bundle in that seat- it looked way too big for her. Once we verified about 16 times that she was secure, I managed to climb into the car (still sore and bleeding from childbirth and its wounds) and we were on our way home. I sat in the back seat to monitor our little being. The entire way home, Ross asked how she was doing and talked to her. For some reason, it just didn't feel safe to be driving her anywhere. She was way too fragile and precious.

We got home, and set my new home for the next few weeks on the couch in the living room. We used an empty laundry basket to keep the essentials- diapers, cloth wipes and spray solution, burp cloths, lanolin, pacifiers that never got used, Colace, Ibuprofen 800mg tabs, my Providence water bottle, and books: "What to Expect- The First Year" and several different books and pamplets on breastfeeding. Ross and I would carry this basket up and down the stairs for the next few weeks. We set the inflatable "donut" for me to sit on to relieve the hemorrhoids and pain in my seat. The downstairs bathroom was stocked with a warm water squirt bottle, a sitz bath, and plenty of jumbo sized pads.

We sat down and held and marveled at our little joy as we wondered what our new life would be like with her in it. Around 5:30pm, we decided we should eat so Ross went to the Papa Murphy's down the street to fetch a Chicken Bacon Articoke DeLite Pizza. He was also going to the store to get me some beer (sweet beer, that I had gone 9 months without). I felt that I, the mother, should have no problem handling her on my own as he stepped out. About 10 minutes after he left, she started crying. I changed her diaper, I attempted to feed her. Her weak little sucks lasted but a few minutes, and she was back to crying. It didn't stop. Ross came home to find me in a panic, holding our newborn to my chest. She wouldn't latch to eat, but was still very upset. It had been about 45 minutes of nonstop crying at this point. He tried to calm her by holding her, rocking her, and singing to her. I remember I went upstairs to take a breath, cry, and pray while Ross held her. I could hear him singing, "Daddy loves Maddy" over and over to her and she wailed. I could tell he was frightened, too.

The crying would stop momentarily; as she caught her breath. Then she would resume just as forcefully as before. I remember looking at the clock and realizing my baby had been crying for almost 2 hours. She still would not latch and feed. She felt hot, and her oral mucosa was bone dry. The nurse in me panicked, because I knew she was dehydrated. Ross called his parents, and I don't even remember what they said. I remember there being a suggestion about me drinking a beer to help my milk come in. Looking back, they were probably right- not about the milk, but it would have at least helped me.