My Hospital Stay

Pretty much since we moved to Colorado, I've been researching the local hospitals. I knew we were wanting more babies fairly soon, and I wanted to deliver in the best facility around. Most of the people I talked to recommended Sky Ridge Medical Center, claiming it was almost like staying in a hotel suite. And we actually got the opportunity to test it out before having Ella, when Evie was sick. Granted, I didn't see much else besides her room, and the pediatric rooms are obviously a lot smaller than Labor/Delivery and Mother/Baby rooms (which are absolutely HUGE, by the way!), but I did feel like we were in the best place possible for her. And when I went into labor with Ella, I felt like we were once again heading to the best place possible to have her. For the most part, I really enjoyed my stay at Sky Ridge. The birth went smoothly, the food was really good, my nurses were great, and my room was large, clean, and pleasant. However, there were just a few little things that I wish could have been different.

1. My nurse was so nice and helpful, and everything was clean and ready for me. Then the time came for my IV of fluids, and another, older, lady came in to stick me with the needle. Really, I don't mind needles. I've donated blood and plasma many times, and they don't scare me. The only thing that bothers me is the initial stick. If I see the needle coming, I involuntarily tense up, which makes the stick hurt more. I don't even like it when people count down to the poke, either, because the same thing happens; if I know exactly when it's coming, my body automatically tenses. It doesn't affect the size of the hole, or shift the needle away from my vein or anything; it just hurts more. So I tell everyone drawing blood the same thing: "Don't warn me when you're going to do it. Just do it. I'll look over there until the needle is in, and everything will be fine." People are usually pretty accommodating. So I told this nurse the same thing, and looked away once she agreed. She finished prepping my arm, and then, just before she poked me and before I could stop her, she counted down: "Three, two, one," *poke.* Well, just like it always does when someone forgets what I've told them, it hurt a little more than usual, because my arm muscle had tensed up a bit. Usually, I just hiss a little through my teeth to relieve the extra sting and then the pain subsides, and everything is fine. This time, though, the pain lingered a little longer while she fumbled with the needle, and then I felt something warm dripping down my arm. I looked down and saw blood flowing from the hole in the crease of my elbow. The older lady kept apologizing while both nurses worked together to bandage me and try to clean me up. I assured her that I was fine, because I understand that it's hard to overcome 30 years of habit just because someone asks you to. But at the same time, a small part of my brain was thinking, "This has been your whole job for 30 years. You should be an expert at this, but you somehow botched the stick and made me bleed onto the floor, which has never happened before in all of the many times I've given blood. Sure would have been nice if you could have listened to and remembered what I said less than 5 minutes ago." Really, the pain and the blood didn't bother me as much as that they weren't able to completely clean me up, so I had dried blood under all of the tape holding the tube in place on my arm and hand. It just didn't feel very professional.

2. When a nurse came in to give Ella her first bath, Todd helped, and we thought it went well. It wasn't until we were in our Mother/Baby room that we realized that something was wrong. My Mother/Baby nurse was listing off the security protocols that protected our baby, and she mentioned the bracelets on our arms (which we each had) and the box that was attached to our baby's ankle. I asked, "What box?" She repeated, "The one on your baby's ankle." Todd and I looked at each other and said, "Ella doesn't have a box on her ankle." The nurse checked, and looked startled. Apparently the nurse who gave Ella a bath was supposed to attach a security tracker to Ella's ankle so alarms would go off if anyone tried to take her off of the maternity floor. I was horrified! Granted, my baby had never once left my sight up to that point, but if we hadn't found out about that security box and asked for one... My mind raced through all sorts of distressing scenarios in one instant. Then I blinked, smiled at the nurse, and asked her to bring us a security box. She agreed and promptly left. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last thing we had to ask her to bring for us.

3. I know I mentioned that there were evidently several mothers having their babies that morning, and we had to wait a while for a room to open up for us. It seems that once a room opened, they hurried and cleaned it for us, but didn't get around to restocking everything, and they didn't show me around to find the things that were stocked, so we had to keep asking the nurses to bring us stuff. For example, when I asked my nurse if I could have something to drink, it turned out that I was supposed to have a complimentary water bottle, which she brought for me.

