Bed and Breakfast Hospital Style

The start of our little holiday away from the “real world” began when my beautiful little Ri-Ri was placed on my chest.  What an experience.  As I was gathering my thoughts about how so many things could have gone wrong with having her deliver herself – her cord strangling her or her drowning in the fluid because we didn’t open the blanket to check what was up etc. – in runs Dumbrill (our gyne).  Typical!  He missed the first birth by having the audacity to go on holiday as I reached 40 weeks and now he missed this one too!  What was I paying the dude for anyway?!  He delivered the placenta (ooooo so difficult!…) and then stitched me up – having Riya deliver herself meant that things that could have been avoided, weren’t…

While this was happening Riya was being placed in the incubator to heat up a bit and Seth was making calls – he called my mom to let her know Riya was at last here and when she was told the name, she said “Oh no man”.   Ha ha.  I know it’s different, but why be a drone.  Just for your info, it’s pronounced RI YAH – like wire and not like Mia.  It’s Indian for singer or flower.

Once Dumbrill left, Riya was brought to me to latch on.  This was the part that I was secretly dreading, as Kyla and I fought for the whole 3 days in hospital.  To my complete shock, she latched on without a second of hesitation – FREAKING AWESOME!  We had a good first session and then she was taken to the nursery (closely followed by her proud Dada) to be weighed and measured while I was cleaned up and placed on my ward bed.

This in itself was another awkward experience that you don’t even think of.  I am completely lame from my hips down to my toes, a proper dead weight.  Then I have to pull myself up and help the 3 (yes 3) nurses to get my partially covered self onto the new bed.  As if the actual birth didn’t scar people for life.  Bless those nurses who look after people and are able to deal with that everyday – I would have a very hard time.

I was then wheeled into my old room – where a new resident had been set up too.  She was a real trooper.  Gave birth with no drugs in 30 minutes.  I heard her screaming…  Crazy…  I have already forgotten her name, but she was lovely and helped me out with some Lansinoh when I was in desperate need.

When we were all settled in our little space, people arrived to say hello.  Seth’s parents, Romy, my Mom, Shane, Zoe & Corne.  There was an issue with the silly visiting times, all the nurses said that 7-8pm was for anyone, but they clearly had not told the security guard…  A key person to be informed I would think, but clearly not.  Once the peeps had left and it was just Shane and Mom left, Riya had a bit of a vomiting episode (it came out her nose!).  I freaked – this never happened with Kyla!  Seth seemed more calm, but we called the nurse anyway.

In comes Sister Christa.  She tells us that although this is new and scary for us, she has done this many times.  And the children say thank you Christa and she just loves her job.  I can’t really get the effect of how she said it or how many times she said that she loves her job – it was a had to be there thing.  But know this… She really loved her job…  She took Riya to wash out her nose and so that I could have my tea.  She mentioned that if it didn’t stop, we might have to wash out her stomach.  Ri-Ri could have swallowed the fluid that her head was sitting in while she was waiting for us to realise that she was in the world already.  But she also reassured us that “these things happen in 3’s” and it should be ok.  Although I am kind of ripping her off here, she was totally right.  No need for a stomach washing, YIPPEE! (I can’t even begin to think about how that’s done or how my poor baby would take it).

The rest of the night, day and night thereafter is a blur of pins and needles as the effects wore off, feeding every 3-4 hours, being used as a pacifier, trying to get Riya onto a dummy, Seth sitting with me, changing nappies, checks by the new Pead Dr Wicht, blood pressure checks, temperature checks, deep short sleeps, being woken up at FIVE am with tea, hospital food, flipping sore nipples, nipple cream, lazer treatment and all this while being reminded that Sister Christa just loves her job, just loves her job, just loves her job…  All in all though, it was much better this time.  I was walking around and feeling “great” the very next day – obviously not loosing that much blood this time around really made a difference.  The only pain was a bit of bruising where my epidural was put in  and my stitches, but that all cleared when I had some Miprodol.

Big sister came to visit the first morning and wanted nothing to do with me.  Very moody and restless, she obviously couldn’t understand why Mama wasn’t at home and why she was in this place with a new baby and a “flat” tummy.

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On the last day in hospital Riya had her first injection (BCG) which her Dada was there for.  At the weigh she had only lost 110 grams of her birth weight, which is pretty good as the norm is around 10%.  She also had her first bath given to her by one of the nurses as we needed a bit of a refresher course (yes, even though it was only a year later – you forget these things).

Once Ri-Ri was clean and even more beautiful we signed out of the hospital and were escorted to our car.  We wrapped and buckled our bundle into her car seat and then we left our little peaceful environment to fend for ourselves in the big wide world.