It all began at 3 A.M. when Kim woke everyone up to go to the hospital. It was insane first of all rushing around so early in the morning. Bella certainly had no clue what was going on, but she knew something was off because no one ever gets up that early. (Oh, does she have things to look forward to.)
We have to drive about an hour to get to the hospital and it truly never felt longer. After arriving a good 30 minutes early, (if it were up to Kim we would have been there 3 hours early) we walk in, Kim rushing us. It reminded me of our wedding. She wasn't waiting any longer for this moment. She was rushing down the hallways, practically begging anyone she passed to let Rory out. As for daddy to be, I was a little bit nervous. (Very much, actually.) They prepped her for surgery and it's so crazy the feeling you have in that moment right before everything changes.
The waiting was horrible! Grammy D and I just wanted to get the surgery started and have everyone happy and healthy. I won't make you wait as long as I had to so I'll get on with the story. The surgery went extremely well and Rory was born at 8:15. Hooray!
I'm not really sure how many days or nights we were in the hospital or even what was day and what was night, and I know a lot of people called and texted and I loved it, but it was ultimately a crazy three days in the hospital. And yet, it feels so long ago now. Like I was in-between awake and asleep. (Which I probably was.)
At one point Rory had gotten a little bit of jaundice and they had to put him under a bili light bed. If you don't know, it basically simulates sunshine and helps the baby to get stronger and urges the jaundice away, which I guess is very common in newborns. I've heard tons of stories.
The first night was probably the worst because we'd been up since 3 A.M the previous day, and Rory didn't want to sleep, he was pooping out a black tar like substance constantly, and my lovely wife, after just having had a C-section was pretending like she couldn't do anything. (Just kidding baby, I'm just trying to make the readers smile.) It was just insane. Black tar diapers are not my friend.
At one point, after Rory had been crying for what seemed like hours, and Kim was snoring, then waking and asking how I was doing, and then snoring, and I was about to send Rory back to the Stork Shop, a miracle happened. Kim decided to try and lay him down skin to skin again and this time he instantly fell asleep.
Hours later:
"You have to take him for a while," Kim says passing out.
"What a good boy you are," I tell Rory as I lay down on the couch skin to skin with him, laying on my chest.
"Don't fall asleep okay," Kim says in-between snores.
"Okay..."
Sometime later...
I open my eyes which I must have been resting, and stare at the precious sleeping baby. I lay him down right beside me and put my arm around him. I recall the poster on the wall that says don't lay the baby down beside you, but the nurses aren't here right now trying to get this baby to sleep. So we fall asleep together. (Again.)
Sometime later....
"I'm here to check your blood pressure," the nurse says.
"Okay," Kim says jumping to attention in a way that only a new mother who just got cut open can.
I listen as they do their thing for a while...
"Where's the baby?" the nurse asked, a hint of panic in her voice.
"I have him right here," I say.
"Oh.. oh... well... don't fall asleep with him."
"No worries, we are just chilling out over here," I say.
"Oh.. well.. okay," the nurse says.
She leaves a few minutes later.
"You fell asleep didn't you?" Kim asks.
"What do you think?"
Comic by Bitstrips
No comments:
Post a Comment