August 17th. Doctor's Log.
Carol here. I'm thrilled to let you all know that I'm qualified as a doctor now, due to the fact that I looked like one while wearing scrubs. Plus I know what "multip" means.
They took Jennifer away for surgery prep at 2:15, and I had 20 minutes to get ready. First I put on the scrubs. Then I put on the hat. Then I did my hair. Oops no I guess those last two were reversed. Then I tied my hat. Then I spent 5 minutes trying to tie on my face mask so my glasses wouldn't fog up, or the ties pull at my hair. My booties were cute. I looked the part. Doctor Carol was on the way!
I walked down the hall and sat in a chair outside the OR for 15 minutes, waiting for the team inside to let me know when it was time for me to come in. Jennifer was inside, with a lot of machines that went "ping", "ssss", and "beep". About 20 to 3:00, I was called in. Jennifer was lying on her back, arms spread wide with a green sheet lying a few inches over her face, sort of on an angle. I could see the top of her head really well, her face less well.
There were six people in scrubs standing around Jennifer's belly (one of them with an Elmo scrub hat), and another six people in yellow scrubs standing against the wall, just watching. I thought that was weird. Students observing, perhaps? Plus there was an anaesthesiologist standing near her head, and the midwife hovering by the incubator, and a couple of other nurses or something, floating around the room. Boy was it crowded. I sat on a chair provided near Jennifer's head, and wondered what I was doing there.
There being nothing much else I could do, I started stroking Jennifer's forehead and started singing, "You're going to have a baby, you're going to have a baby," plus whatever else I could think of to cheer Jennifer up. I started doing a pretty good job of doing that, I think, because soon I had her laughing (in the middle of abdominal surgery!) Oops. Too happy. But the midwife (Buffy) said that whatever I was doing, to keep doing it, because it was bringing her heart rate down. Ta daah! My medical expertise saves the day!
I kept trying to peek over the screen to see what they were doing to Jennifer's stomach, but I couldn't see much. Just the occasional wisp of smoke. (?!) Pretty soon, or after an eternity, depending on your point of view, one of the doctors said "It's a boy!" and I peeked again and saw him lift up a purple and white blotchy thing. Oh, I guess that's the baby. It was 2:47pm.
All of a sudden, one of the yellow scrubbed statues at the side of the room lifted her hand and made a "GO" signal, and the yellow scrubs all swooped in around the baby and carted him off to the incubator at the side of the room. He still hadn't made a noise yet, as his lungs were still full of amniotic fluid, which is why they were hurrying, I guess. Babies that are born by cesarean aren't squeezed by the trip down the birth canal, so they need extra help after being born to remove the fluid in their lungs. After a minute, he started to cry. Yay!
They wrapped him up in a couple of blankets and handed him to me. Jennifer could barely see him, and she had to twist her head at an odd angle, but she finally got to see her brand new baby for the first time.
All the yellow scrubs packed up and left, and more people kept disappearing as they sewed Jennifer up. After a while I became aware of someone counting, over and over again. "...8, 9 10. Check. Oh and there's one over there..." I looked over and there were two nurses, one with a clipboard, and I figured out what they were doing -- they were counting instruments and sponges and things! I guess that's a really good thing, but I shudder to think about WHY the hospital needed to start doing that.
About 3:20, Jennifer was all sewn up and ready to be moved to the recovery room. Sage was put in his bassinet, and we all rolled along. (You're not allowed to walk around with him in your arms in the hospital for security reasons - if they see someone holding a baby in the hall they assume you're kidnapping him/her.) I found my way back to the waiting room where Jake was watching tv, and let him know it was a boy, and everybody was ok. So then he followed me back to the recovery room, through the maze of corridors. (I almost didn't get completely lost.)
So, I was hungry at this point, and wanted my snacks. I asked one of the nurses where our bags might be, and she said that housekeeping usually moves them to the room where Jennifer was going to end up. So then I tried to find out what room that was. I wandered around to find the nurses' station, and while I was standing there, a man in scrubs and a nametag came up to me and said "Excuse me, where's the delivery room?" I guess he thought I was a doctor or something. I said, "I may look like I work here, but I don't really. I have no idea." He looked at me like I was nuts. But then again, he was wearing scrubs too, and he didn't know where the delivery room was.
Eventually a nurse told me what room Jennifer was going to be in, and I wandered off to try to find it. I'm not sure why I had such trouble navigating that hospital floor, but I kept getting turned around. I think it's because none of the corridors met at right angles. And I had no idea of what the layout of the floor actually looked like, plus it was weird to shortcut through the operating room (we went out a different door than we came in) so I was terribly confused. So I found the room finally. No bags. Hmmm. Tried to find the nurses' station again. Got lost again. Ended up back in the recovery room, and what do you know, the bags were in a cupboard right there! Holy cow.
Jennifer was really fun to play with while the anaesthesia was wearing off. I started wiggling her feet and poking her and she couldn't tell I was touching her. I started shaking her foot around and thumping it on the bed, and Jennifer said, "What's that noise?" It was really funny to watch her try to wiggle her toes. "Are they moving now? How about now?"
Soon Buffy came over and helped Jennifer start breastfeeding Sage. She was having problems because of the iv in her arm, but he soon latched on. Over the next few days, Sage was supposed to eat at least every 2-3 hours, but she kept running into trouble with his eating. He would wake up hungry and crying, and she would feed him five minutes, and he would go back to sleep. Sleepy baby. Wake up! Eat! We tried stripping him down, making him cold, tickling his feet, but he never seemed to want to nurse very long. He lost about a pound over the next few days, which made the nurses panic a little. The midwives didn't seem too worried, because he wasn't showing any signs of dehyration -- dry skin, wrinked skin that doesn't bounce back flat etc. But "by the book" the hospital wanted to keep Jennifer and Sage there a little longer.
It wasn't until later at home that Jennifer's health nurse said he was probably inflated with water from her iv, since she had had it in for 3+ hours before the surgery, and he probably wasn't 8lbs 8oz to begin with. And then she got the kicker -- nobody at the hospital found it necessary to mention that codeine is expressed in breast milk, and makes babies sleepy and not want to nurse!! WHAT??!! How come nobody told her that in the first place? No wonder the poor kid was falling asleep - he was being drugged every time he ate! When Jennifer found that out, she stopped taking her Tylenol 2's and just went to regular Tylenols. Arg. Stupid hospital. Stupid stupids. Bleah.
/Begin anti-hospital rant/
Goes to show you that some of the so-called "complications" at a hospital birth are created by their very own medical interventions! Burns my butt, nobody thought to tell her about codeine. And another horrible tidbit Jennifer and I overheard from the lady sharing her room - the doctor had asked the lady whether she wanted her baby "in 5 minutes, or in 15 minutes" and of course she said 5. Who wouldn't? I would. The doctor promptly gave her a huge episiotomy without saying another word! O. M. G. I would sue. And I would so want to do violence to that ijit. It wasn't even me, and I got so angry. Poor lady. He should have at least said what he was going to do and given her a choice about it. Like the "choice" Jennifer got with Hayden, whether she wanted to be induced or not. I.E. Yup, I just broke your waters for you. There you go.
/End rant/
Anyway, it all turned out well. Sage is such a cutie. Jennifer had her staples out, and everything's good.
Sage doing well in codeine rehab
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