In Bed at the Hospital, Part 2. 1-21-12

So I dug in. I can be a squeaky wheel. As it turns out, the midwives were in a state of tumult. Labor and Delivery was at capacity, and 1 of the midwives left the practice, 1 was incapacitated with a broken leg, and the rest were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. There was an OB assigned to me that I never saw. I called the midwives hoping that they could help me. Turns out the OB was covering, and I put in a call. He wasn’t thrilled to see me, but after talking a few minutes, he mellowed and got me what I needed. I would be officially checking out that evening, and in the meantime, I was getting my bases covered.

And the latch. In a last ditch effort, I made a call to the nurses’ station and requested a lactation consultant. The nurse who came in was fairly young and seemed green. I thought, “Here we go: big waste of time.” She said she wasn’t one of the main consultants, that they were there on weekdays, but she offered to help. I figured, “What do I have to lose? At least she’s trying to be helpful.” And within a half hour, Boop was feeding away. Relief.

And the “Bili Bassinette.“ No more pacifiers until much, much later. So now how do I keep Boop calm and under the lights for her bilirubin levels? Well, I figured, it was going to be a long night. I planned to give up on sleep. When Boop needed me, I’d be there. I wasn’t going to make her ‘cry it out.’ Boop is only a couple of days old. She’s not trying to manipulate. There’s something about this experience that she doesn’t like. If it’s that she is afraid of being alone, one night’s sleep isn’t going to kill me.  So, I asked my ‘green’ nurse to help get Boop into the light box, and we got Boop somewhat settled. My target was 45 min-1 hr at a stretch and to get her settled in 15 min. Boop and I did pretty good with that. I got 1.5 hrs of sleep. It was a very long night, but I figured we would check out the next morning. I would sleep then.

And I talked to the pediatrician. She seemed reasonable enough, but I was getting the sense that I wouldn’t be leaving that day. There’s a 12 hr delay between bilirubin therapy and a decrease in levels of bilirubin. So the precious night’s work wouldn’t help much in her immediate bilirubin levels.