In January, I posted my birth story in a series of three posts. In case you haven’t had a chance to read it, I’ll include the links at the bottom of this post. At the end of part three, I was in a wheelchair on my way to the room where we would be for the remainder of our hospital stay. By that point, Little Buddy was two hours old, and I had been in the hospital for over 24 hours.
I spent the rest of that day (day two of our hospital stay) taking short naps, while Mr. Handsome slept on the couch and Little Buddy slept in his bassinet. From the get-go, our baby had a difficult time nursing. The hospital had wonderful lactation consultants available around the clock, which was a huge help. When Little Buddy was too fussy to breastfeed, they helped me pump and feed him with a plastic syringe. I was shocked to learn that when babies are born, they can only drink a few milliliters of milk, but their stomach capacity grows each day.
My mother-in-law was around for the five days and four nights that we were in the hospital. She spent the nights on my brother-in-law’s couch and the days with us. I was exhausted, but I didn’t really know it because I was on such an adrenaline high. The maternity ward nurses were all so kind and down-to-Earth, and they all wore hot pink scrubs, which made the whole experience of having a baby feel even more “feminine” than it already was….