Lovely Boys
We had to admit Carl to the hospital late Friday night for jaundice, and he and I spent the next two days in a sweltering hot room in the Peds Unit, him glowing under the Bili-lights and slowly fading to a normal pinky-beige from the dramatic Oompa-Loompa orange he'd turned previously, and me using the enforced isolation to catch up on sleep by lying down on the super-comfy fold-out cot every time he went back into the Isolette after a meal.
Learned a couple of things:
- If your baby is admitted to the hospital and you are "rooming in" with him, the hospital will provide meals for you if you are a breastfeeding mother, but not if you are formula feeding.
- Hospital food doesn't taste nearly as good when you're not ravenous after giving birth.
- I missed Eric so much (no children are allowed in the Pediatrics Unit) that every time I fell asleep I dreamed about him.
- You can tell you have given your baby a very old-fashioned name if you have the following conversation with at least six people in less than 48 hours:
Person: What's the baby's name?
You: Carl.
Person: I like that name. My grandfather was named Carl.
We came home from the hospital late Sunday afternoon, unpacked and settled in. I took a shower, since shower facilities were not available to me at the hospital (thanks, though, to Joann and Sarah, who live near the hospital and let me dash over on Saturday to shower and then give them a super-wired five-minute rapid-fire update on everything that had happened to me in the past week), and after awhile Carl and I went into the bedroom to nurse. Eric was working on falling asleep in the big bed, and he helped me out with little tasks like patting Carl's back when it was time to burp him. After Carl had nursed, he fell aleep on my chest with his little downy head snugged up under my chin. Eric curled up in the crook of my arm and went to sleep, too. Do I need to tell you, that was possibly the best moment of my life?
Posted by Su Penn at March 28, 2004 08:37 PM
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