In the last part, I was finally stitched back together. Vincent managed to hold himself together through the birth, and was dutifully at our side. However, Cesar’s biliruben levels climbed and the doctor decided our son had to go under the lights on Friday night… meanwhile I was about to be discharged Saturday morning!
Will I be as strong as I had hoped to become? Will Cesar be alright? Will they ever let us go home? And will Vincent decide that he’s had enough, and run off to Mexico? In the thrilling conclusion to Cesar is Born, and thus my pregnancy, find out just what will become of our new tiny family!
Above: Cesar sleeping with his monkey, George. Some nurse took him away later, saying he'd develop allergies, but the other nurses didn't seem to mind. And Cesar didn't develop allergies. (May 2011)
Vincent stayed by our side almost the entire time in those first days. He was hardly getting any sleep, since he was having to get up every few hours and check on Cesar. I was usually drugged up, bedridden. But by Friday, Cesar being under the lights, me being very unhappy about the situation, I could tell Vincent was starting to wear.
Eventually I sent him home to get some real rest. While I had the little hospital bed he had to make due with a lousy futon. The mattress was old, lumpy, and worn. However, I’ll let them have their awful mattresses in exchange for the kindness they showed us. I can’t stand to this day that Cesar spent so much time under those lights. However, it could have been much worse. They could have taken him to the nursery.
Instead, they wheeled in a set of lights to my room, and we were allowed to be with him at all times. He cried every time we had to blindfold him and put him back under the lights. He even displayed his fantastic motor skills, as several times he tried to pull off the blindfold… only to have us put it right back on. The only thing he had was his chupi (pacifier), for comfort. In the beginning, he spit it out, until we gently placed his hands over it, guiding him on how to hold it. He learned very quickly, soon holding it in all on his own.
Every three hours we were allowed to take him out for feeding. Then we would turn him over and put him back under. Belly. Then back. Belly. Back. The funny thing is, while the nurses often assured us that, “You shouldn’t put your baby on his stomach at home. Here we are monitoring him though,” they would just as quickly leave the room and not return again until three hours had expired. I found that somewhat ridiculously funny. Monitors… sure.
Anyhow, I sent Vincent home to nap and bring supplies when he returned. He brought me my shampoo, soaps, and razor to shave. That’s right… I can’t stand the feeling of prickly legs even after birth.
Saturday morning I was loaded up with prescriptions. Painkillers and iron pills. I never got the iron pills, because the pharmacy didn’t have them on hand and I just never went back for them.
I am very grateful also to say that, while the situation was rotten, we were made special arrangements. We were taken to a room on the floor where premature babies were kept and given a room they had free. That way I could stay with Cesar while he remained under the lights. The downside was there was only a couch, which I claimed since I wasn’t going home. Vincent went home to sleep Saturday night by himself.
Both of us were dearly praying that by Sunday Cesar would be alright. I prayed to the gods for it, and Vincent (being the funny guy he is) kept saying it would be awesome if we could go home since there was a PayPerView Sunday evening.
Cesar was tested early in the morning. His levels had only dropped by miniscule points, but the doctor explained that biliruben levels were factored in with how long a baby has been alive. In essence, if a baby has a 10.4 after a few hours of birth that’s extremely bad, but if he has 10.4 after a day or two it’s not nearly as bad, which is about what they had gotten Cesar down to. The next step, he explained, was to remove my son from the lights. They would retest in a few hours and as long as the levels were still dropping we would be allowed to go home.
We had a great nurse as well. She was very pro-breastfeeding. The previous nurse had fed Cesar lots of formula, saying, “Look, I’m barely supporting the bottle. He really wants it.” I told our “good” nurse about this, that Cesar had eaten so much he had thrown up. She checked the formula, noted how much he had eaten and also that he had eaten the ounces I had managed to pump in my off time. Noting all this, she stepped in, very authoritative, and said, “I wouldn’t give him any more bottles. He’s overeating now. You’ve got plenty of milk and you don’t need formula.” She had also been essential in trying to help me get Cesar back to latching on. In fact, I remember her standing by me, watching as Cesar rejected me over and over and explaining that it was ok, he was just spoiled by the quickness of the bottle, but that we could get him back to the breast if we tried hard enough.
I remember, at one point thinking, “I can do this. I don’t want to. I hate being here. But I can if I have to.” I prepared myself for the worst. I mean, the worst wasn’t really all that bad, if I thought hard enough about it. Cesar was breastfeeding with just a little resistance. Only a couple days ago I had been weeping, giving up and giving him the formula, resigning myself to his cries and thinking how much we were going to have to spend on formula, how dearly I had wanted to bond and breastfeed only. But now, I had control again. I had a good support system, and I was slowly getting my strength back. Cesar couldn’t be in here forever. And being in the premature floor made me really appreciate everything. Cesar could have been born months early. He could have been born with a really terrible complication. Sooner or later, we would be going home and I could deal with everything knowing that.
After being retested, Cesar was a 9.something. He hadn’t dropped much, but it was enough to get us home!
I was so happy. I couldn’t get my things together fast enough. I remember being so anxious. We grabbed everything we could, bags and bags of things that had been brought to me over the course of our stay. I was thrilled to get out and be on our way!
I remember going home. I remember Vincent rushing back out to buy a few things before his show started. We’d made it home. Finally we had our first night together. Vincent’s vacation time ended that Sunday, and he wanted to go straight back to work to avoid losing any money. This was another reason I had so desperately wanted to be home. I had wanted to feel like a family, in our little home before his vacation ended. We had made it just in time.
A wave of relief spread through me. I felt at ease. I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t nervous, and it was amazing realizing that no one was going to come breezing through our door ordering lab tests or asking questions. I didn’t have anyone looking over my shoulder as I changed his diaper or dressed him. No call buttons, no records to keep of changing times and feeding.
In the end.. I was satisfied with the birth. I had no painkillers and no pesky computer monitors. I had done it successfully on my own, and fast too! Vincent had done what we thought best as well, making the decision to call an ambulance rather than wait around. We had gotten very lucky with some of the staff, and not so lucky with others. But all that’s ok.
I was so very happy, and still am. :)
(to keep up with Cesar, visit his new blog at All Hail Cesar)
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