Day Two

The morning came and with it my pain meds and a breakfast tray I had absolutely no interest in. I made myself eat so I could produce milk. So far I'd only managed to provide My Little Dumpling with less than an ounce of colostrum two different times. I got up to shower. No water in the history of mankind has ever been so soothing to the soul as that shower was! I dressed and called the nurse for fresh linens. When she brought them, she asked out loud, "Why didn't the aid finish the bed?" Oh, I did that, both of us eyeing my stripped bed in the high position for ease of remaking, and the pile of dirty linens on the floor next to it. Of course she scolded me. She made my bed in short order and then ordered me back into it. "But I want to go down to NICU," I said. "Not today hon, he's coming to you!" And it was right on cue that a NICU nurse wheeled My Little Bunny back into my room in his giant Baby Easy Bake and transferred him to his normal sized isolette! Oh happy day! He'd officially been sprung from the NICU!

And the nurse was sure to post Willie's NICU name sign at the head of his isolette!

Shortly after My Sweet Boy returned to my room, another gal came in wheeling a long flat table like thing. It seems Jack was to have a hearing test. She attached sticky tabs to his forehead, temples and the back of his head and put clear kidney shaped plastic cups over his ears. It took about a half hour to determine that while Jack could hear, he wasn't going to pass his hearing test today. She assured me that most cesarean babies do not pass on their first tries, not to worry, that it was probably just fluid in his ear canals. They would try again tomorrow.

We spent our first full day together in semi drugged bliss. My pain level remained quite high. After each dose of meds I was really fine for about two and a half hours, but when it came back it came back with a vengeance. And we had a visitor!

This is The Other Mommy!

Between first The Other Mommy in the early afternoon, and then The Dear Daddy and I, Willie got 35 ounces of formula every three hours and then a burp and diaper change. I added whatever amounts I was able to produce to his formula. The Dear Daddy finally decided he was gentle enough to hold his tiny son without crushing him and he was quite the pro and feeding him and patting a burp out of him! There's nothing quite so fine as the special look in a father's eyes as he looks at his newborn. It makes a woman's heart get all squishy. And there was something different there this time. That word again, different. I wasn't able to define it then and I still am not. It went beyond tenderness. It went beyond awe. It went beyond love. I have no earthly words to describe what I saw in My Loves eyes while he looked at tiny little William. The best I can come up with is sacred.