This is the point in my postpartum narrative where I really need some fill-in-the-blank help from Rhett. I recall snippets of the long trip through the corridors from recovery to the High Risk unit. This section was decidedly not on our hospital tour so it's uncharted territory.
Rhett wheels the hospital pram with Tess in it and poor Grace is left to the task of juggling my tower of IV's and well as my hospital bed. Talk about déjà vu, though...I have done this exact same type of post-op travel three times previously so I know what's coming: they hoist your ass off the rolling bed onto the one in your room. It's not always pretty. (I somehow always find myself thinking of that line from Silence of the Lambs when Clarice is unwittingly questioning Buffalo Bill and he's all, "Wait, was she a great big fat person?" because seriously, how do these tiny women heave-ho the hefties?) I have great respect for nurses.
This time, however, I'm sufficiently sister morphined to feel pretty much nothing during the hoisting. I'm like, Hey, no biggie, ladies. Watch me roll onto this bed. They are audibly impressed. I admit I've done this a few times.
Once I'm installed, the initial vitals are taken: BP, temperature, heart rate, more blood work for me. Poor baby Tess gets what is the second or third heel prick of her brief experience on this planet and they inform me they'll be back to do it every three hours timed to her feedings. They will also be checking her bilirubin levels at 6-12 hour intervals. Apparently our sweet baby girl has a mild case of facial jaundice and they want to keep an eye on it. It's not uncommon in even term babies but younger gestational ages are at even greater risk. That's the price of coming early to a mother with a potentially imperiling condition. Tess cries for a moment as someone punctures her newborn skin but then the pain is forgotten.
Talk about crying, it's time for mama's first fully conscious, able-to-feel-it fundal "massage." The bonehead who came up with that term is severely underselling it. Ain't no massage, folks: it's basically someone pressing on your just-been-sliced-open-and-stitched-back-up uterus to make the muscles contract and shrink it back down to pre-preggo size. Oh, and talk about contractions...they don't stop at birth. Nah. That would be too easy. Even we of the caesarian variety experience the wrenching clutches of what it must be like to labor without an epidural when they come to "massage" you every few hours. That place where you carried a baby for 9 months will go from the size of a large melon to the size of a grapefruit before you've left the hospital. That's a lot of unpleasantness about to seep out of there.
Anyway...it's time to get some delicious colostrum in this baby! And time to meet the grandparents! Buckle up, kid, because you're going to be handled by approximately 35 different people over the next three days and will have countless latex-covered fingers stuffed in your mouth to check your latch, etc. Birth! So pleasant! We can't wait to get you home where the stabbing and massages will be minimal.
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