Okay, I'm gonna cruise through Part Four because I want to start writing about the happy stuff. The I-love-being-a-mom stuff. The getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-is-my-favorite-part-of-the-day stuff.
So here's Part Four, and then we're all about the happy.
Part Three ended with the IV line, after which things were pretty uneventful for a few days. I did a lot of watching for signs of anything wrong, but it was clear to me, to my parents, and to both of my doulas that (aside from the miserable looking IV in her arm) Champ was a totally normal, healthy baby... who for some reason very briefly had a fever.
But the fever was gone, and never returned... which I knew because they took her temperature one hundred million times over the next three days. And every single time, my heart would pound and pound and pound until the nurse on duty looked up and said "Normal."
Champ was born on a Thursday night, and I'd been hoping to go home on Sunday. I was recovering well from my C-section, and didn't see any reason to stay in the hospital. But once the fever happened, Champ had to stay until Tuesday. The C-section only bought me a room until Monday, which meant Champ would have to stay in the hospital, and I would go home.
So not happening.
If her stay had been longer, I'm sure I would have figured out how to separate myself and go sleep in my own bed. But for one night? I could spend the night in a chair in the hospital nursery.
Which would have happened, if one particularly wonderful Labor and Delivery nurse hadn't made it her business to get Champ admitted to the Pediatric ward for Monday night, where she would have a room of her own, with a bed in it just for me. (And a cot for my step-mom, who stayed with us. Bless her.)
So on Monday, I was discharged from Labor and Delivery, and Champ was admitted to Pediatrics. We moved upstairs to a brightly decorated room, where, at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, Champ received her last dose of antibiotics. Then, first thing in the morning, the plan was that we would be released.
You know what they say about plans. (Don't make any, you stupid moron.)
Well. Instead of the plan, first thing in the morning, a horde of doctors, nurses, a social worker, and who knows who else, showed up to do rounds. I was summoned into the hall in my pajamas to discuss "my case" with the assembled masses. Which I was happy to do because, hey, Champ was fine, and we were about to go home!
Except that one of the doctors-- who didn't identify himself as the attending until much later-- started asking me why a lumbar puncture hadn't been done on my daughter? Why hadn't a urine sample been taken? There were several things, according to him, that made Champ's situation "concerning," and he wanted to know why my pediatrician and the pediatricians downstairs in Labor and Delivery had handled things the way they had. Also, he didn't think it was appropriate for us to be released today. It would take at least two more days to know for sure that Champ was out of the woods.
Now, downstairs in Labor and Delivery, I'd been hearing the word "reassuring" a lot. The fever hadn't come back. Reassuring. Champ seemed to be doing great. Reassuring. She was eating well. Reassuring. She'd stopped losing weight. Reassuring.
Upstairs in Pediatrics, suddenly everything was "concerning."
And I have to pause for a moment and point out that I was operating on nearly five days of almost no sleep. Champ was eating every three hours, day and night, and I was pumping for 15 minutes after every nursing session. In the rare moments when I could actually close my eyes, a nurse would come in to check my blood pressure or take Champ's temperature. Sleep was more than elusive. It was impossible. I was, at that point, hanging on by a thread.
And the thread I was hanging onto was called GOING HOME.
GOING HOME meant that Champ and I could leave the fear of the hospital behind us. It meant she was okay. We could finally be in our own space. We could finally just be a family. I have never in my enture life wanted to be anywhere more than I wanted to be in my own home with my daughter, safe and sound and healthy.
In short, GOING HOME was the only thing keeping me going.
So it wasn't just that this doctor was scaring the shit out of me and making me think that maybe Champ wasn't okay after all. That maybe she DID have meningitis, that bacteria was thriving somewhere in her tiny little body, and despite all evidence to the contrary, she was a very sick little girl.
That was bad enough.
But on top of that, he was taking away GOING HOME. And he was doing it, in front of twenty strangers, to a sleep deprived, hormonal new mother in crumpled pajamas.
I am very pround to say I did not lose it.
I almost lost it. But not quite. Through held-back tears, I told the attending-- in front of the assembled masses-- that I thought this was something that would have been better discussed with me privately in my room. That he was asking me questions I didn't have answers to, seeing as how I'm not a doctor. And that he was talking about my five day old daughter, who I was planning to take home in a few hours, so talking about things like lumbar punctures and more days in the hospital was extremely upsetting.
At which point he explained to me that this was a teaching hospital, so they do rounds this way to whatever Idon'tcare blahblahblah.
I went back in the room.
And then lost it.
The social worker came in to talk me down. My father was IRATE. I've never seen him so angry. My step-mom cried. I've literally NEVER seen her cry, ever in my whole life. She's been married to my dad for thirty-five years. My dad called CarolAnn, my post-partum doula, who dropped everything and rushed to the hospital to hold my hand through the next several hours.
Finally, after many phone calls between the attending, my pediatrician, and the infectious diseases specialist (because apparently we needed an infectious diseases specialist-- who knew?), we reached a compromise.
I would allow the lumbar puncture, but we would NOT be staying in the hospital for two more days. We would leave as soon as the procedure was completed.
So they did the lumbar puncture.
And, of course, they screwed it up. Champ came through fine, but the results that were supposed to come in two hours, which would pretty much assure everyone that Champ did not, in fact, have meningitis were impossible because the sample of spinal fluid was tainted with blood. We would have to wait the full two days for results.
We left anyway.
And two days later, no one called with results. (No one has ever called me with results, btw.)
But I didn't care.
The second I walked into my house with Champ, our entire hospital experience washed away.
We were home.
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