Molly is doing well, Louise is doing well, and Richard is doing well. We’re all getting sleep, and while the world is still spinning upside down, we are starting to get a handle on things.
I was with a client all day in town, but I was looking forward to heading to the hospital tonight with Louise. We’d both done small little bits of bathing Molly on our own, but this was going to be our first real family bath, just the three of us. It got me through the day.
Around lunch time, my Mum and Dad came to town and helped Louise get the tyres fixed, because she’s not allowed to drive for six weeks. Turns out the tyres had been slashed. Nice one. Just what we need right now. Because they were slashed, they couldn’t be fixed, but had to be replaced. Louise was lucky, but mine was no longer available, so now I have one odd wheel, and three the same. Well, not really, because the dicky wheel is still on my car, and it won’t be for a few days yet until I get some time to change it with the new odd one. Louise also got her car cleaned inside and out, ready for the big trip home from the hospital.
Over the last few days, we’ve kept hearing “a week”, so we’re estimating Molly may well be heading home next Monday, fingers crossed. But if it takes longer, then that’s fine, she’s in the best place in the world right now for a baby. And we got an official ETA today on Louise’s DIY instant baby care container. Tuesday. 🙂
I got home from work and we headed off to the hospital at around 7pm, and the hospital already knew we were coming. The plan was a bath and a change, then a feed, just the three of us. Louise had been at the hospital for several hours today, but could only spend a short amount of time with Molly, as she had a check up and other bits and pieces to do, and of course I hadn’t seen her since Monday.
When we got there, we started to get everything ready. We were a little nervous, first time alone and all, but felt confident. I’d seen it done quite a few times (and different every time), but Louise had only seen it once, so I helped her get ready with what I already knew. We started filling up the bath, and turned to see that Molly’s nurse had brought the cot over, which was a little annoying because I was going to do that once everything was ready. No matter. Louise and I had a quick chat about what clothes to put on her, form the ones provided by the hospital, and I turned around to see that the nurse had now moved Molly onto the table and undressed her. Grrr.
Louise prepared a few wipes and again the nurse jumped in a finished filling and checking the bath, then quite condescendingly told Louise how she should be doing it at home, which was completely different to how the other two nurses had described it.
Then things got out of control, the nurse let us remove and clean the nappy, but then jumped in again a washed her hair and head, and then went to place Molly in the bath, before Louise jumped in and said she’s like to do it. At this point I had to stand back, because two women were competing for Molly, and I couldn’t see anything that was happening. The nurse gave Louise some more condescending advice, and then took Molly and bathed her front as yet another demo, but didn’t let Louise do it. She then placed Molly on a towel, Louise started to dry her, and then the nurse jumped in and did the rest. So much for our family night. The most annoying thing, was the whole time the nurse kept telling Louise what she was doing wrong, but she wasn’t actually doing anything wrong!
Louise was supposed to try another breast feed tomorrow, with one of the lactation consultants, but the nurse said she would help her now, and ran off to get some screens. Screens? We’ve never used screens before. Would there be room for me behind the screen as well? Or just room for the nurse and Molly. While she was out of the room, I sneakily ran over and dressed Molly. Naughty me, dressing my own daughter. Hope I don’t get in trouble for having 2 minutes with her today.
At this point Louise had a phone call from a brother and a nephew, who were about to visit, so she walked out to take the call. I turned around and saw that the nurse had positioned three screens around a lounge chair, with only really enough room for the chair. I put Molly back in her cot and went to tell Louise that she was going to have to go through with it. I ended up changing places with Louise outside, with her coming in to do the feed, and me waiting outside for her family to arrive.
After about 15 minutes, Louise came out again and said the feed wasn’t overly sucessful, and that the nurse had corrected her on everything she did. However Louise had then explained that we actually did have a plan for the night, and said that she would wait for the family with me feeding Molly. I tried to say no, because only three at a time are allowed in, and when the family arrives it would make much more sense that they go in to Louise than me. But no, Louise was insistent.
So I went back in and found that not only had the nurse put Molly back in her cot after the attempted breast feed, but she’d completely wrapped her up and tucked her in. She’s also put in her feeding tube, and she said “oh, and I took her temperature and she’s normal”. We didn’t even get to take her temperature ourselves, which we always do. Then she asked if I wanted to hold her for the feed. Well, what on earth does she expect? She’s completely tucked in, and she was falling asleep, so as if I’m going to take her out again and wake her up.
The nurse started to get the feed ready, but at this point I’d had enough and said “I’ll do that”, and so I think she started to figure out we weren’t particularly impressed. So I ended up spending 10 minutes injecting her food into her mouth while she was asleep in her cot, which involves mainly looking at the syringe the whole time, not Molly, in order to get the injection rate right. She then fell asleep, and Louise and I talked over her for about 15 minutes about rebellion and escape from captivity, our metaphoric fingers in the air against “da man”, before we had to head home again.
The only nice part of the night was when Louise’s brother and nephew came in, one at a time of course, because only three are allowed at a time, but I love it when Molly can melt anyone’s heart, even from several metres away.
We’ve had a mostly wonderful experience at RPA. It’s an awesome hospital, with great staff, and leading edge ideas about parent and baby bonding, with a focus on the parents driving as much as possible while baby is in hospital. Obviously not everyone’s perfect, but I will personally single out the exceptional work of Bridget (who was fantastic in HDU), Helen, Jenny, Dianne and Hayley.
I won’t say tonight was a disaster, because we did have time as a family unit, even though it was ever so short, and we didn’t really do much. But it was a bit of a shame, after such a build up we’d both had, and it did cause me to lose even more sleep by staying up until 2am to finish this blog post. Lots more happened today, but I’ll blog that another time.
The three of us did however come up with a cunning escape plan. Louise is going to distract the nurses by having Molly switch to fully breast or bottle feeds, and then Molly will have to be discharged from Special Care, and we’ll make our escape. Me? I’m the getaway driver of course. I just need to get that fourth wheel back on, and the capsule fitted… but that’s for another day.