Part 2

Well, after Blakely was born, things went (I guess) as normal.  Not a lot of sleeping...lot's of holding and staring.  I knew I should be sleeping- and everyone kept telling me so, but I was just too excited to go to sleep.  She was so tiny it was scary.  I'd cry every time I or the nurses changed her diaper cause you could really appreciate how skinny she was. 

Nursing was hard from the get-go.  She was so small, and since she was early, she wasn't strong enough to suck well.  Luckily, for some reason, I was the queen of milk and I was able to pump what the nurses and doctors acted like was record breaking amounts of colostrum.  After the first day of not eating, and losing a little bit of weight she had to get a feeding tube put in.  It was so sad and pathetic looking.  It was through her nose, and taped to her cheek.  They would let me attempt to feed her until she or I was in tears, then they would feed her formula or pumped colostrum through her tube.  Then an hour or two later they would actually pull it all out of her stomach to see how much she was actually digesting.  It was pretty crazy.  It always seemed like surely it hurt, but they assured me it didn't hurt her at all.  Everything was pretty much a blur that second day...

That evening my parents brought us up some food, and Stephen's parents got in town and came to see Blakely for a little while.  Stephen ate some pizza which would prove to possibly be the worst decision ever.  Around 9pm, he told me to invite some friends up to see her- which I thought was odd, but I did it anyway since I was dying to see people.  My friends Kristyn and Claire came, and Stephen was just sortof gone most of the time- but I wasn't paying too much attention.  Then my friends left, and Stephen said he had been feeling bad for a while, and since it was the end of the year, we had already met our insurance deductible he was just going to go down to the ER downstairs and see if they could give him something to feel better.  It seemed logical to me- (I'm not sure why...) so I wasn't worried.  Then a few minutes later, my mom and dad showed up- it's around 11pm.  I thought this was very strange since my mom goes to bed at like 8:30.  Little did I know, Stephen had been dying for quite a while, and actually needed to go to the ER, he just didn't want me to worry.  Around 3am, I knew it was bad when the nurses were all talking about the "pitiful" looking husband puking his guts out down in the ER.  I panicked of course and thus began the uncontrolable crying.  I was already a basketcase thanks to post-pardom hormones and an underweight baby, and this did not help.  The nurse told me to go downstairs to check on Stephen if it would make me feel better.  So I went down to the ER with my hands covering my mouth the whole time.  As soon as I walked through the doors I could hear Stephen death barfing down the hall.  There is no other way to describe it except that it literally sounds like someone is dying.  Other ER patients were sticking their heads out their doors to see where the death vomit was coming from.  I followed the noise and found him looking green and not making much sense between barfs.  Literally, could. not. stop. crying.  I just sobbed and sobbed and he kept trying to get me away from him for fear that I'd catch whatever bug he had.  I went back up after a few minutes cause I knew I needed to stay away, and then I just cried for the rest of the night.  He spent the next several hours throwing up, got several  bags of IV fluids and lots of drugs, and finally got to go to his parent's hotel around 6am.  He was then quaranteened for the next couple of days incase he had a virus and not just food poisoning. 

So here I was, alone in the hospital with Blakely weighing just over 4lbs at this point, not eating, with a feeding tube.  Thank goodness for my mom staying with me.  Oh, and for some reason my blood pressure went way up and we just couldn't seem to get it to come down.  This actually sortof ended up being a good thing.  My doctor said he was going to keep me another night- which was great cause B wasn't going anywhere until they could take the tube out and she could eat on her own.  So luckily I didn't have to go home without my baby- I can't even imagine how terrible that would have been.  We had lots of nurses and doctors preparing us for the worst- telling us it could be several days or weeks until she could go home.  It was so scary and I felt very alone since I couldn't even really talk to Stephen on the phone about it cause he was practically dead. 

I had nurses telling me to give B a pacifier to help her practice sucking, I had nurses telling me to feed her formula from a bottle, I had one lovely nurse that told me that after I gave her a bottle, that I had "sabatoged breastfeeding" for my daughter.  At this point, my eyes were nearly swollen shut.  I met several times with the lactation consultant, and got so many different pieces of advice, and had so many people trying to help me nurse I thought I'd go crazy. 

Finally I called my pediatrician (since she was in Lawrence she couldn't be my ped at the hospital) and I was barely understandable in the message.  I decided that whatever advice she gave me I was going to take.  I told her that I wanted to nurse, but that the most important thing to me was that B grew and was healthy.  I told her I wanted to do whatever was going to get me and Blakely home the fastest.  So she told me to take the feeding tube out and basically force B to eat however she could.  I attempted nursing each time, and then offered her a bottle afterward and pumped like crazy.  That day she stopped losing weight (day 3!) and started gaining!  By the end of that day, she was nursing every 3 hours with the help of a nipple shield.  The next morning we were discharged. 

Stephen stayed in the basement, and I'd stand at the top of the stairs to show him Blakely every couple of hours.  My mom would make him food and leave it on the stairs for him to come get.  The doc said he had to be fever and diahrrea free for at least 24 hours before he could come in contact with either of us.  Finally, Sunday night, he came up and hung out in the living room for a couple of hours.