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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

In the recovery room after Ian is born

We get wheeled into the recovery room and we're the only ones there. While there she's holding him in her arms just loving on him.


After a little while, the nurse comes over and we try to breastfeed. Surprisingly he's eager to eat! He latches on immediately and starts to suck! Hopefully we're going to have a good feeder on our hands.


We send texts and pictures to friends and family and just enjoy hanging out with our boy.  

Both Theresa and Ian resting their eyes. It's been a long day for both of them.

T is able to start feeling her legs and even move them around a bit. After an hour in recovery it's time to get wheeled over to the post partum room. They're saying that with a c-section, we can expect to be here for 5 days, which means Saturday we can finally go home.

It's super late around 2am, but we're back in the room with just the three of us. We get just a little bit of time to ourselves and then the nurses come in. Time for Ian to go get cleaned up. We're thankful he's been able to stay with us this long.

But I can still go with him! They were saying we could get some time to ourselves if we wanted, but I'm going to following him everywhere I'm allowed.

Back in the nursery where they give the baths, there's a bunch of babies here. Some crying, some just sleeping. We're keeping Ian with us as much as we can help it. Once we get to the bath area, Ian gets put under a heat lamp. The nurse gets soap and water and cleans him all up.

Next it's time for his shot. For his vitamin K shot in the operating room he hardly made a peep. Let's see how he does with this one.

Not too bad at all. A little crying as expected, but he's good to go a few seconds later.

Back to the room with the both of us, and we're alone with Theresa again. Her feet still aren't working for her, so she's stuck in the bed, but I can get Ian out and put him with her. He gets to feed again, and again he does really well.

Theresa says that she's in charge of input and I'm in charge of output. That means after the feedings, I'm the one who burps him.

...And I take care of the other end too. I get to change my very first diaper ever. Of course it's a meconium diaper. It's black and sticky and just a big mess.

We feed Ian again and again he does a decent job. I fold out my cot then we both try to get some sleep, but people are in and out of the room every 10-15 minutes. Not just that but Ian makes some interesting noises when he sleeps and any little sound wakes Theresa up. Theresa and I are both exhausted with everything that's been going on. Nurses are in and out all morning and it's tough to get decent sleep. I think that's going to be the name of the game for a little while.

Time for one of Ian's first tests. A hearing test. I wasn't too concerned about this one though. While inside Theresa's belly there have been loud noises that didn't startle Theresa, but have caused him to suddenly flail. Obviously he can hear something.
The test they used was called an Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR). For this test it works best when he is sleeping. They put headphones over both ears and then put electrodes on each side of his head and on his neck to measure electrical activity as a result of hearing a sound in his ear. They do something like 15000 sweeps on each side. His right ear passed right away, but his left ear was not quite getting to the levels it was supposed to. My throat was getting a little tight and I was wondering if this was going to be his first real challenge in life. Luckily the technician had seen this before and just started fiddling with the electrodes. After a little more fiddling, the reading gets better.  

He gets a passing star. Hearing screening complete.

Time to go back to the room and try to relax.

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