Perhaps I'm starting this blog a bit late, as our little bundle of joy has already arrived. Evan Michael Allen joined us at 3:44am on Friday August 5, 2011. He was slightly pre-term, arriving at 36.5 weeks in my pregnancy. However, his birthweight of 7 lbs 8 oz was not a typical preemie weight! The doc says I was cooking a 9 lb'er for sure if I had gone full term! He was 19 inches long and his head measured 13.5 inches in circumference. I'll post about his birth story later, but for now I wanted to start documenting the many wonderful moments we've had with him over his first week home which began Sunday August 7th.
Evan sleeping very soundly after the car ride home
That first day home
When we arrived home it was 85 deg F inside our home! When we left the house the day we went to the hospital, we had planned on leaving for 8 days to spend in Boulder for me to attend a workshop for work. Thus, we'd left the house without the a/c running since we were going to be gone. We didn't think to have someone turn it on before we came home with Evan, so mission number one once we got home was to keep Evan cool enough in our terribly hot house while the a/c was cranking to try to get it cool. We had read somewhere that babies are best kept at cooler indoor temperatures (I swear I had read as cool as 61-68 F!), so we set the aircon to 72F as a compromise, given we normally like it at a cozy 78F for ourselves. Then we put him down in our den, which is a bit cooler because it's a lower level of the house.
Evan cooling off in the den. We had to strip him down to his onesie, but with the ceiling fan on we thought a light blanket might be a good idea to keep the drafts from chilling him too much.
After settling in at home, I sat down to nurse Evan for the first time completely on my own. He had been doing well at nursing when we left the hospital, so it went fine, but I couldn't help but realize that we were indeed home alone now. No nurse button to push at any time that we needed help or had a question. It was a bit of a scary realization, but the nurses at the hospital did give us a 24-hour phone number for us to call if needed and John was so reassuring that we'd do just fine. He's been such a great support through this whole experience and I know I couldn't have done it without him.
Later in the afternoon, our dear friend Margi brought us a bunch of great food from Whole Foods market. We enjoyed that dinner very much, and the leftovers were great for lunches for the next couple days! She also brought us a few other items we needed for the first night that we hadn't gotten yet. However, in all the rush to get home and get settled in for Evan, I had forgotten I needed some over the counter meds too, so John ended up having to make a late night trip to Walmart for that stuff anyway. And then also to the hospital for a hand pump to help me alleviate some of the engorgement that was going on since my milk had come in. Thus, by the time we ended up getting Evan to bed, it was a late night for all of us. And it was at that point we made our first parental mistake: we had put Evan to bed in what we thought would be a warm sleepsack, but he was pretty fussy those first couple hours of the night. Turns out he was cold! :( With the house well-cooled at this point, it was no wonder! Poor guy...I felt like I was already failing at mommyhood at this point, but we got him snuggled in with more layers and he slept great the rest of the night (except during feeding times of course).
We did have to make a few calls to the nurses station that first night though: first for me to ask about how to alleviate the engorgement pain (thus leading to John's trip to pick up the hand pump) and then later for us to ask about Evan's low temperature. He'd had some low body temps in the hospital and so we'd been watching it at home, and because we hadn't dressed him warm enough for the then well-cooled house didn't make that matter better. Luckily after warmer dress, he warmed back up and was fine for the rest of the feedings and rest of the night. We had our little angel at home, and we had made it through the first day on our own.
No comments:
Post a Comment