Recoverwatch: days 1 and 2

So when we last left our heroes, they were starting to recover and doing quite well, individually. The next hurdle to get over was to get Jessie actually to see her baby. She had done all the work but only caught a few glimpses of Tyler while under the effects of some seriously groggy painkillers. This is thursday morning at this point, and Jess was coming down off the drugs and starting to be able to move around. We made a big production of her first standing up and going to the bathroom to do some checking on her, but after all that exertion, her fever caught back up with her again and they wanted to make sure it went down before they let her go see him.

I, lucky enough, got to go see him whenever I wanted. The nurses had been giving him formula because Jess wasn’t going to be able to feed him, so most times I went in to see him, he was sleeping and very cute and happy. I spent most of my time with Jess, though, she could barely move and really needed help with everything, like getting ice chips and juices as her intestines started to work again.

So Jess got some tylenol and that got her fever down by around three in the afternoon, and she was able to move around, and so we finally got to take Jess into the nursery, nearly a full day after the actual birth took place. There were some tears. I got video. It was a nice, nice moment.

After that, we did our best to get Jessie back into a feeding schedule with Tyler, but, unfortunately, he’d already gotten used to bottles, formula, and large volumes, as opposed to the nipples and ‘just a few drops’ you get from regular breast feeding before the milk comes in (takes 3 or 4 days). We went in for a few feedings and managed, just barely, to get him to latch on to Jessie and feed formula through a tiny tube, but it was a lot of work every time. He’d gotten spoiled by the formula and he’s been having trouble getting used to the breast ever since. We have a lot of patience to give, and a lot of support here at the hospital, so we’ve been doing little bits here and there to get better, but it’s still a chore. Still, given the choice between potential life-threatening infection and hard to breast-feed, I think I’ll take the latter.

So a couple of rough breast-feeding sessions later, Jess was required by the doctors to try and pee. This involved a lot of drinking of water, and then painful walking over to the toilet. I was told several times that my walking assistance made me the best husband in the world. Also, I’m really good at putting pillows behind her back because I can just grab her arm and lift her up, bodily. Muscles!

Anyway, we ended up with this marathon session where Jess had to stand and walk to the toilet (a serious challenge when your painkillers are starting to wear off) and tried to pee, but failed. Then we put her in a wheelchair and took her over for another rough breast feeding session, then we came back, got on the toilet and tried, and succeeded to pee, which took a lot of patience and some discomfort. And *then* Jess needed to take a shower (nurses orders) to clean herself off and take off the outer dressing for her stitches. That wasn’t fun either. And then after all of that, including some sharp pains in her side while trying to shower, she finally got to lay down on the bed and get arranged with all her pillows and all her blankets, and the nurse came in to give her her next dose of painkillers. Jess made one more trip to the bathroom, with a little less pain, and then really hunkered down in the bed. Pillows, blankets, warmth, eye shield, everything. An hour later when the nurse came in to check on how the painkillers were looking, she just peeked in the door and we both looked over to see Jessie *totally* passed out. We just nodded at each other and let her sleep.

So yesterday ‘ended’ about 1 in the morning when we decided to catch some sleep in between the nurses who came in to check on Jessie every hour or so. It’s imperfect, but I’ll be honest, *so far* it’s not so bad. I seem to get enough sleep to remain functional and active, if not capable of doing complex calculus, during the day. We’ll see if it lasts.

We woke up several times, but the last time was at about 7 or so, and mom Swanson brought us breakfast. We missed Tyler’s morning feeding but before too long he got discharged out of the NICU and is currently in the room with us. I’m sure you’re all thinking that this means there should be an orgy of skype calls and pictures, but, I don’t know if you know this, but we’re *busy*. Jessie is the machine that will turn food (and a lot of hopefully-supurfluous antibiotics) into milk, eventually. I’m in charge of everything else. Helping Jessie move around, cleaning breast pumps and checking diapers and swaddling and helping Tyler relax and everything.

Tyler, as a roomate, is pretty good. He’s incredibly easy to calm down. He gets worked up pretty easily, but a simple shushing and a little rocking has knocked him out (or dead to sleep) pretty much every time. The breast feeding has been a challenge, but we’re getting better at it, and the more we do it, the more Tyler will get used to it.

Fun breastfeeding story: Our first time trying to feed tyler on our own. It took some doing, but we eventually got him latched on, though a lot of superfluous equipment is required. He was munching away, and every once in a while we shake him to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep (he does sleep really easily). Usually I just start moving his arms and he’ll flex his small but manly little baby muscles and wake up and keep feeding. Well last time we would wake him up to make sure he was still eating, and it worked for a while, until he was done, and I mean *done*. I was moving his arms and his legs and his everything and the poor kid had just gone *limp*. Adorable.

This paragraph comes a little later, we’ve decided to shift our philosophy on feeding Tyler: we’re going to keep him on bottle formula until Jessie’s milk comes in and *then* we’ll either get him on breast milk in bottle or breast form. Trying to get all the gear set up to breastfeed him with formula is too dicy and finicky, especially when he wakes up and is already hungry and cranky. We do the best we can.

Anyway, there’s been other little steps here and there. We’ve gotten Tyler pretty well settled in and he’s quite comfortable, I’m getting better at reading his cues and figuring out his natural rhythm. When he wants to sleep, when he wants to eat...when he doesn’t want anything and I’m free to stare into his adorable little eyes and tell him all about the great big, wild world out there that we’ll be showing him soon (I’m trying to get an early start on english. :) Jess is doing okay, though her temperature is up again. We’d normally be out for sure tomorrow, sometime, but they like you to be fever-free for 24 hours before they let you go, so we may be here a little past saturday, potentially.

I went out to get hamburgers and shakes for dinner. Yum.

-N