Haleigh's First Day Home!

We left the hospital on Monday morning. The insurance covered us staying 48 hours but the hospital let us stay until 9 AM Monday so that we didn’t have to leave at 3 AM – exactly 48 hours after her birth.

Adam had a test review in his finance class that he needed to go to. So he left around 7 AM and got back at 9 AM. That was the hardest two hours I’ve ever experienced. I woke up around 6 and Haleigh was sleeping so I got ready for the day. I ordered breakfast right when they opened hoping I could eat before Haleigh woke up. Just when my food got there Haleigh woke up. I started feeding her and in the middle of nursing she had a blow-out.  I tried to change her diaper but she started screaming and crying so I went back to nursing. I picked at my breakfast while nursing. She seemed to want to eat forever! She nursed for like an hour! Finally, I tried to change her diaper. She started screaming and I felt overwhelmed. I still needed to get dressed and pack up the room and eat and it was almost 9, the time we needed to check out. I pushed my nurse call button. “Can I help you?” “Could you please send a nurse to help me?” “What do you need help with?” “I just need help.” “Does she need to bring anything?” “No, I just need some help.” A few minutes later Terry walked in. This is the nurse who took Haleigh for 1.5 hours the other day without telling me where she was and why it was taking so long… She’s kind of an awkward person too. I asked her if she could help me while I change Haleigh’s diaper. “She’s fine, babies cry, it’s normal.” “I know but I just need help. Could you hold her binky in or something while I change her?” “It’s fine to just let her cry.” UGH, I just want help lady! I was so overwhelmed at this point and was holding back tears and she was totally unwilling to help. Finally she reluctantly held the binky in when she saw that I was about to cry.

After Terry left, Dr. Young came in. I felt awkward tension between us the whole time because he was originally going to delivery me but I could never get in to see him during my last month so I saw Dr. Parker. Dr. Young wouldn’t have induced me anyway. I was grateful that Dr. Parker delivered me though. Any other doctor would have done an emergency c-section but he was so patient because he’s so experienced. Haleigh was his 7,661 baby. He said he’s going to retire when he reaches 8,000. Anyway, I just felt awkward talking to Dr. Young that whole weekend. So he’s talking about scheduling my 6 weeks appointment…. Blah blah blah… baby blues will set in soon and then last for a few weeks…. Blah blah blah. I’m thinking ok, hurry it up. I need to pack up the room, I have a screaming baby, and I’m pretty positive that my baby blues set in once she was out of me…. In fact I’m holding back tears right now, please leave!

Right after he leaves, Dr. Wise comes in. She is still screaming at this point. Dr. Wise has never met us before; Dr. Whiting was the one that visited each day at the hospital because he was on call. The first thing he says is “Looks like you got unlucky with a colicky baby.” Um… excuse me, you don’t even know us! The nurses have been fighting over her because she’s the cutest and calmest baby here, you just caught us during the one time where she isn’t calm. He then goes on to explain that on paper Haleigh is doing great but she’s lost 8 % of her birth weight. “Yeah, but it’s normal to lose 5-7%.” “Well, yes, but I’m concerned that your milk hasn’t come in. It may never come in. There are some women who just never get milk. With her weight loss you need to start supplementing with formula or she won’t develop.” “I think she’s been getting enough. She’s been eating regularly and going through at least 8 diapers a day. She couldn’t be pooping that much if she wasn’t getting enough milk. I really don’t want to use formula. Doesn’t it give them gastro problems that can take up to 21 days to repair after giving formula?” “Well yeah, but it’s better than her starving. Just give an ounce of formula after each feeding. An ounce won’t do too much damage. Also, her bilirubin test came back high. You need to take her to the hospital tomorrow to get tested again. If it’s still high we need to give her light therapy. It’s normal for breastfed babies to have high jaundice because breastfeeding actually prohibits the liver from turning on. So you need to give her at least one ounce of formula to turn her liver on and get the jaundice down, after one ounce you can stop giving formula as long as she’s gaining weight.” This didn’t make sense to me at all. If breastfeeding prohibits the liver from turning on then how have all of us survived? What did they do back in the day when there wasn’t formula? I felt very discouraged after this. I felt like we were doing a great job breastfeeding and I was so proud of myself. Now I’m being told that I’m really not doing well breastfeeding and need to use formula which I definitely don’t want to do.

Adam got back while Dr. Wise was there. Once he left we were rushing to get out of the room. The nurse came to check us out. She told us to put her going home outfit on get her in the car seat then she’ll come back to check on us.  How car seat straps were too tight and we couldn’t figure out how to loosen them. We asked if she knew how, her reply was, “It’s the parent’s responsibility to learn their car seat.” Then she left and told us to get her when we figure it out…. Once we figured it out we went to get her and she sent Terry. L Terry walked us out to the car.

When we were putting Haleigh in the car my first nurse from labor and delivery, Paula, walked by. I love her! We showed her Haleigh and I started crying. That was when I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.

I cried the whole way home from the hospital. I kept telling Adam that I was fine but I couldn’t stop crying. I ended up crying the entire day at home. I just couldn’t stop. Adam and I would be having a normal conversation and I would just be sobbing. Lol. We were both laughing so hard while I was sobbing. At one point I was laughing and then looked down at my belly button and starting sobbing again “My belly button is still an outie…” followed by hysterical sobs. Hahaha.

I breastfed and we supplemented with formula. Later that night Haleigh started scream – crying. We had never heard anything like it. We were up all night trying to soothe her but nothing was working. It was clear that she was in pain. She hadn’t pooped since being home so we assumed it was constipation. We tried methods to relieve gas but nothing worked. Finally around 3 AM we called the pediatrician on call. We spoke to a nurse that disagreed with me saying that the formula wouldn’t cause gastro problems that quickly. She said that she’s hungry and we just need to keep feeding her. If my milk hasn’t come in yet we need to give formula. UGH so discouraging!

We said prayers but nothing would calm her down. Finally Adam gave her a blessing. Immediately after the blessing we felt that we needed to insert a q-tip into Haleigh’s rectum (something the nurse suggested). We did that and she immediately pooped and calmed down. We put her in the swing and then grabbed some blankets and camped out on the floor by her swing because it was too big to move out of the office and into our room. She slept from 3-6:30 AM.

Adam worked from home the next day so that he could be home with us. She was much better the next day.