Annalise - The Hospital

Continuing from Annalise's birth story (start here). 

Our time in the hospital was pretty quick, thankfully. I had Annalise at 4:54 pm Wednesday night, we were in the mother/baby room around 8pm, and discharged by 11 am Friday morning. 

Having a baby in NYC was definitely different than Alabama for many, many reasons. One thing was that the baby couldn't wear clothes/hats from home except for in our room. When the baby went back to the nursery, she always wore these paper shirts and the hospital hat that NYU provided. I asked why and the nurse said they had to prevent from people bringing clothes with BED BUGS on them! I never would have thought of that.

They also had these dry wipes that you had to run water over in the sink for them to become usable. It was really weird but they worked! The nurses gave me a hard time about changing diapers- they wanted to be the ones to do it. I changed a few diapers myself and they always chastised me for it. They wanted me to send Annalise back to the nursery if she had a dirty diaper for them to change it. One nurse even lectured me about "doing too much" because I had changed a diaper!!

Thursday morning our friends Cathy and Lori watched Edith at home so my mom could come and hold the baby in the hospital for a few minutes. Honestly I was such a zombie from DAYS of no sleep that she only stayed about 30 minutes because I needed rest. She and Will were going to come back later in the day with the "big kids" to meet the baby.

We asked our local friends not to visit us this time, and I'm really glad because I was so tired and in a shared room it's just a little awkward to be making noise. You feel guilty for keeping someone else from resting.

The kids came to see Annalise during the "kid visiting hours" right after Israel got home from school. I heard Israel screaming from the hallway! He was definitely overstimulated by some alarms going off / the elevator/ leaving the car. This made their visit last about 5 minutes or less.

As of almost four weeks later, this is still the only family of five picture we have and it is awful. We need to change that. Israel was listening to music on the phone and in a very bad mood, the lighting is awful and it is from an iphone.

Edith's reaction to Annalise was perfect. She apparently told everyone on the walk in she was going to meet HER Baby Annie. She came in and immediately wanted to hold and kiss Annalise. It was such a sweet moment for me as a mama! I hope that they always adore each other.

Classic hospital baby photos:

Will FaceTiming his parents:

This is what a shared room looks like. I'm thankful we had the window for the ledge to hold stuff. It was pretty tight in there with the baby bed rolled in. There was a shared "hall" in the room and the shared bathroom (which was never an issue).

Having a shared room was probably one of the struggles of my hospital experience, but I couldn't justify spending $375/night on a private room. When you have a baby, there's always people coming in to check your temperature, blood pressure, bleeding, check if you need anything, check on baby, bring baby back and forth to nursery, a doctor following up... multiply that times two and there's ALWAYS someone in the room turning the light on (the curtain didn't help much with the light). There was no way to rest in the hospital.

I had two different roommates and one snored really loudly and the other one was having a lot of medical issues and needed lots of attention. Both women were Muslim and had some cultural issues to deal with (food choices, making sure my husband wasn't in room when they needed to go to the restroom). It was a very interesting experience! I'm thankful it wasn't like Rachel from "Friends" or Pam from "the Office" - I didn't have any bonding moments with my roommate but also didn't breastfeed someone else's baby either, ha!

Other thoughts on our hospital: The food wasn't bad. Maybe I was just starving, but I ate everything every time and didn't demand food from home. I wasn't allowed to blow dry my hair and got in trouble for attempting it. We had to watch the "Don't shake a baby" video before we could leave. I'm glad I brought a reusable water bottle because they gave me tiny plastic cups to drink from. 

Her hands were so dry/flaky for the first few days. She was 7 pounds 1 ounce at birth and lost down to 6 pounds 10 ounces when we were discharged.

Our little bundle all ready to go home! It was a snowy day in Brooklyn but Will did a great job driving in it.

When we were going home with baby Edith from the hospital, the nurse made sure to observe us as we installed her seat into the car. This time the lady wheeled me into the waiting room and left while Will was bringing the car around! It's funny how different hospitals/ staff are so varied.

As soon as we walked in the door Edith held out her hands to have a turn holding baby Annie. She was so excited about her little sister! My mom had a hot meal ready for us and I was SO glad to be home, in my own quiet bed!


PS - Annalise Birth, Edith Birth, Edith Hospital