The Biohazard Baby

Our first few days with Piper in the hospital seemed to go well. We had done a lot of research on different options and I had even considered delivering at a birth center instead to have a more natural approach to things. One of the things we decided on in our birth plan is that we wanted to bath her ourselves when we wanted to. Meaning, we didn't want to the hospital to give her a bath. I had read that not giving a bath the first couple days was good for the baby, and helped keep their skin soft and moisturized.

I should say that the doctor did wipe her down a lot when she came out so it wasn't like she was caked in stuff but she wasn't perfectly clean either. :) They let me keep her for 1 1/2 hours after delivery and then EZ went with her to the nursery to get checked out and get her K shot and a few other things (this is where the bath would have been). So they proceeded to tell him that because she wasn't getting a bath she would be considered a biohazard and our room would be placed on contact isolation. What that really meant is that for all the nurses/doctors etc entering the room there was all this extra precaution they had to take (they were suppose to put on gowns and everything). It also meant that she wasn't allowed back in the nursery so anything that needed to be done to her had to be done in our room-which was perfectly find with us. Essentially this was an inconvenience for everyone but us.

It did make for interesting conversations with different nurses. Many of them thought it was crazy that they had to wear protective gowns (so they didn't) and those that did the first time, once they realized why they were doing it didn't put them on when they came back in the second time.

Our couple days in the hospital were rather uneventful. The first 20 hours Piper did a lot of crying and sleeping and then for about 12 hours did nothing but sleep. We starting getting extremely worried because we kept trying to wake her up to feed her and she wouldn't wake up. Even the nurses tried and it didn't help either. After that though she started getting into more of a routine and we were able to wake her up to feed.

The breastfeeding situation has been challenging but is starting to go well. I had latching difficulties so they had me pumping in the hospital and we were feeding it to her via an eye dropper so she could eat. Things got better when we came home but still were feeding her through the dropper. It wasn't until I tried the shield and all things have come together. It has been two days with the shield and she is doing great and I am producing more than enough and have been pumping lots extra. She is even now starting to do a little feeding without the shield. So we are 90% there.

Here are a couple photos of our first couple days in the hospital:




Before my mom passed away she had asked me to bring her home in the outfit she was brought home in (and I think I was too). It is a blue kimono (it was really big on her) that my grandpa had bought for my grandma for the birth of their first child. They didn't know if my mom was going to be a girl or a boy so my grandpa bought the blue kimono that had some flowers on it so it could be a little feminine too. Here is a photo of her dressed up in the kimono and then one of each of us holding her before we left:







Last but not least...all swaddled up after we got home: