Thursday, November 20, 2014

My Wife's experience at Primary Children's Hospital Part 1

I asked my wife to guest blog and talk about her experience at the hospital while I was there and also while I was gone. Here is the first part. And as always feel free to share!

My husband has asked me to guest blog on this post and tell about my experience at the hospital when we had Carter.

Day 1
We went to the hospital to start my induction at 1:30 A.M. He was born at 1:51 P.M. that day. He was transported to Primary Children’s Hospital where they would perform his surgery and stay during his recovery.  I was still a patient at The University Of Utah Hospital so they would come and check my vitals every hour and roll out my tummy and check my uterus. I was still hooked up to an IV and my husband had to push me in a wheel chair over to the other hospital every time I wanted to see my baby.  Our hospitals are joined together by a sky bridge so it took about 15 minutes to get from my room to my babies room. This made it hard to be able to go see my baby.  My baby couldn't eat anything that whole night because he would be having his surgery first thing the next morning. He was hooked up to an IV, and monitors that were watching his blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen. He had a light bed that would help him hold his heat.

Day 2
We were able to walk him down to his surgery and talk to his surgical team they would call and update us on his surgery, when they made the incision and every hour and a half. After the surgery was over our neurosurgeon came and talked to us in my room and told us that he was in recovery and that they would call us when we could come visit him.  After his surgery he was still hooked up to all his previous things and now had a Foley catheter as well.  I was able to hold him for the first time. It was always hard to get him in and out of his bed with him being hooked up to everything and he also had to lay flat and couldn't be on his back, we always had a nurse help us get him in and out of his bed.  I was able to nurse him for the first time that day. I was still a patient at the other hospital so we were only able to spend a couple hours a time with him because I had to go back to my room for them to check me. This made it hard to get the skin to skin contact and to nurse and get him to latch on because I just wasn't there to be able to hold him. 

Day 3

I was discharged at 12:00 P.M. and was able to just be with my baby for as long as I wanted!  This was probably the hardest day.  My husband had to head back home where we live 3 hours away so I would not see him until our son was discharged from the hospital and able to go home.  My two other children had spent the day with us and said goodbye to their dad and it was time for them to go home for the night.  I was spending the night in the hospital with my son so we could get him to nurse.  My other kids were very emotional having to say goodbye to their dad and then saying goodbye to me.  I was so overwhelmed with my husband leaving and my girls crying because they wanted me and my baby not latching on and nursing I had a full on breakdown.  The nurse told me to go get some dinner and she would feed him a bottle and we would try and nurse when he was ready to eat again.  It did help to get out of the room and just have some alone time to myself but I was still very emotional the rest of the day.  My nurse was amazing that night she got up every two hours and would try and get him to latch on.  It usually took us 15 minutes she would have to get some milk out in a tube and just put that on me until he would finally start sucking and eating on his own.  

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