Madeline Anne Boudreau was born on November 16, 2012 via.  After a 37 hour long induction, I was exhausted.  Our hospital stay was pretty standard.  I was planning on breastfeeding and in the hospital we really didn’t have any issues.  While in the hospital, we had plenty of visitors.  My parents and Noah’s mom were there quite frequently and my sister, brother in law, and brother were all there in the waiting room when Madeline was born.  (A huge shout out to my brother for driving 2 hours each way on November 15 when we thought she’d be born and then again on her actual birthday on November 16)  We had some other visitors pop in as well.

My dad was quite comfortable in our hospital suite.

 

 

Heading home from the hospital.  We look exhausted, but really had no clue what we were in store for.

 

We were discharged from the hospital when Madeline was two days old and when she was four days old we had three appointments (Bella Baby for newborn pictures at the hospital, breastfeeding clinic to see how were doing, and our first well-child visit at our genuinely awesome pediatrician).   Bella baby was a no show so we went straight to the breastfeeding clinic.  They ‘declared’ that my milk was transitioning from colostrum to actual milk, but thought that Madeline was jaundiced.  Jaundice is quite common and they check for this routinely at the hospital.  We knew at the hospital they were a little bit concerns with the jaundice, but it wasn’t a big enough issue to keep us from leaving the hospital.  So, the breastfeeding clinic had a few different parts to our visit.  The first part of our visit at the breastfeeding clinic had be in a bathroom with a nurse removing my pants.  She wanted to check my hemorrhoids.  At that point, I didn’t even know what hemorrhoids were, but I knew I was butt naked with a perfect stranger looking at my butt.  Then, I went into another room where they told me to take off my shirt and nurse my newborn.  After childbirth I really gave up all hopes of modesty.  So I’m sitting there naked with a perfect stranger trying to nurse my four day old daughter.  She nursed fine so I wasn’t really worried.  The nurse at the clinic also agreed that she was nursing fine (her latch looked fine) but she was still jaundiced.  We told them we were heading straight to the pediatrician for a routine well check visit and they agreed to do a bilirubin test and send it to our pediatrician.

 

We got to pediatrician and he explained that Madeline had lost a lot of weight.  I can’t remember the specifics, but it was much more than the typical weight loss.  This combined with a scary bilirubin level was a cause for concern so he wanted us to go to the hospital.  Our pediatrician explained that he thought it was best for us to go to a hospital further away, and closer to Chicago to receive care.  At this time, we really didn’t have an understanding of what was going on.  We went home and packed and before we knew  it, we are at this “super suburban hospital” checking in.  Actually I remember we arrived somewhere in the hospital (I can’t remember the specifics) but it was the wrong place.  Wherever we were made some phone calls and determined that we were supposed to be in the NICU.  What???  I didn’t know we were doing to the NICU.  Keep in mind that I was still recovering from delivering a 8+ pound baby with an episiotomy.   We were directed to the NICU and they immediately brought us to a private “room” and wanted me to nurse Madeline.  They pushed my husband to the corner and then criticized that I was rocking her in the rocking chair.   They didn’t want me to actually rock her.  HELLO, NEW MOM HERE!!

 

We settled into the NICU, but I was able to get a room in the mother-baby unit.  That would be my home base for the next two days.  I met with a lactation consultation and showed them my Medela Freestyle Pump, but they gave me a Symphony pump to use.  We were at the NICU for three days.  At the time, it felt like forever.  I think that because we were discharged and then admitted after being home, it felt more exhausting.  During our stay, I would pump every three hours in my room and either bring the little milk I was making down to the NICU myself or send Noah down.  I had a very difficult time being there.  They ran several tests to make sure there was nothing else going wrong with her.  In hindsight, she was the healthiest baby there in the NICU.  During our stay I never left the hospital.  I made it down to the food court a few times, went to the Starbucks once, and sat outside at the hospital once.  That was it; I was totally committed to being there.

One thing that was quite sad for us was the lack of parents and visitors in the NICU.  Typically there was maybe one other visitor there during our stay.  Our last day there was Thanksgiving and I can say that being in the NICU on that day was a life changing experience for me.  It was extremely sad to see all the babies there alone.  Well, they weren’t all alone.  As I said, typically there was one other visitor, but on this day I remember there being two families visiting.  We were finally discharged in the evening.  I never felt so happy to be home in my whole life.