Hospital Adventures

Our stay at the Christiana Hospital was exceptional. Ryan (who has been nothing short of an amazing father from the second Jude was born - helping me in any way he can, and just glowing from excitement) just kept commenting that if you were to have a child, CCHS is THE place to do it.

All of the recovery rooms are single patient rooms. Fathers have their own bed for rooming in and your child stays with you the entire time (no nursery - except for infant ICU). The nurses for the most part were all AMAZING and extremely attentive as well (there was one in particular who I wasn't too fond of, but even she wasn't terrible).

The First Night:

After being ushered to our room somewhere around 9 or 9:30pm it was a pretty big adjustment. We had come from the delivery room where everything was pretty much taken care of and routine to our room where it was up to us to care for Jude and call the nurses when necessary.

We needed to rest after a long day, but of course we were still wide awake from all the excitement. Even though it was past visiting hours Barbie and Meghan got to come up to visit for a little bit and it was nice to be able to sit down and talk and just mellow out a little. After they left we of course tried to get some sleep but every little noise or sound Jude made had us wide awake - even though for the most part he was sound asleep.

In addition to his little noises, around 1:00 in the morning it was time for Jude's 6 hour check up. At 1:00am we were being shown how to care for Jude - from taking care of his little cord to giving him a bath. He and I both had our vitals checked and I had some blood work done. Not too long after it was time for my Rogham shot (ugh! again!). We got a little sleep but before we knew it the sun was on it's way up and the nurses were bustling again.

Full Day #1:

Early the next morning it was time to get things rolling with all the procedures for Jude. He needed his first pediatric check up and his circumcision. In addition I had my morning visit from my doctor making sure I was getting by OK. The pediatrician ended up coming while I was in the shower, so Ryan got to take care of that. He was told that Jude was good to go but that they were going to test him for jaundice because of my/his blood type mix.

When Jude was taken away for his circumcision I felt terrible for the poor little man. Come to find out when he was brought back, the poor little guy wasn't even done. He has a hypospadias which basically is an irregular urethra opening which needs extra attention in the next few months. As a result they started the incision, saw the problem and had to stitch him back up. I felt terrible. But he seems fine and the stitches should heal without a problem. Unfortunately we'll have to take him to a pediatric urologist later on to get it treated further.

In addition, the jaundice test came back that he had slightly elevated levels of bilirubin which meant extra monitoring for jaundice. We were off to a great start!

All in all though he's a healthy adorable, amazing baby boy!

He and I spend the rest of the day sitting around the hospital room, taking visitors and Ryan ran a couple of errands and went home to shower and tend to Buddy.

Later when it came time to sleep, Jude had been sleeping all day so we were afraid he'd be up the whole night. We weren't too far off base. For the most part he was asleep, but wouldn't stay asleep in his bassinet very well. Which means that I was up most of the night holding him close to my chest to keep him content.

Day #2 - Getting Ready to Go Home:

First this Thursday morning I was very ready to get out of the hospital. I woke up bright and early and got showered and dressed to leave. Unfortunately we found out that his bilirubin levels came back higher than they should be and he would need to be sent home with a biliblanket. This meant we had to wait around a few hours for the delivery man to bring it through. We hung out around the room trying to keep ourselves occupied. Ryan carried all of our gifts and belongings outside and we were just waiting for the blanket. Once it came on home we went!