Let me start off by saying I'm not a big fan of HOSPITAL'S, let alone having to stay in one for 4 days and 3 nights...not my idea of fun. However, I will say for the most part, our hospital stay was pleasant...but we could have done without the INCIDENT on our last day.
I will pick up where the birth story left off. After the fine Dr. put me "back together" after the c-section, I was wheeled into recovery. The nurses monitored me for about 45 minutes or so. Thankfully, during that time, I was able to finally hold Dafney!
The nurse had me try nursing her, but she wasn't interested. So, I pretty much just stared at my baby girl. The nurses in the OR and recovery were absolutely AMAZING! They made what was a scary, unknowing experience really good. After 45 minutes or so of being in recovery, they wheeled me up to my room.
I have to say, holding my daughter in my arms while they wheeled me up and passing other people, made me glow. I kept thinking, "yes, this is my beautiful daughter...feel free to stop and stare" =) Once we made it to our room, we just kind of sat there and stared at our daughter. We didn't really know what to do.
Since I had surgery, I wasn't able to eat anything solid that day (which was okay, because I didn't even feel hungry), but Kyle was really hungry, so he decided to head down to grab some breakfast. While he was gone, I just remember thinking, "wow, this is our daughter, she's here and she's perfect". It was starting to sink in that we had a baby! Once Kyle came back with his breakfast we spent some time just the 3 of us.
It was perfect.
I highly recommend doing this...we didn't have to share her with anyone! About 4 hours after we had Dafney, we decided we were ready to call our parents. I called my Mom at work first, but they were having phone problems...boo! So, I called my Dad at work. Our conversation went a little like this (this is really more so I remember):
Me: Hi Dad
Dad: Hi! I got your message on Saturday, thanks for the birthday wishes! Sorry I wasn't able to speak with you.
Me: No problem. Hope you had fun on your trip.
Dad: It was good. We caught a lot of fish and had a really nice time.
Me: Well, I was just calling to tell you that we had our BABY this morning.
Dad: WHAT?!?! CONGRATULATIONS! You don't sound like you had a baby this morning. You sound really great =)
Me: Thanks! It was fast...{then I told a very shortened version of the birth story}
Dad: Have you called your Mother yet?
Me: I tried, but they were having phone difficulties, so I haven't gotten a chance to tell her yet.
Dad: Try calling her again and let me know if you don't get a hold of her. When can we come visit?
Me: I will call her again and if you don't hear from me, that means I got a hold of her.
Dad: Sounds good! Thanks for calling!!
So, while I was on the phone with my Dad, my Mom had called and left a message saying she saw I called, but they were having phone problems and to call back when I got a chance. So, I tried calling her again, but still didn't get through. So I figured I'd wait 5-10 minutes before calling again. Finally, I was able to get a hold of her, but (as I figured) my Dad had already called her with the news. Of course, it was still fun to tell her that our daughter was here.
We made plans for them to come visit around 1:30 - 2pm that afternoon. I was beyond excited for them to meet their granddaughter! I was pretty tired, but found it hard to even think about shutting my eyes. Really, you want me to take my eyes off of my daughter so I can get some sleep....NONSENSE!
Kyle was able to call his Dad to tell him the great news and said he'd call his Mom later in the evening (she's a teacher and didn't want to bother her at work). Not long after we made our phone calls, one of the nurses came in to give Dafney her FIRST bath! She did a great job (Dafney, not the nurse...although the nurse did do a good job of bathing her).
Those first few hours, nurses came in every 30 minutes or so to check my blood pressure. They also put some compression things on my legs to help with the blood flow. It was so weird to not be able to feel my legs for the better part of the day. Anyway, it seemed like time stood still while I was waiting for my parents to arrive. I mean, I was so excited to show off our baby!
FINALLY around 2pm, my parents showed up. They brought us some flowers and a balloon and lots of hugs and kisses for baby Dafney! I'm pretty sure they were smitten from the moment they saw her...just like her mommy and daddy!
My parents didn't stay too long so we could get some rest. But, it was fun for them to come visit. The rest of the night went pretty good. She had her first poopy diaper! Poor Kyle had to change it since I wasn't able to get in/out of bed due to the meds from surgery. Let me tell you though, it was fairly amusing to watch him change his first diaper ever! And, it was that tar-y type poop so it took him a while =)
Dafney actually slept pretty well the first night. They had us getting up every 3 hours to nurse. But, in between feedings, she slept pretty well. The next day they had me get out of bed (holy crap was that tiring) to walk around and to get in a shower. The shower felt really good, but I got the chills afterward and felt like crap. So, I laid in bed and tried to get some rest in between feeding Dafney.
By the afternoon I was feeling better and ready to eat some food! That night my parents stopped in for a quick visit and Kyle's sister & brother-in-law, Shannon and Howard came to visit. Though I'm not sure if kids are in their future, they looked like naturals!
That night, we sent Dafney to the nursery (hard to do) for a few hours. We both felt like we really needed some sleep and it would be best if Dafney was in the nursery. They would bring her in for feedings, though. I woke up Thursday morning feeling pretty rested.
Thursday morning, our friend Alyssa and her daughter Eloise came to visit. It was fun to see her and show off Dafney! That night my parents stopped in (they couldn't go a day without seeing her!!) to visit as well as Kyle's sister Michelle and niece Cate. They loved Dafney and we're pretty sure we found ourselves a great little babysitter!
