I spent most of the day sleeping because I was still so exhausted from the previous week and a half. Mike stayed with me all day and helped me get up when I needed to go to the bathroom. Every time that I had to get up out of the bed and walk to the bathroom I was in excrutiating pain around my incision. Somebody brought me in a breast pump early in the morning while I was still pretty out of it and just left it there with a kit. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do with it or when I was supposed to use it or how often or anything, so I think I tried pumping once or twice that day.
It seems like everyone was asking us what his name was, and I just kept saying that he doesn't have one yet. We literally had just found out that we were having a boy three weeks before I went into the hospital... how could we already have a name??? On top of that, I was pretty much still in denial about the whole situation for the first couple of days. It was really hard for me to think about mine and my baby's situations because that meant I would have to admit that they really took him from me, that he was no longer inside me, that I was not pregnant anymore, and that my baby was currently struggling to cling to life. Every time I thought about it I broke down crying, so I think as a defense mechanism I tried not to think about it too much.
My blood pressure stayed pretty low during the day while I was on the Magnesium. When they finally took me off the Mag later that night, Mike wheeled me down to the NICU to see our baby. I remember sitting next to his isolette in my wheelchair and looking at a tiny, frail body with all sorts of tubes and wires hooked up to him. He was in a small plastic bag, which we were told helped him maintain his body temperature. He was also wearing a giant beanie that covered his eyes to shield them from the phototherapy lights which shined on him to help with jaundice. He was also hooked up to the oscillator ventilator which constantly shakes his little body to keep the oxygen and CO2 moving properly in and out of his lungs. I was able to put my finger in the tiny palm of his hand and he grasped it, and I started crying and couldn't believe this was my little baby that was safe inside me just yesterday.
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Days 3-6: Monday Jan. 20th - Thursday Jan. 23rd
My blood pressure started slowly going back up after I came off of the Magnesium, so they had to start me on Labetalol again. Mike stayed with me at the hospital all day until my mom came up in the afternoon so that Mike could go home to shower. A NICU lactation specialist came in and asked if I had been pumping 8 times a day starting 6 hours after the baby was delivered, and I just started crying because I had no idea even how to pump let alone how often and I had been asleep the first 6 hours after the c-section. Now I felt like an even more terrible mother. She showed me how to use the pump and gave me some literature on methods and how often I should be doing it. Because I would only be using a pump to stimulate my milk supply it is really important that I do it 6-8 times a day in order to keep my supply for longer.
The days in the hospital following the c-section were extremely difficult both physically and emotionally for me. The doctor wanted me up and walking around 4 times a day to help the incision heal, so I would try to walk as far as I could to the NICU then be wheeled the rest of the way. But whenever I got up to do anything my BP would skyrocket and then they wanted me laying down and doing nothing and would have to take my blood pressure every 20 minutes until it went back down. The lactation specialist wanted me pumping 8 times a day, I needed to be eating 3 meals, showering, and visiting my baby in the NICU as well. On top of that there were non-stop people in my room all day. I could not find a way to do all of these things when people were in my room talking to me or asking questions, having me fill out paperwork, or taking my vitals and giving me meds all of the time. I finally broke down crying to Mike one morning because I just couldn't do it all and I was absolutely sick of being in the hospital and dealing with all of this every day and night. It was already the most emotionally difficult and trying situation that I have ever experienced and not being able to live up to everyone's expectations was making it even more difficult.
I walked down to the NICU as often as I could find time to--and as long as my BP was down. It felt like a place where I could escape that awful room and all of the doctors, nurses, and professionals who were constantly in my room telling me what they wanted me to do. Being in that room and listening to all of the other healthy babies cry as they were being wheeled to their moms was one of the hardest parts of the whole experience. I knew that would never be me and my baby. So I would escape to the NICU and be with my little one as often as I could. After I started to accept that this whole situation was real, I started to feel completely hopeless. I felt certain that this would not end well and so I determined to spend as much time as I could with my baby while I could. We also finally settled on a name: Landon Michael Thompson. Landon was not a name that we had ever considered before our hospital stay, but the name came to me one night while I laid awake in the hospital bed and we both felt it was right.
The NICU nurses told us that our baby needed limited stimulation to simulate being in the womb and encourage development, so he had a blanket over his isolette and we were not supposed to stroke his skin because it would be very painful for his overly sensitive and fragile skin. Instead, we could comfort him by holding our hands on his head and feet with soft yet firm pressure. Landon was on Dopamine to help increase his blood pressure. He had umbilical lines through which he received his meds and TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) to help simulate the nutrition he was receiving in the womb. He was also being given drops of colostrum and tiny amounts of my milk. He was given Glycerin enemas to help him pass all of the meconium so they could start feeding him more milk. The tiny preemie diapers are so huge on him. His eyes were still fused shut at this point, but one eye was barely starting to slit open in the corner.
He is just so sweet and precious and perfect---We just love him so very much
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