First Night Home

The first night my mom came and stayed with us.  It was no picnic that is for sure!! 

Diaper Changing Debacle: My mom showed us how to change his diaper which was a little challenging as we had to put a gauze pad smeared in Vaseline over the stitch that he had.  The first diaper change was a success.  Can't say that for the next one though.  Upon trying to change his diaper the 2nd time the Vaseline must have not be smeared enough on the gauze pad because it ended up getting stuck.  When my mom pulled the pad away there was blood everywhere.  I totally lost it.  I was so freaked out that he was bleeding all over the place.  We called the hospital and asked them what to do.  They said to put a folded up wash cloth over the gauze pad and then to close the diaper over that to put more pressure on it.  If it didn't stop bleeding then come back to the hospital.  Thankfully this worked!! But it was definitely mommy meltdown number 1.

Sleeping: The first night home Chuck and I really didn't get much sleep.  He was a hot mess no matter how much I tried breastfeeding him he wouldn't stop crying.  We called Joan (our DR) and she suggested to supplement feed him since maybe my good milk had not come in yet.  After that bottle he finally fell asleep a couple of hours!!! That was the best sleep Chuck and I had!!

Putting On Clothes:   I don't know who designed onesie's but our first encounter changing Emerson was a huge challenge for us.  Emerson thankfully was not a floppy kid (meaning he could pretty much hold his head steady right when he was born so his neck didn't need much support), but man was he strong.  Our adventure of putting on his 1st onesie probably took us about 1/2 hour.  The poor kid probably wanted to kill us!! Getting it over his head was easy but trying to get it through the arms was not an easy task.  Both of us were to scare to really move him around and he was all tense on us trying to put his arms through the arm holes.  So we would wait until he relaxed to try to get them through the arm loops.  Boy was it a pain!! After this debacle we decided we liked the onesie's that didn't have to go over his head but instead had buttons or zippers!! ha ha

The Hospital Stay

Our hospital stay was a nice experience overall.  The nurses did a wonderful job taking care of all of us.  Chuck was such a wonderful husband.  He stayed with me the entire time even though the couch wasn't long enough for him.  I told him to go home and get some rest on the second night, but ended up chickening out due to worriment over Emerson. 

On Thursday October 11, 2012 - We were informed that he had failed his hearing test twice.  We thought everything was fine with Emerson after worrying about his heart during pregnancy and delivering what to seemed to be a healthy baby boy.  So now we had to worry about our little guy's hearing.  We were told that we needed to make an appointment the following week for a followup check.  This is all that we could think about for the next week.  We were also informed that our little guy needed a stitch during his circumcision due to the amount of blood there was and he wasn't clotting.  They ran some tests to see what his blood count was and other blood work to make sure everything was ok with him.  The tests results showed everything was just fine.   Due to Emerson having a stitch the nurses informed us they were going to change his diapers.  That didn't bother Chuck and I one bit!!

On Friday October 12, 2012 - we were ready to leave the hospital and make the journey home.  We were very nervous about going home, as both Chuck and I had zero experience with babies.  Both of us had still not changed a diaper yet, IN OUR ENTIRE LIVES.  So that was scary enough!!! We had to ask our nurse if we had Emerson in the carseat correctly as well!!  Man I thought we are in trouble when we get home!!