Thursday night is when things went downhill =( The night time nurse came to get Dafney (as they did each night) to weigh her and check her vitals. When she brought her back, they said she was losing a significant amount of weight and was down from 6lbs 2oz to 5lbs 8oz. So she wanted me to try pumping so we could feed her via eyedropper.
She brought in one of their hospital sized pumps and I started pumping. My milk hadn't really come in yet, so I hardly got anything (which was frustrating). Keep in mind it was well past mid-night at this point. So she wanted to me try feeding Dafney and said she'd be back in a while to have me pump again.
By about 6:00am, I hadn't gotten any sleep, so I asked if they would take Dafney to the nursery so I could get some sleep. I said I needed to nurse her at 7am and asked them to bring her back then. I shut my eyes and woke up a bit after 7am. I figured they would be bringing Dafney back shortly, so I decided to surf the web on my iPod.
Around 7:30, I started to get a "bad" feeling. I was going to call the nurse to get Dafney, but my morning nurse had come in to check my vitals. So I asked if she would go get Dafney for me so I could nurse her. About 3 minutes later, there was a knock at our door. It was a Hospital employee, but not a nurse and she wheeled Dafney in and gave her to me. She asked if my Husband was awake and asked if she could speak to us (panic quickly ensued). My Husband jumped up and we sat there waiting to hear what she had to say. She introduced herself as the Director of the floor (I believe) and our conversation went like this:
HER: I need to tell you guys something that happened while your daughter was in the nursery. We brought her there this morning and she was a little fussy so we put her in the swing (I assumed she was going to tell us that Dafney fell out of the swing). A while later, the nurse put her in the bassinet and brought her to the room to have her nursed. Well, the nurse put her in the wrong bassinet and brought her to the WRONG ROOM and that mother breastfed your baby.
US: WHAT?? What does that even mean? I don't understand how this could even happen. {let me just say that each time previous that someone came to take Dafeny, check her vitals, check my vitals, bring me meds, OR bring me food, they ALWAYS asked for the number on my bracelet....it matched Dafney's}.
HER: Well, let me start off by apologizing for what happened. We know it's a lot to take in and we want to help make this as easy for you as possible.
ME THINKING TO MYSELF: What do you mean make this easy...you screwed up royally and I don't understand!
HER: The nurse didn't check to make sure that she brought the baby to the correct room and the other mother didn't notice it wasn't her child until after she was done nursing her. The other mother then alerted the nurse of the mistake. We need to check the other mother for HIV and Hepatitis B, so we are running tests as we speak.
US: WHAT? (now is when I started crying) What do you mean...our child could have been exposed to HIV? What are the odds?
HER: I feel pretty confident that this mother is clean and the odds are very small. She explained how they have breast milk banks so it is/can be safe for you to use another person's breastmilk.
US: So what are the next steps?
HER: Once we get the results back we will let you know. The President of the Hospital and some other folks would like to come talk to you in a bit about the whole situation. Do you have any other questions?
US: No, I guess we'll wait for the results.
HER: Again, I'm very sorry about this situation. If there is anything we can do, or if you have any questions, please feel free to call us.
The second she left, I felt completely nauseous. I didn't know what to do, what to think or where we needed to go from here. I just held Dafney and kissed her about a million times, apologizing for the mistake.
We of course, started thinking the worst. We didn't know what to do. We just couldn't believe this actually happened. It was surreal and so scary. It took about THREE hours for them to get the lab results back. It was probably the longest 3 hours of my life.
Our pediatrician came in and he said he was aware of the situation. He was the one to tell us that the other mother's results came back negative and that he was 100% confident that Dafney was in no danger from this situation. He said that emotionally we would probably have a hard time, but that she was in no harm. Hearing that was the best thing. Because, though I was extremely upset with the Hospital and the nurses, I was happy that my daughter was okay. That was my first and biggest concern!
Right after the pediatrician left, the President of the Hospital, the Director of Disease Control, Director of the Nursery and someone from Public Relations came in to talk with us. They told us how sorry they were and that this would be dealt with immediately. They said that there would be consequences and they would look at their process to see why/where the mistake was
{hey MORON, I can tell you where the mistake was...your lazy freakin' nurse didn't check the baby and mom's wristband...DUH}.
Thankfully for the President, the Ped. had just talked with us; otherwise, I think I would have freaked out on the guy. We expressed that our only concern was for our daughter and that we just couldn't wrap our heads around the fact that this actually happened. We told him how upset we were and how irresponsible we felt that nurse was. We told him that our experience with the Hospital was great until that situation happened and that we would probably not ever work with this Hospital again.
Of course, he was trying to cover his a$$ and gave us some freebies, etc. Kyle and I are not malicious people and we weren't looking for anything other than the health of our daughter, but we took what they gave us and tried to put everything behind us.
I still struggle with the fact that this happened, but I hope that going forward, the Hospital and Nurses do a better job of making sure this doesn't happen ever again! No parent should be put through that.
Because of the said event, we weren't able to be discharged until 4:30pm. I think because of what had happened I was ready to go home and wasn't even scared or nervous about taking Dafeny home. I just wanted out!
Anyway, that was our Hospital stay in a nutshell! Sorry for the looooooonnnnng post!
