On Sunday morning of our hospital stay it was finally time to get ready to go home. We had to wait for my doctor's office to discharge me and then we needed EH's pediatrician to discharge him. Unfortunately when they took EH for his discharge weighing, he had lost even more weight than the previous day. You might recall that he weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces at birth and on his discharge day he only weighed 6 pounds 6 ounces.
They did another bilirubin count via a blood test, and the numbers came back higher than before. We could still take him home, but the pediatrician recommended that we start supplementing his feedings with formula and then scheduled a home-care nurse to come to our house the next day to take a blood sample to see if his bilirubin count went down. If it didn't, we might need to get a bili-blanket or it got really bad, he would need to come back to the hospital.
That morning I met with a lactation consultant since it was suspected that most of the weight loss was caused by the fact that EH wasn't getting enough to eat. I now know that he wasn't getting enough to eat because my milk hadn't come in yet, but at the time they were worried that he wasn't latching on properly and in any case, the extra lesson on breastfeeding was helpful since no one really gives you much information on it otherwise. If I was to give advice to a first-time mom who was also planning to breastfeed, I would recommend that you request a meeting with a lactation consultant on the very first day that your baby is born. If we had gotten the proper information about breastfeeding, how to do it and how often he should be eating, we might have avoided this whole jaundice mess.
We were there about 3 hours longer than we were originally supposed to be, because of the weight loss problem. By the time we were officially allowed to leave, we were definitely ready to get out of there.
DH bundled him into his car seat and it suddenly felt so real. They were letting us take him home. This tiny little person whose life depended on us. It seemed really surreal, as if the whole time at the hospital we were just visiting with him, but he wasn't really ours.
But he was ready. He seemed to know that he was in good hands. (See that little smile?)
And so we left. DH carrying the car seat and our new little guy, and I followed behind with the camera, documenting the moment, probably like a stereotypical first time mom.
It felt so weird to be able to walk right out with him... I kept expecting someone to stop us.
I realized walking out just how cooped up I had been in that little hospital room. I didn't even realize what floor or wing I was on!
We walked through the hallways that I previously only seen when we toured the hospital. Down the elevator and into the parking garage. (The bad part about delivering at an urban hospital is the outrageous amounts you have to pay for parking, even if you're a patient there!!!!)
DH wanted me to sit in the backseat with EH, just in case something might happened. He was already worried, and it was so sweet and I remembered what a great father he was going to be. So I sat in the back seat, with my new little baby, holding his head up with my hand (because we had the tilt on his car seat all wrong and didn't realize it!.)
And before I knew it we were home. Our new family of three.
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