6-4 morning update

It's been a crazy morning, but things are good.

Let me see if I can put this all together in a sensible fashion.

Okay.. We'll start with a question I'm getting a lot- How is MY health?
I'm sorry for not commenting on it.. it's just not the top most thing on my mind.

I'm........okay. Not great, really. My blood pressure just flat refused to cooperate. It was actually almost normal once yesterday and I thought maybe the meds has done something, but this morning, it was back up to 157/100. *gulp* Hmmph. I'm waiting to see what the doctor has to say about that when she does her rounds. Whenever THAT might be.

Physically.. I'm sore. I'm not sure if I mentioned it or how in depth- but I had a classic C-section to have Robbie. These days, a C Section is a laproscopic surgery. They make a small incision in your lower belly, a small incision in your uterus and sort of manipulate the baby out. Well, that would have been far too much stress on my tiny one.

So I had the old fashioned kind. I have an incision essentially from hip bone to hip bone low on my pelvis (I think I counted 20 staples this morning) and then another incision that goes straight up and down into my uterus. Of course, I can't SEE the incision in my uterus, but I can clearly see where it is because I have a giant bruise where it is.

I mention all of this to say that basically- I'm pretty darned sore. I had a continuous epidural for a day or so past my delivery, but since then, I'm on percocet & motrin. I actually HATE the percocet. I've never been a big fan of narcotics anyway. The percs make my head tingle and make me super sleepy.

Add drugged up sleepy to the fact that I'm up every 3 hours to pump the boobs, still kind of puny from the Pre-E, undergoing a just tiny amount of emotional stress.. and well.. you can imagine.

But I'm okay. All of that pretty much pales in comparison to worrying about my tiny son. The nurses at the hospital seem to think I'm insane and keep telling me to rest. David and I actually sort of had an argument last night about whether or not I should go back to sleep after pumping or go to the NICU (I won.) but I'm also not going crazy. I spend any time not in the NICU with my feet up and try to nap when I can.

Okay.. so.. the point of getting all of that..
Last night, I was tired. Really tired. About 10:30 I just had to have a nap. I needed to pump at 12 and David woke me up to do so. Of course, I wanted to go down to see Robbie once more before I really turned in. That lead to the argument. He thought I should just sleep. We compromised and made it a quick visit.

So I slept from about 1 until I had to pump again at 3. But by then, I was pretty wide awake.
So by 7:00 this morning, I had a list of things to accomplish today and was waiting for offices to open.

I made my usual 4am call to the NICU to see how Robbie was doing and he was doing well. They had dropped his oxygen again, he'd had another uneventful feeding and had a few tests prepared for the day.

By 9:00:

I had an appointment with the NICU lactation consultants (Leftie was getting cranky!)

I'd called the social security administration and made an appointment there. A social worker came by to speak with us yesterday and informed us that preemies weighing less than 2lb 10 oz automatically get SSI while they are in the hospital- regardless of income. I have no idea how much money it is, but even if it's 50 bucks, that's gas to drive back and forth to the hospital to visit.

Of course, as ANY phone call the gov't is, it was frustrating. The lady I reached spoke only broken English and it seems I was more informed than her. After she took my information (Birth date, birth weight, income) she informed me that we made "a lot" of money and would never qualify. (I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt on the "a lot" thing. I assume she means relative to who she normally talks to. We're hardly rich.) I told her that I was told that income was not a factor as long as he was in the hospital.
Her response? "Oh? He's still in the hospital?" Um. Yeah, lady. I have my 1 lb 7 oz, 4 day old son AT HOME. WTF?? Whatever.
We have the appointment set up.

That meant I had to talk to the social worker because she actually arranges for the information to go from the docs to the SSA so it can be set up. That's done as well.

I turned in my application for Robbie's birth certificate.

And I got about 17 visitors. Mostly nurses etc because I'm pretty sure today is going to be kick-me-out-of-the-hospital day and they're all tidying their business as well. Plus the aforementioned lacation people came to fix ol' leftie up. (Went up TWO sizes of cones. No wonder!)

A funny tidbit about the LC. I had spoken to one of them on Saturday just a few hours after Robbie was born. I have a hazy, magnesium blurred recollection of her coming by, but not much else. I found some paperwork this morning from her that I didn't remember getting, but didn't think much of it. Well, she was one of the people this morning and she mentioned something about when she saw me on Sunday. I was confused. Sunday?
Yeah. Apparently she came to see me on Sunday as well. I have ZERO recollection of that. Absolutely none. That magnesium is some weird crap, man.


David had to go to work today, of all things. I won't even start on how crappy I think it is, but his boss basically needs a report done and just can't live w/o David today. So he had to go in. He should HOPEFULLY be back soon, but we'll see.

But anyway, after all my errands this morning, I was really antsy to see Robbie. But I kept waiting for the doctor to do her rounds because I want to see about getting my staples out and want to hear what she has to say about my blood pressure.

But finally I just had to go. So I walked down to the NICU to visit.

What a refresher!

#1- no Star Trek light! His bili was down this morning, so he lost the light. Now, they'll test it again tomorrow and if it goes back up again, he might get it back, but today he is blue light free.. which means no black mask on his eyes. Woohoo!

#2- HE'S OFF THE VENT again! Back onto CPAP. That's fantastic! She did say he had a little pause this morning. He forgot to breathe for a few seconds, but he started again and has since been pretty good.

#3- they're talking about putting his PIC line in. That's where they will take his umbilical lines out and replace them into his arm, where they will thread into a larger vein in his chest. It's a better option.

The big thing about 2 & 3 is that those are the things he needed to do before he could be held!
So coming up very soon, my baby could be strapped to my chest. WOOHOO!!

Also, while I was sitting there, the chaplain came by talk to me. She caught me talking to Robbie and seemed amused. But we got to talking about future plans etc. I ended up sharing a story of extreme kindness with her (I'll be posting about that later today, so just hold your horses) and she was truly touched and thanked me several times for sharing it with her. We discussed how many blessings have come my way since Robbie's birth and how good God is. It was a lovely conversation.

So I'm now back in my room. I'm tired and need a nap. I walked to and from the NICU (it's a LONG walk) and I'm exhausted.

But things are good and I wanted to let everyone know.

I'll be back later this afternoon to post again, I'm sure.


zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

--Trish