Read part 1 & part 2 first.
Soon after our first few wonderful hours together, Brody was off to the nursery to get examined, poked, measured and watched by daddy, who was standing with a camera in hand eyeing Brody and his nurse's every move; he wasn't going to leave his side any time soon.
Meanwhile back in L&D, I was getting the treatment--getting cleaned up via sponge-bath which made me feel much better despite still experiencing the migraine. Before I realized it, it was midnight and I was beyond delirious.
I had a new visitor--my dear friend Cami. She arrived just after her shift ended at work--Dodie's Greenville--, and bumped into Klay at the nursery.
"Brody's so cute," she said as she sat down and asked how I felt. The light was dim in the room to help ease with the sensitivity to light from the gruesome headache. Honestly, I don't really remember much of our conversation because I was so exhausted and OUT OF IT. I remember talking, though it could have been about politics, baby Jesus, who knows?
After Cami left, my nurses prepped me to move to a room upstairs. Lauren and Brandy, my two nurses of the day, were truly spectacular. I'd gotten so attached to them I was crazy sad to move upstairs. I felt like they were sending me off into the wilderness to fend for myself. It was almost as if they were my parents sending me to live in a new home with a new family. At least that's how I felt. They guided me through the most incredible, scary, up and down rollercoaster ride of my life and I didn't want to let them go. Through my labor I discovered one was from Forney and even got her contact info to meet up. I was attached.
But it was time for me to take my leap, start walking on my own and for them to let go of me, wave goodbye and let me figure this thing out called motherhood. But I was so afraid that my next nurses wouldn't take as good of care of me as they did. But if they were so great, surely the hospital has more great nurses right? WRONG.
After our move to our newest digs, the nurses brought me my baby boy. I was so eager to hold him despite my exhaustion. I didn't mind feeding him, I was just happy he was with me; I didn't want him out of my sight.I looked back at Lauren as I lay on the portable hospital bed, grabbed her hand, and shifted my focus to Klay who was walked beside us. Whisked me out of L&D, we were on the move, I closed my eyes opening them to only see glimpses of walls and florescent lights that skated above me.
While I was holding Brody once more, I felt my nausea resurface. Looking at the new night nurse in my room, I said "Get me something I'm about to get sick. I'm about to sick. Take him, take him." She just stood there looking at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Maybe I was? Thankfully, Klay stood up took Brody from me and handed me a hospital barf bag. Why they make those bags so small?!?
After getting sick again for the millionth time, I started to dose. Every three or so hours people would come check my BP. Then, my nurse came in and said my oxygen levels were low. Down in L&D, they'd put this thing on my finger which is supposed to monitor my oxygen levels. Well prior to delivery, Brandy (my L&D nurse) had trouble getting a good read on my finger. I'd gotten the shellac or gel nail polish (navy blue) and it wasn't reading through my nail. So, after trying it on my toe (which had gray polish), and that didn't work, they moved the monitor to my ear. When we got upstairs, they placed it back on my finger.
I told the new nurses this a thousand times, but they didn't listen, they continued to ignore me. I kept dosing off intermittently between nurses shuffling in and out of this tiny room.
Around 4 a.m., a specialist came in to check on me. I told him through the oxygen mask--feeling sort of Darth Vadarish--that'd I said 500 times to check it somewhere else but no one would listen. He simply took the clamp, opened it and turned it sideways so it was on my skin rather than the nail, and voila! it was normal. Thankfully that was the end of that.
We were eventually moved to a third room later that morning. Brody's tests were coming back normal with the exception of one--his jaundice test. With rising jaundice levels higher than normal, we were going to keep good track of it, which meant more pokes and blood test on this heel of his foot.
Despite everything, he seemed to be taking to my breast well and everyone told me I was doing a great job breastfeeding. The lactation nurse even told me my milk was coming in. I was hopeful. I had this dream that I would be the mom that traveled everywhere with her kid in a baby bjorn, popping out the boobie when he got hungry like his very own milk vending machine. I was going to be the source of his food. It was my responsibility to be his one-stop shop for the goods. That was me, the milk-making mommy machine. I could see it.
What an idiot, I was...
