First two weeks

Brianna is now 16 days old and I have to admit the last two weeks have been more of a challenge than I could have anticipated.

I was released from the hospital on the 16th of February, and at that time all seemed well. The only issue was that Bri's jaundice level was borderline high, so they wanted us to come back to the hospital the next day to be retested. So back we went the next day, and all was well, she was no longer overly jaundiced. However, the doctor did notice that she had lost 12% of her birth weight, which was way too much for comfort. So he told us to start supplementing with formula until my milk came in. I didn't like the idea of supplementing, but Bri's health comes first so we started finger feeding her formula after each feed, as well as being sure e woke her up every 3 hours to feed. I was just relieved we didn't have to introduce a bottle which I knew would make getting her back to being solely breastfed that much harder.


While we were with the pediatrician, I also asked him about my wrist, where the area around my IV site had become red and painful. It wasn't too big a deal (to me) at that point, but it had been getting worse. He confirmed my fear that it looked like the IV site had become infected and told me to get to a doctor to get some antibiotics. Unfortunately he couldn't prescribe anything for me as I wasn't his patient (gotta love hospital rules). So that afternoon I hit the walk in clinic. Which was closed until 3pm. Nicely they put me at the top of the list for when they opened again seeing as I had a 3 day old baby at home. Unfortunately I had to be home for 4pm as the midwife was coming and I didn't get in to see the doctor. So I ended up going to another walk-in clinic that night and spending 4 hours waiting to see the doctor. But I finally got a 'script and got it filled and went home.

I thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn't to be. The wrist kept getting worse, making breast feeding more and more difficult. And when my milk finally came in Bri stopped latching and I couldn't use one hand to get her back on. So the finger feeding that was supposed to be used as a top up became used for full feeds, which was increasingly frustrating for all of us. Finger feeding is SLOW, to the point it was taking 90 minutes to get her fed, another 30 to get her to sleep and then we'd have to wake her up an hour later to start the whole thing again. It was not a long term solution.


Saturday things came to a head as my whole hand got swollen to the point where I couldn't move my fingers anymore (much less my wrist!). My hand and arm were also bright red from my knuckles to mid forearm. So I ended up spending Saturday night in the emergency room trying to get the situation resolved. My dad, who had come down to meet his grand daughter ended up waiting with me for almost 5 hours. Once I finally saw the doctor, he put me on IV antibiotics as the oral ones obviously weren't cutting it against the infection. He also arranged for in home nursing care to run more IV antibiotics every night for a week.


Losing all use of my right hand during Bri's first & second week of life was a huge challenge. I had to stop breastfeeding as I couldn't do it one handed. So I was pumping all the time to keep up my supply and Chris was finger feeding and eventually bottle feeding. We eventually got her back on one breast (by my good hand) using a nipple shield, basically a bottle nipple on top of the nipple which gives her something easy to latch to. We're still trying to get her off the nipple shield to this day, without much success. But at least she's getting most of her feedings at the breast. For a couple of days she was fighting the breast, screaming and crying or falling asleep immediately upon being put to feed. She just didn't want to work for her meals, she wanted the bottle which is so much easier for her. Thank goodness we seemed to have gotten past that over the last day. *knock on wood*


Equally frustrating for me over this time was my inability to pick her up. When I was seated she could be handed to me to hold one handed, but for over a week I could not pick her up as I only had use of one hand. Only starting today have I had enough mobility in my hand to change her dirty diapers (shucks darn, I know). Luckily the mobility in my hand has returned although I'm still waiting to be able to bend my wrist and for the strength to return to my hand. I cannot begin to express how wonderful Chris has been through all this. He basically had to take on the role of primary care giver to Brianna and he rose to the challenge beautifully. Not only did he care for Brianna, he cared for me. And there were times when that wasn't easy as this has been a very emotional couple of weeks!

Although this has been a time of many challenges, there have been many wonderful moments too. Brianna is such a sweet baby. She is starting to have more time when she's awake and happy, just looking around, taking in the world. When she does breastfeed it's a wonderful time for us, she's just so happy, as am I. She absolutely HATES having baths, and screams bloody murder whenever she's wet. She adores being walked, the up-down motion can almost always calm her. She loves being sung to. And her very favorite place is on mommy's or daddy's chest, having her back patted. She falls asleep there almost every time, then the trick is to get her onto her bed or into her bassinet without waking her up! I am absolutely in love, and despite all the tough times we've faced over the last two weeks I count my blessings everyday for I have a perfect, healthy daughter.


One funny thing I found out after Brianna was born. Chris and I decided we didn't want to know the sex before she was born. But for some reason I was convinced it was a boy. Well it seems I over compensated for that by always referring to the baby as a 'she', especially right after my second ultra sound, which Chris wasn't at. Well it turns out that because I was always referring to the baby as 'she', Chris thought that I had found out at that ultrasound. So he was convinced that I knew the sex but was just playing at not knowing for his sake! So he was sure it was a girl and that I knew it, whereas I was sure she was a boy and just about died of the shock when they told us she was a girl.


And just to demonstrate how bad the hand got, here is a picture taken the day after I went to the emergency room. Note, the redness had decreased immensely by this point after just one bout of IV antibiotics. I've also included a picture taken today of the same hand for comparison purposes.