Us Babcocks: September 2012

8lb 4oz, 18 1/2 inches 7.14.12

Raiden Alva. Raiden because he's half Japanese HA! and Alva after Benton's dad.

He had a hard first 13 days in the NICU. He was born with pneumonia. Which is weird right? Fresh, out thee oven and already sick. I went in for a C-section on Saturday July 14th. All was well, I was feeling nervous because a woman in my ward had just had twins a few months ago via C-section and died for 90 seconds. Got all prepped, got the epidural thank you, may I have another? He was born at 12:30pm. Like, right on the dot. He was having a hard time breathing and they were having a hard time getting all the fluid out of his lungs. I think they immediately took him to the NICU. I think it was about 6 hours before I could go and see him. Seeing my little baby like this breaks my heart! There are so many wires, and the C-pap is just so scary to look at. Makes everything seem more serious.

The next morning the pediatrician on call called me to tell me that they are taking my baby to UVRMC in Provo (from AF) because they weren't equipped to give him the air he was needing. I completely lost it, tried to call Benton and had to leave a message telling him what was happening. I listened to it later and even though I could't understand me it was heartbreaking. I'm almost crying right now. I was broken, sad, and inconsolable.

Usually, when you have a C-section they want you to stay at least 3 days. You have to be able to walk unassisted and have a BM. I was barely a day out of surgery, I stopped taking my meds because you're not allowed to drive while taking them. I was determined to be with my baby. It was almost comical when the nurse told me that I needed to stay at least 2 more days and it was doubtful that the Dr was going to release me. I mean, who tells a mommy that she has to stay 3 city's away from her brand new baby and expects her to stay? Obviously she doesn't know me and how determined I am to get what I want. I asked her to call my Dr so I could talk to him. When he walked in, I said "So, you're here to release me right?" He went through his whole shpeal of you need to recover here, risk of infection or tearing your incision, yadda yadda yadda... I begged him, Please release me because I'm leaving anyways. I would rather you release me because I don't want to get into any trouble, but I'm leaving. My mother in law came to pick me up, I dropped her off at the house with the kids and drove down to the hospital. I later developed an infection right under my incision. But, mama bear had to do what she needed to do to be with her baby.

I wanted to nurse soooooo bad! It worked for like, one day... I read everything I could online to see how I can make a ton of milk and keep it. I did everything I could to get him to nurse. I don't know if you've ever had a baby in the NICU but the medicine he was on made him so tired. I stopped taking my pain meds the first day because I wanted him out and I didn't want him to be extra tired from my meds. He had to be on the antibiotic for at least 10 days, after that he had to be able to take 3oz before they would let him out. He would nurse and was only getting 10-17cc and that was not nearly enough so I was supplementing with a bottle. I was making a ton of milk! by about the 4rd day I was producing 8-10 ounces. He was just so tired and comfortable right up next to me he would fall asleep and they wanted his total feedings to be under 30 minutes. I was so frustrating because all he had to do was eat 3 oz, which seems so little but he was so tired and just couldn't do it. I totally stopped nursing, and was just pumping because I just wanted to go home and would work on nursing when I got home.