Hospital

Alizabeth and I stayed at the hospital for a total of 4 days. It is never easy to be away from my family, and this time was no exception. But, it's also kind of nice to have time to rest, and be waited on a bit.


We had some visitors




My feet were HUGE! It took more than a week for them to go back to normal

Brandon brought the kids to visit us every day. It was a bit hard to entertain them in a hospital room. Their visits were pretty chaotic.




The nurses were all wonderful. They helped whenever I needed them to. And thanks to my little one, I ended up needing a bit of help.

Since she is my fourth baby, I figured I know what I'm doing, and shouldn't need any help. Especially with feeding her. But she had other ideas. The first couple of days, Alizabeth nursed without any trouble. But gradually, she started to get angry every time I offered. Each feeding session ended with both of us in tears, and her not getting much to eat. And she started to lose weight. Finally, I asked the nurses for some help. Even with reinforcements, she still refused to latch on, and they told me that I needed to supplement with formula. ick.
Thankfully - I had planned ahead a little bit, and brought my breast pump from home. I pumped and asked the nurse if I could give her that milk instead of the formula. They agreed, which made me happy. So, I spent quite a bit of time pumping so that my baby could have something to eat.
But, the pediatrician was still concerned about the weight she had lost. Even though my doctor said that I was ready to leave on Friday, her doctor wanted to have her stay one more night to make sure she didn't lose any more weight. My husband was pretty disappointed that we weren't coming home, but I guess it's better to make sure that our baby is healthy before leaving.
So, we came home on Saturday. At that point, Alizabeth had gone from 6lbs 3oz to 5lbs 8oz. But, she had only lost 1/2 and ounce between Friday and Saturday, so the doctor was optimistic that she would start gaining again soon. She still wasn't latching on well, so they recommended that we rent a hospital grade, double pump to feed her with. So we came home with that.




And so, for the last week my life has been pretty much focused on feeding the baby. I try to nurse her as much as possible. I finally got a nipple shield, and she will take the breast with it, be still is not willing to breast feed au-natural. Supposedly, using a nipple shield can reduce the milk supply, so I have to continue pumping to keep it up. I haven't been getting much sleep, but I thankfully have a wonderful husband who has taken time off work so I can sleep when the baby is sleeping.
The other kids LOVE their new baby sister and fight over who's turn it is to hold her.