OMG. I really can’t believe what a nightmare this has become. Because Sam might have group b strep, we’ve had to take her to the ER. We had to take her in only a few hours after we brought her home. (It’s a half hour drive.) We had to take her in again this morning. We did. While we were there, the head nurse from “Special Delivery” came by. She said she thought it was stupid for dead-tired parents to drive a half an hour in each direction, and take a 3 to 4 day old, undersized baby into an emergency waiting room full of sick people twice a day. We whole-heartedly agreed with that assessment. The head nurse called the head of the pediatric practice to get Sam a 24-hour dose of antibiotics so that we would only need to come in once per day. That worked great, and since we already had a 1:00 appointment for tomorrow with the Pediatrician, we’d just go in a little before that and only make one trip down tomorrow.
OK, I really should be sleeping. But instead, I’m putting pictures up. Enjoy!
Mom-mom came today and she brought a treasure trove of outfits. Mostly from herself and grandaddy, but also from other Philadelphia area relatives. I’m astonished at how much pink is suddenly in our house. One of the nice side effects of not having known the gender pre-birth is the neutral colors and style. But pink and dresses now abound. Not that she doesn’t look cute as a button in a pink dress, but oh how early the gender stereotyping begins!
We made it home. I was pleased. It was starting to feel manageable. I was even pretty close to being in a situation where I could upload some pictures when the midwife called and said that the placental culture was back and it had tested positive for group B Strep. A little later, a nurse from Nason special delivery calls. The pediatrician is worried that Sam might have it too, so they need to draw blood to check that, but the test takes 48 hours, so she needs to get antibiotic shots every 12 hours between now and the return of the test results. And, while they’re drawing blood, they may as well do some other tests I’ve already lost track of. So, a little over 3 hours after we got home from the hospital, we head back there. Sam get blood drawn from each arm, and because she’s so small, they have to divide the antibiotic in half and put half in each thigh. On day 3 of life, she’s been stuck in 4 different places, and we can’t even explain to her why we are letting people hurt her like that. How frustrating!
Friday evening 2 of us went into the hospital. This evening, 3 of us have come home. I can’t describe (at least right now) how amazing it is. (And how I tear up at just about everything.) I’m just overjoyed to have Sam in our lives.
Sam will probably cringe and grimace when she gets old enough to read this and she sees the details I’m sharing about her first days. But that’s one of the key roles of parents-to embarass us beyond belief.
Today’s embarassing tale is about urine. We were worried that she simply wasn’t doing it. We change (or at least inspect) diapers with every feeding. We’ve seen a couple of really good poops, but no pee. We report this with increasing concern to the nurse(s) on duty. Finally, today we talk about it with the pediatrician while the shift-leader nurse is here and she goes back to check records, because she thought they would have mentioned something like that during the shift change. It turns out that Sam had peed twice, just never while in our care. She’d peed once when they had her back for some tests, and again this morning when we gave her up to nurse care to try to get a short rest between feedings. That said, she’s not been a cranky baby at all. Almost all the time we can identify the cause of the distress pretty quickly and take care of it. For comforting, she responds well to both of us.
The first day of life has been a little rough. Mom and dad already need to be getting more sleep than they are. Breastfeeding didn’t start easily despite a pretty good understanding of how it’s “supposed” to go. Recently, dad’s been feeding Sam a special high-calorie formula from a small tube run along his pinkie finger. All sorts of pictures are being taken. Several of which are appropriate for a broader audience and so will find their way here or at least in the gallery, but not until all three of us come home (expected to be Tuesday morning.) Things still feel a little touch-and-go despite the “these things are pretty hard to break” talk from the CNM that delivered Sam for us. I’m looking forward to when I feel there’s a greater margin, and I don’t feel I have to watch each breath to make sure it’s followed by the next one, and each suck to make sure bubbles appear in the little formula pouch pinned to my shirt, to when I’m confident both in the diaper changing and that Sam’s doing an appropriate number of things in each diaper. I don’t know whether that’s a change to expect in her, or in me. Probably both.
Samantha Fay Capehart was born this morning at 12:50 AM. She weighed 5 lbs, 4 oz and was 17 inches long. Mom and baby are well.
Phew. The “official” mail will come out tomorrow (well, later today), but I thought a quick note here would be nice. Our baby girl arrived just before 1:00 AM on Sunday, Oct. 2. She’s a small one – I don’t have the length yet, Ca thinks she heard 17 inches – but she’s 5 pounds 4 ounces, we got to see that measurement take place. They were a bit worried about her right after birth, so they whisked her away for a while. I followed but was blocked at the nursery door ostensibly for sterility reasons, but probably more because they just didn’t want me hovering while they did their job. I certainly don’t blame them for that, but I was a nervous wreck standing out in the hallway trying to breathe my way calm. It was easier to coach Carolyn to do than to do myself-and that was just nerves!
7:00 water broken by midwife with big, blue, plastic hook. Mom and dad quite emotional.
