Our Hospital Stay with Aria

Our hospital stay with Aria was truly wonderful. I really couldn't have asked for more. We had plenty of visitors, the best nurses, the cutest baby, and we even got to stay for an extra night.

After I gave birth to Aria, she nursed for about 10 minutes before she decided that she was done and tired. The next thing I knew it was shift change. I was so glad that our sweet nurse was able to be there for the birth of Aria, she had been with us the whole day before and had been so kind and dealt extremely well with my emotional, weepy self. I'm so embarrassed, just as shift change occurred, I got sick. I had thrown up 2 other times in the past 3 hours or so, and I had gotten sick and this time was the worst. Not only did I get sick, but the epidural had worn off really fast after giving birth and I totally lost control of my bladder and the next thing I knew there was this huge puddle underneath my bed. I cried. I was so embarrassed and felt so bad for this new nurse. I figured she would call housekeeping and have them take care of it. Nope, she took care of it herself and got me some breakfast since it had been nearly 24 hours since I had eaten last and the cafeteria didn't even open for another hour.

After eating some toast and drinking some apple juice and water, I was so ready to take a shower. Yes! I made it out of bed to take a shower. It was wonderful. They tell you not to take a very long shower after birth in case you start to feel dizzy and fall over in the shower. Well, okay. I took my shower, got all of our belongings together and I was ready to grab Aria and make our way to the Mother Baby Unit. It's really the best part of the hospital stay.

We got to the Mother Baby Unit around 7 A.M. in time to take an hour nap before our real breakfast came. The best hour of sleep I think I have ever had. Aria slept beautifully during that time as well. Breakfast came and we ate and went back to sleep for a few more hours. 10 A.M. rolled around and our nurse came in a little concerned that Aria hadn't eaten since she was born, she had been sleeping so peacefully and I hate to wake a sleeping baby just to eat. If a baby is hungry, they will surely wake up on their own. So, to appease our nurse, we woke her and she ate a little more. We had such a relaxing day playing cards and hanging out with our sleepy little angel. The nurses hardly came in to bother us.

We had some visitors that evening. Our friends Tyler and Megan that Brenden had been staying with during the day came to see us with Brenden. They brought their son, Brody as well. It was so sweet to see Brenden with his new little sister for the first time. I don't even think that he really noticed that she was there. He was just so excited to see mommy and daddy. We hadn't seen him since the morning before. I had never spent more than just a few hours away from him before.

After Tyler and Megan left, our friends Paul and Jess stopped by. Brenden was spending the night at their house. He loves it at their place. He loves to play with this yodeling pickle toy that they have. Jess is pregnant and definitely has baby fever and she was so cute with Aria. Paul of course, was your typical guy and was afraid to hold her. What is it? Afraid that holding a baby too manly will break it? I don't know, it's a little silly.

Our friends, Mike, Michelle, and Landon Goold also stopped by and brought us some trail mix. Thank you! I can only handle so much of the hospital food that is all over cooked. Don't get me wrong, I was so thankful for hospital food and to have someone else cook and come and clean my dishes and clean up any other messes that I make. Love it!

That night was wonderful, we had the nurses come and take Aria around 3 in the morning and they kept her until 7, when they brought her in to eat. The nurses said that she had been sleeping the whole time she was out there. Such a blessing to know that your kid sleeps so well already.

Our doctor came to see us Wednesday morning to check on mom and baby. Come to find out Aria was born tongue tied. We had a couple options posed to us. We could either have it taken care of right away and have her tongue clipped, or wait and see how it develops and hope for the best. We decided that we would take care of it right away to avoid any problems later on. Its better to cut right away than to wait and to have to do it. Aria's tongue was clipped with minimal bleeding and she has been eating like a champ ever since!

Wednesday was such a hard day for me. I was just in so much pain. More than I remember having with Brenden. It hurt so much to nurse, and I was so crampy and tired. I was at the limit on all of my meds and just totally miserable. I just had no idea what to do other than I was in pain. The next thing I knew, I was loosing a blood clot the size of a pop can. We called in a nurse to make sure this was normal. It wasn't. She checked everything out to make sure I was okay. I seemed to be okay other than the pain. The nurse, offered to let me take a Jacuzzi bath. That helped a little bit, but I was still in a significant amount of pain.

With all of the pain and thinking about going home, our doctor offered to let us stay in the hospital another night just so they could keep an eye and me and make sure everything was okay. They also didn't want me to go home and have the sole responsibility of taking care of a newborn in so much pain. Even though we were ready to get out of the hospital we decided it would be better to stay another night and let the nurses take care of everything. Thank goodness we did. I totally took advantage of it.

We had some more visitors Wednesday night. Our great friends, Mike and Melanie came to see Aria and to take Brenden home with them for the night. This is when we were able to get our first family photo with all four of us! Brenden showed so much love and interest for his little sister. He got to hold her and he just loved to play with her little feet, mostly trying to tickle them. He is such a sweet big brother.

The very next morning we were able to go home. I am blessed with such a sweet and wonderful little family. I love them so very much! We are so very blessed by such wonderful family members and friends. We're so grateful to know such wonderful people and have such a great support system. I'm loving life and can't wait for it to get even better!