4. When we asked if Todd was able to get one free meal, like he got when Evie was born, the nurse exclaimed, "Oh, your cake!" Once again, we looked at each other and asked, "What cake?" thinking to ourselves, "Did she somehow misunderstand our question about dinner?" She left the room and came back with a (really yummy!) personal cake for Todd that included a meal voucher for him. When we tried to use the voucher, there was a mix-up because the kitchen was almost closed. The server brought our dinners but forgot take the voucher. It turned out that we were also missing a couple of things, and when another server brought us the missing items, he told us to just use the voucher for breakfast or something. So we ended up getting two free meals for Todd! That was great, and we really appreciated it, but it was apparently something that should have been in our room waiting for us.

5. Todd went with Ella to the nursery to get weighed, and when he came back, he said to me, "I wonder why Ella doesn't have a name tag on her bassinet. All of the babies in the nursery have one." So when my nurse came back again, I asked her about it (mostly just because I wanted a cute name tag to put into her baby book), and she apologized and hurried and got one for us.

6. Really, the biggest deal for me came the morning that we were supposed to be discharged: July 4th. During the first couple of days after they're born, babies lose, on average, 10% of their body weight. During our stay, Elizabeth was weighed often to see how she was doing, and all of her numbers were great. Nursing was going well, unlike my first time around with Evie, and Ella was eating often, and having lots of dirty diapers; all of those are signs that a baby is eating enough, so we were really feeling confident that everything was fine and that Ella was plenty healthy. That is, until the night before we were scheduled to leave. Todd went with the nurse to weight the baby again, and, between one weighing and the next, the numbers suddenly dropped, out of the blue, to the point where she had lost 13% of her birth weight. The nurse seemed a little concerned, and sent in the hospital-issued pediatrician (we hadn't quite finalized our pediatrician choice at that point). The doctor tried to send me into a homicidal rage by suggesting that we get Ella's weight up by "giving her extra calories" through formula supplementation. I was furious that that was her first suggestion, instead of suggesting that I nurse the baby more often to make sure she was getting enough to eat, or something similar that wouldn't sabotage my nursing efforts. Again. I figured that since 10% is the average, even if she was below that, we could find a way to still take care of our little one and keep her healthy without giving her formula, especially because she was doing so well at nursing, and because of all of her dirty diapers, but the doctor just dismissed that out of hand, telling me that those signs didn't necessarily mean anything. She also tried to tell us that we might need to stay in the hospital for another few days. I tried really hard to be civil, but I told her flat-out that we were NOT giving our daughter formula. I told her that we would find another way to keep our daughter healthy, and that we needed to go home as scheduled because we had things we needed to do (Todd's oldest brother and his family were in town). Finally, after I argued with her for about 15 minutes, she reluctantly offered to let us reweigh the baby to see if the suddenly low numbers were maybe just a fluke. Todd and the nurse weighed the baby again, and, sure enough, the number was back up where it had been before. So the real percentage of her birth-weight loss was actually only 7%--well above average; it was such a relief to know that my mommy instincts were right about my little girl's health! Of course, it also made me even grouchier that the doctor would have just poured formula down my daughter's throat without even doing any rechecking or doing any other tests to figure out what the issue was. My mood got even worse when I explained to the nurse why I was frustrated with the pediatrician and she told us that, even if Ella had needed a little extra boost in calories, the hospital offers donor milk as long as we were still in the hospital. Really?! Why on earth didn't the doctor mention this? If Ella had really been in trouble, our first line of attack should have been to have me nurse more often to boost her weight. If that didn't work, our next option should have been to have a lactation consultant come in and work with me to see if we needed help with our latch. Next, we should have been offered donor breast-milk. The very last option is to supplement with formula, and I was furious that, without considering any better options for my baby, the doctor just automatically turned to the worst possible solution to a (fortunately) non-existent problem. I feel very fortunate that, instead of blindly following the advice of strangers, I followed what I knew in my heart to be right, and advocated for my daughter. My instincts were right, and she turned out to be healthy and growing right on track. We never saw the doctor again; I think she was a little ashamed to show her face in our hospital room. But we went home that day, as scheduled, and were greeted by a big family party celebrating Elizabeth's arrival! Welcome to Earth and to our family, baby girl! I love you so much!