The hospital experience and first few days

So it turns out that Greg and Avery are asleep in the glider as we speak...thought I had better take this opportunity to start typing before they wake up - or until I get too sore, if you know what I mean! :)

Our time in the hospital...it was certainly a whirlwind and great learning experience, with a bunch of highs and lows. On the whole, I have to note that the nurses who cared for Avery and me were awesome and complete professionals. Two stood out in particular, Helen and Jovanna (sp?), but all of them were very helpful in their own ways. Not to say that there weren't some frustrating times, but overall it was fairly positive.

We started off in a ward room in the Mother-Baby unit - we weren't very excited about this having requested a private room, but we did eventually get moved at about 11pm on Tuesday night. At least there was a place for Greg to sleep in the private room!

Tuesday went by in a blur - we had a ton of people come visit, including Gramma and Grampa Herage, Gramma Pearce, the Keans, the Haggertys, Bonnie and Ted & Jamie. It was nice to have everyone and the presents were all very much appreciated! Day one we started learning how to breastfeed, change diapers and bath Avery among other things. It was a little hard to take it all in, but we kept plugging away. Having been fairly nervous about nursing, it was a little disconcerting when Avery would hang out at the breast but not really suck. The nurses weren't concerned because they said she didn't really need to take anything in for the first 24 hours, but it made me a little worried. That night, however, our nurse showed us a way to nurse that Avery actually seemed to like and she started snacking on the colostrum. She continued to nurse over the next day with more success some times than others, and to be quite frank, my nipples were starting to show the wear and tear. I know proper breastfeeding is not supposed to hurt, but hurt it did! Wednesday night, Avery was extremely cranky and wouldn't settle down. Our nurse took her away a couple of times so that Greg and I could get a little sleep, which really helped.

By the next morning, the nurse on duty became concerned that she had lost too much of her birth weight. We were supposed to be discharged at 9:30am, but the freaking-out about her weight delayed that all by a couple of hours. Avery got down to about 9% of birth weight lost, still above the cut-off of 10%, but the pediatrician insisted that we supplement the breastfeeding with an oz or so of formula at every feed. I have to admit that she did settle down quite a bit after having her first bit of formula, so it was clear that she was hungry and was not getting anything from the colostrum. We were not happy about this situation and were worried the formula from the bottle would wreck the little progress we had made with breastfeeding, but it was simply a matter of my milk needing to come in - which it did during the night on Thursday.

After supplementing for about 36 hours and my milk coming in, we took Avery to the pediatrician on Friday morning. They weighed her there and she was up about 5 oz from the day before - so at least we didn't have to worry that she was starving any more. By the time we went back to the pediatrician on Monday morning, she was up to 7lbs 14 oz - above her birth weight in less than a week. Seems we have gotten the hang of this nursing business after all.

While still in the hospital, we were lucky enough to see the lactation consultant. She was so helpful and even though I may not have been having as many difficulties as some people, she was still able to give me a couple of tricks that really made a difference. She was also a lot less stressed out about Avery's weight, lack of bowel movements, etc. than the nurses, which helped calm Greg and I down enormously. We did make a call to Telehealth late on Friday night, but hey, we are first-time parents after all! And now I hear the little angel waking up, so I had better go feed her!