The week in review

Wow! I can't believe that Caitlin has been with us for a week tomorrow! This has been an incredibly busy week but I'm going to try to update everyone on our first week as parents. Caitlin entered the world on Sunday July 13th, 2008 at 10:09PM Central time with the following stats:

Weight - 8 lbs, 11 ounces
Length - 20 1/2 inches
Head - 14 1/2 inches
Chest - 14 1/4 inches

Monday - The day after Caitlin was born was a busy day. After Caitlin was born, I went to the nursery to watch her get cleaned up and spend some time bonding with her. I got home around 2am and tried to get some sleep. I got back out to the hospital around 8 or so. While the nurses and everyone we dealt with through the delivery were great, the customer service started to unravel after Caitlin was born.. In an effort to save money, the hospital hires some contract nurses rather than paying a little extra for people who actually have a vested interest in the hospital. What should have been a great experience for Toni (her first time to feed Caitlin) turned out to be every parent's worst nightmare - they brought Toni the wrong baby!! Luckily the issue was fixed quickly but it was still an inexcusable mistake for a hospital who prides itself on their security... The staff and supervisor apologized profusely to Toni and Caitlin was brought in quickly but it was still an extremely unprofessional mistake.. The rest of Monday was spent bonding with with Caitlin and with Toni trying to get some rest. Toni was also treated to a complimentary 20 minute massage from the hospital to help her relax.

Tuesday - Tuesday we got to go home! Before going, we had our "Stork dinner" - a complimentary lunch provided by the hospital. It was a nice relaxing meal before going home. I had chicken cordon bleu and Toni had filet mignon. It was actually a very good meal and the quality far surpassed what I expected from a hospital. I wouldn't have been upset if I had gone to a restaraunt and paid for it! The pediatrician (Dr. McCray) was concerned that Caitlin looked a little yellow but the test for Jaundice showed that she was in good health and that she was cleared to go home. We got home around 2:30pm and spent the rest of the day bonding. Shiloh was very excited about Caitlin and we were both pleasantly surprised that Caitlin slept pretty well her first night at home. Toni and I watched her in 3 hour shifts and she only woke up once for each of us. I quickly found that I will probably never sleep a full night again in my life though. I now know what parents mean when they say that you wake up at the slightest sound after your baby is born.

Wednesday - This was our day to relax. I took Toni's dad to the airport in the late afternoon and we had some of my family come by but Wednesday was spent entirely at home trying to recuperate. This is also the day that the poor customer service from the hospital showed up again.... Dr. McCray told us that we needed to monitor Caitlin's diaper changes to make sure she was getting enough food. We should get a couple dirty and a couple wet diapers a day. By about mid afternoon, we had only had 1 wet diaper all day. Toni called the lactation department at the hospital and their advice was as follows - Don't give Caitlin a bottle because she'll never attach to the breast. Force her to the breast and if need be, entice her with a few drops of formula on the breast. But do not give her a bottle... Now, I didn't go to lactation school but I'm not stupid either. Their advice hinges on 1 very important variable - how much milk Toni is producing. To find out, we used a breast pump and found that Toni wasn't yet producing much milk. We decided to ignore the advice of the lactation people and give Caitlin a bottle. Our 2nd night was pretty rough. Caitlin was extremely hungry and was making up for lost time by eating as much as we would give her. She also was spitting up a good amount of the formula as well. Luckily we had an appointment with Dr. McCray the next day...

Thursday - We met with Dr. McCray and explained our run in with the lactation department. She said we did the right thing in feeding Caitlin because Caitlin had lost a full 1 pound since being born. We also told the Dr. about the spitting up and she showed us different ways to burp Caitlin and told us to take little breaks and burp Caitlin more often during feeding. While we were being shown these techniques, Caitlin started spitting up quite a bit and the Dr. decided that Caitlin may have a sensitive stomach as well. She gave us hypo-allergenic Similac and that seemed to agree with Caitlin's stomach much better. Dr. McCray also asked us to go have another jaundice test done on Caitlin immediately because she was again concerned about her color. Because we had to get the Jaundice test done, we had to reschedule our appointment with the lactation department to Friday. Later in the day we got the results of the Jaundice test and everything looked good. Caitlin's result was a 15. Anything from 17-19 would require Caitlin be put under special lighting and anything 20 or higher would require her to be admitted back into the hospital. With everything checking out alright, we continued feeding Caitlin from the bottle and our 3rd night was a lot quieter for us.

Friday - We started the day back at the hospital to meet with the lactation department. We met with the head of the department (Amy) and I was floored by her complete lack of compassion and professionalism. She told us that we made a mistake feeding Caitlin from a bottle and that Caitlin may never latch on to the breast now because of it. When we argued that we weren't going to let our daughter starve to death and that she lost a pound doing things their way, she again reiterated that we may have caused more damage in the long run. We left the hospital disgusted and went to meet with Dr.McCray. While there, Caitlin was weighed again and it showed that she gained almost a quarter of a pound since we started with the bottle and her color looked like it was getting better so the jaundice didn't look like a problem. We also explained our problems with the lactation department and she was shocked. She sent us to another hospital to meet with a different lactation team. She managed to get us an immediate appointment and Toni and I were so glad to be dealing with someone other than Amy. We met with Patricia from Methodist hospital and she was a Godsend! She spent 2 hours working with Toni and Caitlin and got Caitlin latched on. She gave us a feeding schedule and explained how often Toni should pump and how much Similac we should supplement with breast milk based on the amount of milk Toni is currently producing. She's going to meet with us again next week to re-evaluate and give us a new plan if needed. While Amy had all the people skills of a cactus and should never man a suicide hot line, Patricia was one of the nicest and most compassionate people we've met thus far. She really helped take away a lot of the stress Toni and I had been feeling. After leaving her office, we both didn't have an overwhelmed feeling anymore for the first time since leaving the hospital. Last night we also gave Caitlin a bath and kept on the feeding schedule assigned by Patricia and Caitlin slept through the night, only waking for her feedings.

This weekend our plan is just to relax, de-stress and get some rest. I've added more pics of Caitlin to the album and will post more soon.