2:00am: The pain medications that were administered with the spinal must have worn off, because out of nowhere I was in a lot of pain. So much pain that I cried, except I couldn’t really cry, because the heavier and more rapid breathing made the pain worse. Danieled helped to calm me down, and I called my nurse. I was given a dose of percocet, along with instructions to request percocet every four hours, and in between the four hours to take a double dose of ibuprofen.
5:30am: The night-shift nurse woke me up to do my vitals. Unfortunately, her blood pressure machine wasn’t working properly, so she said she’d be back soon with another one.
6:00am: A phebotomist came in to get blood from me (what is it about 6:00am blood taking? This happened after I had Alyssa!), but couldn’t find a decent vein.
6:30am: Another nurse came in with a working blood pressure machine.
6:40am: In comes a nurse with Ryan (they kept him in the nursery overnight) and my morning dose of percocet.
8:00am: My morning nurse introduces herself, then practically throws me out of bed. She’s insistent on me having my catheter out right this moment. She also wants to push solid foods, until I fill her in on how sick I was from the medicine on Wednesday and thus was behind in my post-surgery “progress”. She backs off and orders some plain chicken broth, then helps me get out of bed to walk to the bathroom and back again, and then removes the catheter (ouch!). I’m torn: on one hand, it’s nice to have the tube out, but on the other hand it means dealing with a lot of pain every time I have to pee, since it means getting out of bed (the worst part – all of the twisting!) and getting to the bathroom and back again.
A lactation consultant came in around 11:30am to work with Ryan and I. We went over some sucking-teaching techniques, and she left us with extra pillows, booklets, a Medela Symphony breastpump and some small-sized nipple shields. If I can get Ryan to latch and actually suck, great. If not, keep trying for about fifteen minutes, then switch to syringe feeding.
The nurses and nursery employees are wonderful: there are specific instructions on Ryan’s crib card and in his charts to use syringes only, and so far the instructions have been honored time and again. A feeding syringe is kept in his bassinet, two spares in a drawer below the bassinet, and I have two in my room.
Daniel leaves us to head to work around 2:30pm, but surprises me by dropping back in around 5:00pm: the store manager decided to give him the evening off to spend with Ryan and I. Instead, he collected the keys to the house from my mom (the development manager gave them to my mothe to pass onto us) and heads to the store to pick up painting supplies so he can get our bedroom and Alyssa’s bedroom painted.
I take a few cat naps throughout the afternoon and later in the evening, but I’m wide awake when Daniel comes back from working on the house. We watch some TV, he feeds Ryan while I pump, and we then take a painful stroll around the nursery unit. While we’re “out and about” we head over to the Welcome Newborn unit to activate our welcomenewborn.com website. By now it’s after 2:00am, so it’s off to bed for all of us.
Page last updated on 10/03/2006.
Hello! I'm Jenn, and this is Jenn.nu, my personal blog. I'm 27 years 
